TLDR:
It helps you identify market holes to exploit, and gives you ammunition to use a moral high ground to gather public attention to surround a pivot into that area indicated by the market opening.
Also, Creative Commons and Masters Studies are cool.
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Hey, I just wanted to share some thoughts on OPEN CULTURE and also unlicensed use of artwork, and blatant ripoffs.
1 - Masters Studies [use it to study masterful artists.]
The whole idea behind the masters studies is that copying artists who are better than you is a good way of getting better. This isn't what a lot of people are talking about when they are talking about art theft, but it is a form of hierophantically sanctioned art theft based on what is considered historically 'excellent' artwork.
2 - OPEN CULTURE: [Sacrifice your work to the commons, and outsource your marketing and exposure.]
The whole open source system and Intellectual property rights, vs, creative commons / public domain work is a challenge, because by the time people are well known enough to be stolen from, they sort of are stuck inside of a business structure that is already working best for them.
If you go voluntarily into the open culture area, then you're incentivizing people to use your work, and make money off of it -- which in effect makes them part of your marketing team.
Andreas Antonopolis uses this with his workshops:
"You can use these for any purpose, just use a link." CCBY4.0
I'm not certain Andreas uses CCBY4.0 specifically, but it's the basic idea -- Use this for whatever floats your boat -- just remember to link.
Other examples of Open Culture in a broader sense would be ETH and HIVE ecosystems, which are kind of like a beautiful anomaly experiment in this whole approach. And of course, the classics of media which are in public domain.
The closest to home for this would be @NFTShowroom, which allows for Full Commercial Licensing, if you own the NFT of the thing.
Which is probably the least expensive, and most accessible form of licensing for artwork possible, if we're looking at things from a larger perspective.
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Imagine buying a NFT for some landscape of a desert for 50 HIVE and then seeing it on the back of every license plate in Arizona, with no attribution. -- Totally possible under the current full commercial settings for HIVE NFTs. Of course, it's something that we hope the person who uses the full commercial license will include an attribution link -- but they're not obligated to do that.
Something to consider @NFTShowroom -- Including a CCBY4.0 License. All of my work is CCBY4.0, so I would use it.
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Back on the topic of Theft --
Let's assume you're not stealing from a master, someone is stealing from you.
Let's assume you are keeping your rights private, and have not given permission to have them use your work.
Where does that leave us in terms of ART THEFT?
The only thing that comes to mind here is a strict market analysis perspective.
If BIGTIDDY Game company ends up stealing a bunch of XHENTAIARTIST's artwork, and then makes a knock off version of a NSFW / H Game where you get to have little characters that fight each other in sexy outfits, and are rewarded with boobs.
Something like that.
And BIGTIDDY Game Company manages to get a whole community behind that game, and makes trading cards of it, and gets thousands of players, and is selling ad space and then all of the sudden XHENTAIARTIST finds out, and then gets pissed, and takes to social media.
"I didn't give you permission to do this, this person stole my work, shame on them, shame on their company, How dare you, shun shun cancel cancel."
Pretty sure that's how that goes.
And then there is some outrage on the part of the polite society of artists who feel a bit bad that someone stole XHENTAIARTIST's art assets. And maybe some of that good old fashioned consumer strike goes on.
"Well, I USED to like BIGTIDDY Game Company, but NOW that I KNOW they unethically use art assets without permission or attribution, then I won't any more."
And if the outrage is enough, or if XHENTAIARTIST has money -[they don't], then they can either find a lawyer, or give a takedown notice.
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Here's what I think XHENTAIARTIST ought to do.
Negotiate a contract with an ultimatum with BIGTIDDY Game Company -- Compensate me for the assets you've used, or I will shut you down and make my own game. Make a decision within the week, here's my ETH / HIVE address.
Evaluate the potential for making your own game happen using those same art assets, same game, but feature a continuation of your contribution to the project, and Highlight this contribution as a selling point for the game.
If the game is not Cryptocurrency based, just blow them out of the water and use the updated economic system hybridized with NFTs.
Once you've got your plan, and can replicate their project without question -- THEN make your outrage on twitter, but be a bit sassy about it, because you're not just pissed, you're going to do something about it.
You've discovered that BIGTIDDY games saw a market opportunity that you didn't see.
However, YOU XHENTAIARTIST, have the ability to create more of those art assets, and develop a better product.
Ride that hype train on a Kickstarter until morning, and convert all of the existing userbase for BIGTIDDY games, as well as your adoring fans who would NEVER support someone else stealing your work, but would love to support anything you do, and think a game would be fantastic.
Then trounce the fuck out of BIGTIDDY games, and bury them.
People who steal IP have value -- they indicate where the value is not being fully utilized.
It seems highly plausible that artists are busy being artists, and are not aware of all of the economic opportunities that might exist for their intellectual property.
The tendency is to be outraged and suffer moral indignation -- but this is not functional.
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Observations from watching people outrage, and companies steal art, etc.
I think a lot of the problems here can be circumvented with collaboration, as well, but you kind of have to realize that people who are stealing stuff from you, -- especially lower tier developers, and stuff, Companies starting out, they might be morally reprehensible, and whatnot, but also, they're just trying to make it.
There was a Hentai Visual Novel Studio called Marble Syrup:
https://www.patreon.com/marblesyrup
They have been doing work consistently for several years now, serving around 500 patrons, which means that their kickstarters would be significant. [But they are foolish and do not know this.]
Anyways, they got in trouble when they first started out for using art assets that belonged to a variety of artists:
Drama from 2015 here:
http://vnsnow.com/marble-syrup-may-have-admitted-to-art-theft/