If there's one thing the default 'Newest' front page of deviantART brings to attention the most, it's the prevalence of art theft on our site.

What I am going to try to address here, however, is the rampant and careless submission of deviations that very clearly violate the Submission Policy.

This is a site for art - it is right in the name. This is not Imageshack, Myspace, or Photobucket. Over the past week or so, I have been viewing the page of newest deviations, and while I have found a few exceptional, original pieces of art that led me to watch their respective artists, the thing I came across much more often was blatant violation of the rules for submission at this site. I have come across several galleries where the entire gallery, or the majority of it, is composed of violations.

Let's be clear here: Opening up MS Paint and plastering some text over someone else's photo, a screenshot from your favorite television show or movie, or anything else created by someone else is effectually art theft. It doesn't matter if you say "I didn't draw this" or "I didn't take this photo" in the description - your uploading it is a violation of the agreement you enter every time you hit the submit button.

From deviantART's Terms of Service:

"You agree not to use the Service: ...

to upload, post, or otherwise transmit any material that infringes any copyright, trade mark, patent or other intellectual property right or any moral right or artist's right of any third party including, but not limited to, deviantART..."

and from the Submission Policy:

"Artist represents and warrants that:...
Artist has obtained all necessary third-party consents, rights, licenses and permissions..."

Another widespread violation with a somewhat more ambiguous definition is pornographic material.

Webster's dictionary defines pornography as this:

" material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement"

I'm sure most of us here on dA have seen something that crosses the line from tasteful to lewd, obscene material. The most common culprits seem to be 'erotic fan-fiction' and photographs, drawings and other images depicting sexual acts. The official definition of what is considered pornographic on dA is covered in an entry of Frequently Asked Questions, here: [link]

Under this, 'erotic fan-fictions', though in bad taste and rarely having artistic or literary merit, are only prohibited if they contain descriptions of the topics listed in the above entry. If you truly to desire to create pornographic material, then deviantART is very clearly not the place to submit it.

One thing I have also seen, is a huge negative reaction to having deviations deleted. As laid out here, by submitting to deviantART and thus, requesting the use of its service as a site, you agree to not submit violations of policy. You have no right to be indignant about a deviation that was doing nothing but taking credit from another artist and taking up bandwidth. Antagonism toward the staff and fellow patrons of dA is counterproductive

I would encourage my fellow deviants to use discretion with what they submit (as per these policies and in consideration of what constitutes art) and to take the time to consider whether the category they submit their deviations to are appropriate. I believe this will lead to a much better community experience and an increased ease of navigation.

This article is intended to serve as an educational and helpful material to those without a clear grasp of the policy here at dA and I hope nobody takes offense to it.

Thank you very much for reading,

*failing-at-flight

Relevant Links:
[link] <- deviantART's Terms of Service
[link] <- deviantART's Submission Policy
[link] <- deviantART's Etiquette Policy