I saw an interesting conversation between hushicho and   grim-away about DeviantArt and I thought it'd be great to open up the conversation to everyone. A few interesting quotes.

[quote] I got a warning for posting a picture of two dudes kissing on DA so I'm a little afraid to post most things with so much as bedroom eyes being shot back and forth between two male characters- grim-away [/quote]

[quote]And DA often really makes me angry. The amount of trolls that live there with the amount of stolen artwork versus those of us who actually draw but can't post two men kissing is beyond disgusting. Not to mention when I went to a local convention I learned that DA owns the right to all of your artwork. So if a vendor wants to get your artwork on pillows, t-shirts, posters, wall scrolls from china, etc. All these vendors/companies have to do is ask permission and purchase the rights from DA. Not the artist. The artist makes no profit off of this (I've asked the artists I've seen the artwork printed from). So I stopped posting artwork there... it's a good thing I've found communities like this one.- grim-away [/quote]

[quote]I pretty much gave up on them when I drew a dynamic pose with a clearly flaccid dude, and of course as he was moving, so were parts of him. Some idiot admin at DA accused him of being 'erect'...which of course necessitated, to them, removing the picture.

I told them where to get off and took several years away from the site, and as I said now I only put things up there I don't really care about. DA is a stupid, poorly-run joke of a site. PaperDemon is a good place for artists and creators.- hushicho [/quote]

[quote]DA is a joke. The whole site is a joke and this "community" they speak of is laughable if not rage inducing. I spent too many years on a site that went to hell. I wish this site had more publicity. I wish more would join. It's a far greater site with better moderators then DA. As in, they're not all homophobic pricks with pockets filled with your money.

I don't need a pimp. I need a website that'll respect me as an artist, as a member of their community and will let me earn money rather then pull it out of my pocket.- grim-away [/quote]

Quotes came from here.

I've been hearing about DeviantArt's stance on nude men vs women a long time. I keep hearing the same thing from multiple people. You'd think they'd get around to addressing that problem already. It's really sad that they have that double standard.

I'm also really surprised that DeviantArt would have the right to re-sell permissions for your art. That sounds crazy. 

What do y'all think?

DA is one of those places that's just too big for its britches, so to speak, but they've always gone forward with that exact attitude. It's also a tremendously biased site; try to get something endorsing hate speech or bigotry taken down? Forget it. Want to get rid of a male nude piece? It'll be down within five minutes, almost certainly guaranteed.

As I said in the quote, the thing that had me really just snap and leave the site for years was the abject idiocy shown with a picture that had a man falling back, with his coat and various other things indicating action, indicating a shift in gravity that would have looked bizarre without his penis moving as well. So I drew it realistically and, of course, it got targeted for showing an 'erection', which was laughable.

DA have a 'fetish' category -- why?

But yes, they're notoriously awful towards anything male and sensual, erotic, or even just nude. They have a massive homophobic presence on staff, and they're a joke in trying to get anything done. They have no real sense of community, and pretty much every aspect of the site is leaned towards monetising it and exploiting the members of the site. It's really sickening.

The only remotely good aspect of it anymore is that it's become so bloated and overblown that they really can't hope to take down all of the male nudes and even some rather explicit stuff...so there you have it, the best part of DA these days is that they simply can't be bothered to do much of anything. Which really, when you think about it, is probably the worst 'good' thing any site could have.

DA is the leader right now and because of that they can get away with more. Some day another site will come along that people will find to be more accepting, have better customer service, and that people feel they can trust. I hope it's PaperDemon but we still have a long way to go before we could realistically compete with them.

I'm honestly not sure I'd call them a 'leader' in much of anything except a race to the bottom. Pretty much no-one I've ever met of any remotely professional approach cares for DA, at best -- most people, even those who only dally in art, hate DA with a passion. They don't have a good reputation for quality or professionalism, and I think the only thing they stand out in most people's minds with is shameless profiteering with very low quality. Also censorship, of course, but not of any things that they purport to stand against, like hate speech, et cetera -- no, the only things they really stand up to take from their site are nudity and sexuality, unless of course the subject is hot lesbians that they can objectify.

DeviantArt is absolutely vile. I do think that, unquestionably, eventually another art community will blow them out of the water, but I think really the best thing to do is just to support separate communities rather than one mass group of people that aren't really a community. DA is basically just a bunch of people smashed together who don't really take their art seriously, or anyone else's for that matter; it's in the smaller and closer sites, where you actually find community, where art actually thrives and people actually create.

I do think people on the whole are moving beyond the whole 'oh my god can't look at sex/nudity' and I can only hope so. Nudity doesn't equal sex (but apparently a lot of websites imagine it does) and in any case, it's not an unnatural thing. But as I've said many times before, most people will never see brutal, graphic violence in their lives, but most people will see sex, even participate in it. Why, then, is sexuality and even nudity such a supposedly controversial thing, whereas violence tends to get a free pass? Ridiculous.

Your point about violence is a good one. I think it's a cultural thing when it comes to depictions of sex. And I think it has to do with the open internet being so easily accessible by children who shouldn't be exposed to sexual content. But it doesn't make any sense that they'd allow nude females but not nude males, unless the site is run by sexist males, which sounds like it might be.

It doesn't match the name "DeviantArt" either. Deviancy I would expect to be welcoming of many forms of art, but the fact is they aren't open. Censorship sucks, but the reality is these sites can do whatever they want and make up any rules they want, even if they're dumb ones.

I still think they are a leader. Many artists I see at artist alley's at anime conventions still tout their deviant art site links on their business cards. The professionals are more likely to link to their own site but many still maintain a DA account. Probably because it's good exposure for them.

It is at most good exposure for some. If you want that kind of exposure. DA is not the same place as it used to be. Sure in some aspects it's virtually the same but until they start hiring people who aren't homophobic I won't do business with them anymore. They have gone in a downward spiral and they still are. I just bought a book from European artists... they don't even have DA links on there anymore. Everything is Tumblr. Even a book a friend bought from Asia with a bunch of asian artists all use Tumblr as a means of posting artwork. I don't even use DA anymore. Once I got suspended I just stopped posting.

I run 9 clubs on DA. One is the redheadedbishoujos. I see naked women posted there everyday. Shirtless or otherwise provocative poses (I'd link to all of them but I don't want to scar anyone). I don't even draw male nudity. I draw romanticised themes of two males doing romanticised things. There really isn't anything sexual about it but the idea of two males engaging in any sort of romantic gesture towards each other gets the ban hammer. I don't even really have to look up these pictures of female nudity either. Just click on the Photography section of DA. Everything there is "tasteful nude". Then again, it also depends on who the admin is for each area. These people let others copy official work, heck, even rip another DA artist's work right from their page and repost it, but they won't let two guys *almost* kissing? I think the same thing happened to an artist I know that's a good pencil artist. Her stuff was all removed. None of it was anything further then the things you would see on a Harlequin novel. I've got at least 12 clubs I've found so far on DA that fights against Homoerogenous artwork/pictures. These people report everything they see if it falls into their cracks of "not safe for DA". So it's not only the admins that don't adminster anything, it's the whole damn community that irks me.

When I was at Ai-Kon, a Winnipeg, Manitoba convention that runs every year in the summer. I had spoken to one of the vendors there about the artwork they had on wallscrolls, pillows, tea costers, etc... because I knew the artist. I had naively thought that somehow my friend was getting a share of the paycut so I asked if they knew her. It'd be pretty awesome to support her work since I can't visit her country to buy any from her. Then again... this is a vendor. This is a store. Stores buy merchandise from a dealer, usually from China. What the guy said to me made me initially slam the doors on DA for good. They said that all they have to do is buy the rights from DA to take YOUR artwork and put it on anything they want and make profit off of YOU. I'm getting better as an artist, I can see that now. What I don't want is some company benefiting off of my hard work where I get no percentage of the pay whatsoever. How does that help me as a business? Since then I've made it a job of mine to talk to the vendors selling sketchy things. Though I think I'm going to start bringing in a camera... this needs to get out there. This needs to be youtubed. Artists need to know their stuff is for sale without profit. DA owns you. It's up to the artist to get the hell out of dodge.

DA is only a leader in traffic. You guys are the leaders in treating your community with respect. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I don't need a fancy print service (I usually take mine to UPS), I don't need t-shirts or mugs of my things (DA takes a large paycut on this as well). What I want in a community is what we have here. It'd be nice to have an influx of submissions, and people who subscribe but it's a nice little place. It's relaxing. There are no real trolls here (if there are, WOW, I'm usually blindsided by the massive amount on DA I've never seen one here). I haven't seen anyone post anything that doesn't belong to them. By that I mean screenshots, photos they never took, artwork that isn't theirs. DA is like a photosite for facebook users or kids who want to use facebook but can't cuz mum and pa blocked access to it. Plus this website has really grown and I like the different areas. This is a place we thought Anipan would be but failed in doing so. You've got a little bit here for everyone. (especially appreciate the comic section) Since I don't want DA to print out any of my work without my knowing (because you give your consent when you agree to the terms of use when you submit I can't say without consent). DA is no longer a community leader. They are a corporate business. They are there to take your money.

On Sep 23, 2013, grim-away said:

 I've got at least 12 clubs I've found so far on DA that fights against Homoerogenous artwork/pictures. These people report everything they see if it falls into their cracks of "not safe for DA". So it's not only the admins that don't adminster anything, it's the whole damn community that irks me.

 

WTF? Don't people have anything better to do with their time?! That's really saddening.

They said that all they have to do is buy the rights from DA to take YOUR artwork and put it on anything they want and make profit off of YOU.

Do we have confirmation that it says that in the terms of service? That sounds pretty outrageous and I would think that if this were true someone would yell out about this and people would leave.

DA is only a leader in traffic. You guys are the leaders in treating your community with respect. I wouldn't trade it for the world

Aw :D Thanks grim-away!

DA is no longer a community leader. They are a corporate business. They are there to take your money.

True dat. I would think though that it would be possible to make a profitable business without alienating your customers. I guess that's not the path DA wants to take.

I'm curious. What is it that you liked or didn't like about anipan? I remember when that first came out I thought it was pretty neat. They have a few good ideas over there.

On Sep 24, 2013, BogusRed said:

On Sep 23, 2013, grim-away said:

 I've got at least 12 clubs I've found so far on DA that fights against Homoerogenous artwork/pictures. These people report everything they see if it falls into their cracks of "not safe for DA". So it's not only the admins that don't adminster anything, it's the whole damn community that irks me.

 

WTF? Don't people have anything better to do with their time?! That's really saddening.

----- Apparently not. There are lots of clubs dedicated to thwarting the rest of the members of DA. Though I did take part in the Art Theft (personally it's happened to me and it really made me angry... mostly because it was a chibi...). But after a while I just didn't want to spend my time yelling at kids on DA for posting stuff they shouldn't. Every now and then I'll find something that I know is official artwork and ask them to take it down but lately I don't care to run around fixing DA's problems. I even stopped being a subscriber. I was for a good 6 years...

 

They said that all they have to do is buy the rights from DA to take YOUR artwork and put it on anything they want and make profit off of YOU.

 

Do we have confirmation that it says that in the terms of service? That sounds pretty outrageous and I would think that if this were true someone would yell out about this and people would leave.

--- It's actually right in the submission policies and their "Fair Use" agreement. When you hit submit you agree to these terms. People don't even care to read through all of the corporate babble because it is what it is, corporate babble. For the kids on the site, they don't understand what this is because they don't use terms like "we're gonna take your work and sell it to someone else because it's our policy" what they do is they write it all out like a contract. What people need is someone with knowledge about corporate BS to read through that policy so that things make sense. To break it all down, I've retrieved this from DA

Fair Use and Your Submission

"Fair Use" is the notion that some public and private uses of copyrighted works should not require the permission of a copyright owner. These circumstances are very limited, complex to analyze under the law and require the help of expert advice from a lawyer. We recommend you talk to your own lawyer if you want to know more about fair use as it applies to the work you are doing. If it turns out that it isn't fair use, you may be liable for very serious money damages. (and you know why... it's because DA wants the rights to print your work and sell it to third parties, they can't do that if you don't own 100% of the piece you share within their corporate business, they will get sued and in turn will sue you because you agreed to their submission policy, that's my speculation on their policy and could be my opinion entirely, but it is an assumption I've made while talking to vendors).

This is the link to the Policy that people have to click to agree to when they submit all artwork on DA. It's a whole lot of "We" "we as a part of blahblahblah". It's a legal binding letter of agreement. Kids will not read this. Nor will people who just want to put their artwork somewhere because it doesn't make any sense to them.

Policy Agreement

Not that any of this stops people from posting screenshots, official artwork, game sprites ripped from games, etc...

 

DA is only a leader in traffic. You guys are the leaders in treating your community with respect. I wouldn't trade it for the world

 

Aw Thanks grim-away!

You're very welcome :)

 

DA is no longer a community leader. They are a corporate business. They are there to take your money.

 

True dat. I would think though that it would be possible to make a profitable business without alienating your customers. I guess that's not the path DA wants to take.

---I'm feeling as though it isn't. I've just steered clear of that website since all it is is a business to me. I can't stress enough that I don't want to deal with a corporate businesses (at least not right now). I'd rather be in a close knit community with fellows who respect each other.

 

I'm curious. What is it that you liked or didn't like about anipan? I remember when that first came out I thought it was pretty neat. They have a few good ideas over there.

LOL well... It's been a year and I feel as though the place is just a big dumping ground for artwork. Nothing is upgraded and in order to fix an image I've shared I have to delete that image and resubmit. I'm not the only one with this problem. There's also an issue right now with trying to submit any artwork. The page will just stop loading and I've got to refresh (this problem has been submitted to the beta testing comment section which is like a weird chat based check off list atm), click on my gallery and then click on the little pencil to fix the name and enter in information. The site is a little wonky if not glitchy at times, but I don't feel as though it's a community. The only option on the site so far is to submit. There are no forums. Just beta testing comment section. There's no real way to get in touch with other members. It would be great if I could do more with my anipan experience. It's no Manga Bullet (a site I miss and wish was still up while Anipan is still in beta). There hasn't been an update with the site in a year and to those who put money into the site 2-3 years ago any kind of notice to it's beta members would be great notice. At least let us know it's still alive and well, ya know? Apparently there was going to be some updates September 2013. I'm still waiting on what these updates are. I know it's a lot of hard work and I know that they have full time jobs elsewhere, as well as real lives, so there's not a lot of time to put into this website but a little notice (there is no news section there) would be nice. Otherwise it's a nice little hole in the wall for back ups when I'm sharing my artwork and my computer fries on me.

dA is really just horror stories now. I was on dA a long time ago when it was small, and the admins and mods were nice, and people were people. Now it's just a monster.

Stuff like this makes me sad and also motivates me to take action to make PD better. But I'm over committed at the moment. I'm so busy working on Dragon Mall Quest. But by the end of this year I should have more time to work on PD.