DeviantArt.com is without a doubt the biggest online community for artists, photographers, digital artists, writers and mostly anyone in between who has something to upload to their server, from the most useless scraps to stunning pieces of art, which are also offered as prints and miscellaneous products (puzzles coasters, calendars). Artists get to make very little profit; without subscription or premium print account (which costs about 30$ /year) you can generate about 15 cents from a few dollars postcard, for example. In other words, you need to be talented beyond belief, and sell millions of your prints to actually make money off your art, IF you do not have enough for, or for whatever reason unable / unwilling to invest in deviantArt subscription.
“Highly spiritual” art community, is in fact a mere money making machine, just another website that promotes no higher value than its own revenue. I can go off topic and tell you about my personal experience with their customer support. I made a print, especially for a friend of mine, and placed an order, as I wanted to send the artwork directly to the recipient. I had a pre-order question, which was answered impressively quick. After my order proceeded, I had another question, which was of course not a matter of life and death (since the order was dispatched already anyway), but their FAQ did not include this question. To satisfy your curiosity, I wanted to know if the recipient gets the artwork with out without the bill receipt attached, because I assumed it’s pretty nasty to send a gift with a price on it. As you can guess, this inquiry remained unanswered. Good insight into typical sales-oriented service, when once you proceeded to checkout, nothing else matters. Anyway, back to topic, as this was not what irritated me most in DA.
DeviantArt, as been a huge community based in the USA, cares for Copyright. This could be great if your artwork got ripped and you want to submit a complain, but… who and how proves that you are the original author? It started off when a close friend of mine, Johan, noticed that some of his submitted artwork disappeared from the account, due to copyright violation (yes, this was the reason they provided him upon removing the “stolen” content). Some of the removed images contained my own (yes, mine!) photos which of course were used by my full permission, other picture was a photo of himself, photo-edited. This was hilarious, as I know the guy, saw him many times on webcam, I KNOW it was his photo, yet it gets removed due to copyright infringement..?
Second time, a bit later, I heard from my other two friends, Dale and Paul Luuk, who’s images were deleted from DeviantArt database following the same excuse, but in this case they also were full owners of the published material and I am well aware of that.
How do I know about so many cases? Since I am running a Photoshop oriented forum, Lorelei Web, where a big amount of members have their DeviantArt accounts, it’s easy to get exposed to a many relates stories, but these were not rumors told by God-knows-who, but real cases of my real online friends, and I got to witness how DeviantArt “takes care” of the Copyright Law.
The most frustrating part is, there is no one to complain to, as DA staff’s decision is final and is not negotiable. And, the most ironic part is, there are tons of stolen content circulating on the pages of that website, photos that were taken without permission (also, I know, because my tutorials are very popular and some of the images I used state clearly - “for learning purposes only, do not use anywhere else, please“. Yet these images are massively reproduced on DA, and contacting the member, asking to at least provide credits, fails in 80% of the cases. Much as I hate seeing people mercilessly ripping my work and present it as a fruit of their own creativity, I’d never report them, because… I don’t know, I am just not the type of person who clicks on the report button.
As you can guess, I am disappointed badly from Deviantart attitude in many areas…
5 Users Responded in " DeviantART “cares” for artists? "
I agree, DA does have it’s issues, but for being such a large site I vote that it manages itself and its users fairly well.
There will always be that one staff member they could do without who goes around enraging people on the forums, or gets rid of an account that is real, while leaving the thief’s account online.
I’m just glad I have stayed small and under the radar at DA. I do enjoy showing off my work, but I don’t want to become a huge figurehead. I prefer to lurk around and learn from people who are hundreds of times better than me.
Go on report ‘em. Make the web a better place.
That’s a shame. I’ve had an account with DeviantART since 2002, and I’ve never really had any issue with it. I have seen other people get screwed pretty hard though.. *knocks on wood*
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