What does copyright have to do with art theft?

On the 4th of November 2008, a new member registered on DeviantArt, the biggest online international art community, under the screen name Anti-ArtThief. Unlike other Deviants (the DeviantArt term for member), Anti-ArtThief does not submit art or works of fiction on DA. Instead, this Deviant reports to the DA administration, cases of 'art thefts'. This is a sign that many Deviants are fed up with having their works 'stolen'; stolen in this context meaning one takes a piece from another person and /or altering it and claiming it as their own.

Many angry Deviants commenting on the user page of an alleged 'art thief', Kokujinmettki, who 'stole' the artworks of another Deviant, ichigo-oh. Kokujinmettki has been reported; the DA administration have yet to take action.

The reason why this is an issue, is that the number of people who know their rights to their works online according to copyright laws are abysmal (even including the ones aware on DeviantArt). I can relate to this issue, because being a member of DeviantArt for three years (my screen-name is ItoMaki), I have had my art stolen before as well.

People are constantly having their videos removed from Youtube because their videos have been found to infringe copyright. I have had a video removed from Youtube due to a third party copyright claim on the audio of my video (although I wasn't the only creating such videos and I had clearly credited the original owner of the audio).

Screenshot of a notice I got when I tried to view my video that was removed sometime last month after being on Youtube for nearly a year.

Janice Byer (2008) states that a copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators for their literary and artistic works. There are many methods such as applying the copyright sign '©' on their works, along with their name and the year the work was produced. There are other alternatives such as the Creative Commons license for those who may allow some parties to recreate their work for distribution but with credit.

On the Creative Commons official website, it is said that the Creative Commons licenses defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright (all rights reserved) and the public domain (no rights reserved). The Creative Commons licenses enables you to keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work (a “some rights reserved” copyright).

An Internet user, if he or she were to post their works online, should always claim copyright to their works. There is always the risk that an ignorant user will go against your rights as the person who created that piece of work in the first place, be it a poem, a work of fiction or a simple drawing. Especially since the Internet is a huge network capable of reaching millions of people, all sorts of people. Your works are at risk once you post them on the net, and what you can do to make sure nobody claims it as their own or recreates it for commercial use, is to protect your rights by knowing the power of the copyright.


References:

2007, Get Off My Back, Youtube, viewed on 9 November 2008,
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc2rUuhbUME>

Byer, J 2008, Website Content Theft, About.com, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/legalmatters/a/websitetheftjb.htm>

n.d. About, Creative Commons, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://creativecommons.org/about/>

2008, Kokujinmettki user profile, Deviantart, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://kokujinmettki.deviantart.com/>

2008, Anti-ArtThief user profile, Deviantart, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://anti-artthief.deviantart.com/>