FAQ | Commissions | Characters
(for some reason DA won't let me use an apostrophe in the title. >_> uh.)
This is species related (open and closed ones)
This didn’t happen to me, but I saw someone post a journal pretty much encouraging people to not follow the rules for adoptables/species.
To clarify, they made a journal actually giving advice that is pretty sound, but linked to one of their old journals that I’m sure they still agree with. Either way, it's still up so I wanna talk about it.
The good advice is to have a way to have people sign a form once they buy an adopt from you so you can protect yourself better, to where the buyers then HAVE to agree to the ToS for the adopts since they actually signed a thing. Here is the thing where you can actually have people click a button to agree to the terms: blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2009/1…
I don’t know if I’ll actually use that, but we shall see.
Now here’s where they are sounding like an asshole:
If you DON’T have that button, it’s technically legal to not listen to any rules an adopt/species maker makes. That means that if someone buys your adopt or species that has rules, they could just ignore it all and do as they please, including just buying the species for a set price, then turn around and sell it for a LOT more.
This person apparently thinks this is completely fine since it’s legal, and have said they even did this (bought something for $25 then sold it for $125 later on even if the adopt maker said to not do this).
At some point in the journal they said, “respect your buyers”, but apparently you shouldn’t respect the artist.
Advice: if someone’s rules are dumb and you don’t agree with them, go to someone else instead. Don’t buy from them.
I personally disagree with adopt makers who sell adopts but say, “you can’t resell the character AT ALL,” so I’d simply not buy from them.
With my own rules, I just say to not sell them more for what you paid unless you also bought commissions. Sell them for the amount you bought for + the commissions just so you get your money back. Making money off of something you didn’t make is morally wrong. I do say to not ask for money from art you personally made of the character, because then that would just encourage people to simply buy my species, draw them a lot, then sell them for much higher.
If I find people who do this who believe it’s perfectly fine and will go against my rules, I will block them. And if they freely do this and just design a character from my species just to try to sell them, they’ll be seen as a horrible person by many in the community. Why would you want that?
I DO know there’s some revolt thing going on against closed adopt makers, and it’s honestly very stupid. Sure, disagree with them, but going further than that and making them to sell could end you up on Artist’s Beware and scare a bunch of potential clients away. Do you really want that?
There have been times that I want to do a protest picture against certain things, but I think it over with if it’s even worth it. Many times it’s not. But with my cases it has nothing to do with people’s rules on adopts, unless I show it through how I, personally, do adopts. But nothing against their own business.
Just because it may be legal doesn’t mean you should do it. Just look at the shit that happened with the Fine Bros, EA and Sony trying to Trademark certain words. They got a HUGE backlash for it. I don’t know the details if what they were doing is exactly legal, but I know they all failed in their attempts. With EA it’s still ongoing: www.pcgamer.com/electronic-art…
So… just really think about it if you feel that you should be able to go against an artist’s rules.
I just know I personally won’t want to deal with people who will just go ahead and break rules. All I can really do is block them. Those who accidentally break rules are fine, since it wasn’t on purpose!
For my own species, however, I do try to do the best I can that is fair to me and those who want to make one of my species. Like at some point I really wanna make them fully open so people can freely make them without getting my okay. I just have to finish their basic info on how to make them. When that happens a BUNCH of my rules will become way more lax, ultimately becoming “heavy suggestions.” So if there is anyone who still wants to go against me it will really baffle me since I am way more tolerant and accepting with things compared to a bunch of closed species artists. I honestly do not want people who think, “I should be able to do what I want with the species” if they want to make one of my PERSONAL species. The point of me making my species open for the public is so people can feel a part of my own world as well. :c If people want to change their design or other major things, I don’t want that character to be called a Volatikai. I’d think that would be reasonable of me…
Anyways, I went off on a tangent there.
Please, don’t be an asshole to those who have heavy rules on their species. Or even light rules. Just go elsewhere to someone who has rules and things you agree with. Go ahead and debate your views with others, but doing actual things against the rules is so dickish. ;c
Thank you to all of you who do try to keep true to my own personal rules for my species. It really means a lot to me.
Finally, please do not link to the journals I mentioned or say the username of them.
