fannish etiquette question

[ratcreature]

With the proliferation of Tumblr, what do you do if another fan just reblogs your pictures? I understand that one of the reasons people like Tumblr is because it is so easy to just post a bunch of pictures and video and such, but I do have a notice that I don't want my art distributed without permission, because I'd rather like traffic to come to

Comments

[wabbitseason]

Many tumblrs can and do include the source/artist link. Is that a compromise?

[ratcreature]

The post I noticed did that, but that doesn't help much. I mean, my picture is now archived elsewhere, where I have no control over it. I couldn't even pull my art if I wanted to, because it is now on this person's Tumblr. I've never seen something like this done to fanfic without protests, unless it was posted with a header allowing universal archiving.

ETA: Also, on my dA I've allowed that embedding function which allows people to embed a preview of my art with that dA embed thingy, so they can show my art in their place while leaving control over the image and option to delete with me.

[aural_stimulatn]

Most people that have a tumlbr will gladly remove it if you ask--most of us have that stipulation listed on our homepages. As far as if it's already been reblogged, unfortunately, thats just one of the breaks of posting stuff on the internet.

I can tell you, though, that lots of tumblr followers do click through to the source site if they like what they see. I did a web comic w/ a friend and we hosted it on her site and drew in 150 unique IP hits in five days--a lot of that was due to tumblr reblogs. that was the main reason I eventually started a tumblr of my own!

[ratcreature]

I probably won't complain. It's just awkward, and they credited, and in practice I have not set up my website in a way so that I could effectively remove my art from the net again anyway, because I allow robot indexing and archiving, so for example my art is also on the WayBackMachine and so on. So I'm okay with a certain loss of control for exposure.

However, on the bottom of every single page on my website there is already is a big box at the bottom saying that I do not allow distribution without permission of my art. This Tumblr linked to a page with this notice and just ignored it. Fans would not do this to fanfic, and other fans would not consider it okay. I have *seen* the outrage when some hapless newbie fan puts up all their favorite stories onto their own website (all properly credited so no plagiarism). I'd really prefer fandom to be as considerate of artists as of authors and think this Tumblr thing and art reposting through.

[vito_excalibur]

I get the feeling that's just the way things are going. :/

What's your Tumblr? (I promise not to reblog you?)

[ratcreature]

I don't use Tumblr. I have an account I got in 2007 that I posted one rat picture to, and then I was confused about the purpose and nobody I knew was using it, so I gave it up. My stuff got tumblred(?) from my website.

I have a fanart wordpress blog, and they also have a reblog feature (recently introduced), but my posts there only have thumbnail previews and links, so if someone reblogged those in the WP way that would still get me hits on my own website. I also have a dA with preview embedding enabled, so people who want to can put a dA preview in any of their posts without them uploading my pictures anywhere. All my accounts (including the defunct Tumblr) are under "ratcreature".