Stance on uploading patreon images?

Are we allowed to upload images here which can only be obtained by pledging to someone on Patreon? Don't know what the stance on this would be.

I'm not 100% against it.

Since it has already been funded, and is a good promotion for the artist.

It's up to the uploader to decide in the end. There's no rule against it.

I imagine there will be a lot of contact with albert made and either specific post bans or blanket artist bans if this becomes rampant.

I wouldn't risk it.

I don't see a risk; If an artist asks to have their stuff taken down, we can take it down.

The artist has already gotten the money they were asking for, so I don't see why they would care.

ShadowbladeEdge said:

The artist has already gotten the money they were asking for, so I don't see why they would care.

I can't say I know too much about patreon, but this is not a case of "get money --> draw picture". Patrons don't make a one-time payment for exclusive content. It's about supporting the artist and making their job possible, patrons are not funding the exclusive content. These exclusive bonuses are incentives for patrons to meet certain payment thresholds, and taking away the exclusivity (by posting the images on Danbooru) could negatively affect the artist's income. (why pay more for bonuses you can get for free?)

Their publicly available art is already posted on Danbooru, so the whole promotion argument doesn't stand either.

EDIT: And just skimming through patreon, I see that certain pledges offer you access to PAST rewards, so the whole "this is already funded/the artist already got the money" is not true.

Thing is, that same argument is equally true concerning the uploading of scans of published art collections and doujinshi by Asian artists. Why should we have ethical concerns over one but not the other? Or are we approaching this from a purely pragmatic viewpoint of "how likely are our uploads to come to the artist's notice and annoy them into requesting removal of their art?"

Patreon rewards are generally offered only for donors.

Even when not explicitly stated, its generally frowned upon to share what is supposed to be available for a specific, donor audience. For danbooru to allow it, which in turns offers paid services to some users, would create some bad blood.

I'm against it unless the artist explicitly okays his/her art to be publicly available.

If there is any confusion, I don't see the harm in asking artists what their policies are regarding their art, and I think that is the most respectful operation.

We should treat Patreon work the same as Reiq and other paysites. I know that ZeroNis' Patreon has a 'do not reproduce message' that I will respect.

Saladofstones said:

If there is any confusion, I don't see the harm in asking artists what their policies regarding their art, and I Think that is the most respectful operation.

Since is Patreon is complicated, because if the work is 'exclusive' for the site, the uploader should ask to the artist posting that work.

But in the other case, for respect, as Saladofstones says, upload a leaked image is responsability of the uploader entirely, and that could end in a 'Banned Artist', but if the uploader ask to the artist both works could be keeped, or at least one.

Just so everyone knows - I uploaded Sakimichan's Ahri nude version that was accepted to begin with, and now taken down by request of the artist. I had a hunch it would happen obviously but wouldn't know for sure until it did. So I'd assume most, if not all, Patreon-only images are a no-go for here.

Kaixx said:

Just so everyone knows - I uploaded Sakimichan's Ahri nude version that was accepted to begin with, and now taken down by request of the artist. I had a hunch it would happen obviously but wouldn't know for sure until it did. So I'd assume most, if not all, Patreon-only images are a no-go for here.

Banned Artist itsn't produced by intolerance to certain artist, most of the time is because the artist doesn't want their works here, so don't worry, and do as we advise you.

I had gone ahead and banned it because of the direction this thread seemed to be going, but the image was flagged for deletion first for being a patreon image, which was an incorrect route to go. It can always be unbanned depending on the conclusion reached by this thread.

If an artist requests we don't post their patreon stuff here, it goes the exact same route as Reiq. Until then they're like any other upload. Pretty sure that's how we've always treated material regardless of source.

I'd say that it's like any other copyrighted image: It should be left up until the copyright holder asks for it to be taken down.

Saladofstones said:

Patreon rewards are generally offered only for donors.

But this is also true when it comes to, for instance, game CG, or scans from mangas and doshinji, or screencaps. All of those are things you normally have to pay money for, which we currently allow.

It feels like the core of your objection is either "Patreon artists are more likely to notice and do something about it" or "Patreon artists are more likely to be people active in the same community as us, and therefore people we know a bit rather than faceless content-producers, which makes it feel more personal."

The first objection is maybe worth considering, but I'd say that that should be decided based on whether there seems to be a big pushback -- if a ton of angry people who post images on Patreon complain, it might be worth reconsidering. Ethically, though, I don't see it as particularly different from the significant number of other images from paid sources that Danbooru currently hosts without comment.

I've noticed a similar thing where people who wouldn't bat an eyelash at people posting scans, crops, covers, or screencaps from mainstream comics, big TV shows and the like will react drastically different to images copied off of sites like DeviantArt. It feels different when there's one clearly-identifiable artist rather than a faceless organization or a foreign name you can't remember, I guess?

But it's the same basic thing. I feel that Danbooru should mostly stick to what the law requires and not take down images for reasons like these beyond that - copyright law is already more than restrictive enough as it is.

Xabid said:

I'd say that it's like any other copyrighted image: It should be left up until the copyright holder asks for it to be taken down.

But this is also true when it comes to, for instance, game CG, or scans from mangas and doshinji, or screencaps. All of those are things you normally have to pay money for, which we currently allow.

It feels like the core of your objection is either "Patreon artists are more likely to notice and do something about it" or "Patreon artists are more likely to be people active in the same community as us, and therefore people we know a bit rather than faceless content-producers, which makes it feel more personal."

The first objection is maybe worth considering, but I'd say that that should be decided based on whether there seems to be a big pushback -- if a ton of angry people who post images on Patreon complain, it might be worth reconsidering. Ethically, though, I don't see it as particularly different from the significant number of other images from paid sources that Danbooru currently hosts without comment.

I've noticed a similar thing where people who wouldn't bat an eyelash at people posting scans, crops, covers, or screencaps from mainstream comics, big TV shows and the like will react drastically different to images copied off of sites like DeviantArt. It feels different when there's one clearly-identifiable artist rather than a faceless organization or a foreign name you can't remember, I guess?

But it's the same basic thing. I feel that Danbooru should mostly stick to what the law requires and not take down images for reasons like these beyond that - copyright law is already more than restrictive enough as it is.

Side note: Showing a preference for taking down one type of content over another actually weakens any potential "safe harbor" defenses, as it shows that the service provider is aware of the copyright violations and chose to selectively enforce some over others. c.f. Megaupload (not that the case itself wasn't controversial).

Of course, IANAL, so take the above with a fair-sized pinch of salt.

--

In any case, I'm in favor of treating Patreon-exclusive art like any other paywall-locked content (e.g. doujin scans, game cgs, key visuals from an omake book, etc.) we have up here (or for that matter, any copyrighted copy-restricted content) — we leave it to the discretion of the uploaders and only take them down when the artist requests it.

Apologies for the necrobump, but I just noticed the recently created patreon_reward tag.

It seems to me that keeping this might be potentially harmful: why advertise to people that Danbooru permanently hosts paywalled content?

Of course, the same could be said about things like doujinshi scans and game CGs, and we have no problem tagging those, but I think Patreon artists are much more likely to find leaked Patreon rewards and to take action against such leaks -because they have Patreon supporters that can directly contact them and tell them, and a monthly income that's at stake.

It's more of a gray area than usual to say the least, so we should decide how we tread it.

@albert

Fred1515 said:

Apologies for the necrobump, but I just noticed the recently created patreon_reward tag.

It seems to me that keeping this might be potentially harmful: why advertise to people that Danbooru permanently hosts paywalled content?

This is because some Patreon artists are allowing their Patreon rewards to be posted after certain period of time. For example, Hews_Hack allows to post his contents after 1-2 weeks since the works had been posted.