Hello all!

I have not been about all that much recently – holidays will do that to a person! Now I am back, I am ready to grumble. If you don't want to hear the mad complaints of little old me, go away and read something else.

Many people on this site are very protective of their art works. With good reason. The art on this site is astounding, inspiring, and a joy to view (yes, I am ignoring the massive amount of crap uploaded to the site... but shush. That's another topic). Now, where was I... people being protective. It's a fundamental right of any artist, author and creator to protect their work and their rights over its copyright. This is where a problem starts to rear its ugly head. Can we seriously protect our work if we submit it online?

_{As of May 2009 the site consists of over 10 million members, over 81 million submissions, and receives around 105,000 submissions per day. The domain deviantart.com attracted at least 36 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.}[link]

As this data shows, dA is getting millions of hits. While our individual pieces are not all getting anywhere near that kind of exposure, people can still (and are) seeing our work. I have come across so many copyright violators (AKA art thieves) who spout the defence 'if it's on the internet, it's fair game – free for anyone to use as they please'. Now, we all know this argument is utter crap, because anyone who has ever looked over the rules or copyright law can understand that one cannot take whatever one wants/needs.

That argument is quite easily dealt with, but there is another I regularly hear. 'it's not your work, and the original artist hasn't complained, _{[because they don't know]} so what right do you have to complain'. My usual response is to shut the ____ up, and sort yourself out. That was until the dA admins started saying a similar thing.

Now, you are probably wondering what I am on about! You would be right to wonder. Let me show you, and then I will comment further.
devart said the following:

<sub>Your Art theft (General) Violation Report on general grievous was reviewed by a member of the staff and action was taken, marking the report as Invalid.

Additionally, the following comment was provided:

A member of staff has reviewed this report and has found that while there may be cause for some type of concern no actual administrative action will be taken because this report was made by an interested third party rather than someone directly involved in the issue.

Please click here for more information.

This message was generated automatically.

-- deviantART Staff</sub>

Now, the image in question is this: … have a link to one where the signature has not been photoshopped out : [link]

Now, this has been happening on other images also, but I'm lazy and don't keep track/records. What is going on? What is the report button there for if the admins are going to simply ignore reports where it is clear a copyright violation is taking place?

Is this the future of dA? Thieves, trolls and more thieves? Starting to look like it. If you are going to bother having the reporting system, bloody well use it! React to the reports coming in, don't just discount them because they are from 'an interested third party'! Deal with the thieves, clear up the site before it becomes a problem.

Oh, btw... I heard a great one the other day... 'dA is the new social networking site'... I wish I'd fav'd that comment... worrying eh?