Stealing art on the internet.

I was an avid user of the website Deviantart in my younger years as an artist (12-18 or so -- as if I'm so old now at only 21). There would be times where I'd approach a piece and be immediately taken by it, baffled at how someone could have so much talent. This 'bafflement' persisted only until I scrolled down to view the comments, being met by roars and cries by way of caps lock.

'YOU DIDN'T MAKE THIS!!!!!!'
'Give credit to the rightful artist, you THIEF.'
'I'M REPORTING YOU TO DEVIANTART'

... and other colorful, highly dramatic responses.

I have long abandoned my faithful friend that was Deviantart, for I no longer drown myself in illustrations inspired by Japanese animation. I blame school for this. The website has spiraled downward into an archive heavily dependent on expansion/inflation fetishes, amateur photography on the edge of pornography, and other very unique and specific pieces that really do only belong on that website.

Til this day I garnish my pieces with a copyright of my name and the lowercase C seated comfortably within it's circle home. Go ahead, post my artwork somewhere, but know who it was made by. ME, ME, ME! But wait ... this just reminds me of 'Death of the Author' by Barthes. And authorship in general. Now this is where school kicks in and decides to leak into my brain.

There have been various works of art in the past that could be easily claimed as 'stolen'. Photographers take photographs of photographs and claim them to be original work -- or at least if not original, it is their work. There have been photographers who take photographs of pieces other than photography and have the same claims. I can't say that I wouldn't be somewhat offended if someone did this to me -- but then, I think more deeply about it.

If someone reclaims my artwork as theirs and posts it on their website, boasting about how long they took to create it, wouldn't it be something to be flattered about? Am I really that good that someone was compelled to go through the trouble of saving and re-posting my piece, going so far as claiming it as their own?

And when I do find out who did it in the end, and I do respond, I will be met with an absolutely new audience -- one that I didn't conjure up myself, but was conjured up by someone else. It is almost as if these people who are 'stealing' my work are actually working with me, not against me. They are helping me grow and spreading my name.

Though, no one has stolen my work (that I know of). And if they did, my immediate reaction would definitely not be a positive one.

At least now if something like this happened, I'd have a written document to refer to in order to help me think about the situation.