Message from @Rain
Discord ID: 408290649553764353
Just finished it.
Alright so yeah, like I mentioned earlier; I'm no journalist (or lawyer), but it would be awesome if someone with better credientals looked into this. Could be a huge thing. And also, possible that every non-artist don't give a shit but yeah.
https://www.minds.com/blog/view/801063297186443264
Basically to summarize it:
There are multiple "Artwork designers" on the Steam platform that takes artworks out of Google, Deviantart and uses non-commercial templates and/or stock footage in their artworks which they sell for CS:GO keys, or money. One of them is this guy who I reference in the article, he's I think one of Steams largest "artwork designers" currently, but he takes his artworks from Google and Deviantart and sells them for 5-25 CS:GO keys.
Now I'm an artist, and I've had to file DMCA claims when people have stolen my identity on Steam and that has been taken care of quickly. But there are probably hundreds of artists like this on Steam: and the friends politics are strong there, protecting those "artwork designers" who are friends etc.
Most designers, after they found out I wrote the article now claims they only charge for "animating" the picture. But they still give no cut to the main artist.
Here are some further proof of them verifying they take from Google, and people covering it up for them when reporting them to groups:
https://i.imgur.com/eKnnTgX.png
https://i.imgur.com/xUR8Oxw.png
Admins feel free to remove if something.
people stealing artwork isn't new
nothing you can really do about it but reverse image search gets better and better every day
Well, of course not. But I've sent in proof to Valve about their existence, that they even admit to taking artworks from Google and nothing has been done.
valve has banned a few artists so they are certainly aware
the most notable example is the M4A4 howl in CS:GO
Only if it's CS:GO related, not profile related, unfortunately.
i've reported people for impersonation and successfuly got them a steam community ban
but when it comes to putting someone else's modified art on your profile that's completely fair use
The artists in question which I'm referring to has not been banned. One got banned for a while, but cmanaged to slither out of it.
Oh lemme find one.
I don't know if this is fair use or not.
It certainly don't seem like it.
that is 100% fair use
I'm not entirely sure about that. The artists which have done a DMCA on the artists works when they've found their own there has been able to get it done successfully.
Taking someones artwork, cropping it and pasting it on a Steam background doesn't seem like fair use to me. 🤷
that's not a simple crop
they replaced the background, added text, and animated it
just changing the background would pass as fair use in court
But they didn't create the main image though. The background is a background from the Steam community marketplace.
as far as valve and DMCA, they can do whatever they want
And they mainly sell the main image as their own.
it doesn't matter if they made the background themself
🤷
That's why I'd love if someone with more credientals would look into it.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a journalist. But I see an issue there and it's definitely going to blow up if no-one sheds light on to it.
(And as far as I know, it wasn't free use when I looked it up so idk. But we'll see)
TBH the issue is the license the original author put it under
i don't know if deviantart lets you put a license on images you upload
It does.
It also lets you watermark them. Which many of the artists have done.
But it's not only related to deviantart.
There are multiple stock photos being used, and this is what Shutterstock support says for instance: https://www.shutterstock.com/support/pkb_sstk_core_customerkb_home?c=CustomerKB%3AVideo&l=en_US
"How can I use editorial content?
Editorial content can not be used for any commercial purpose."
there is no license provided