I’ve seen a lot of people being pissed over fan art being “stolen”. When I first started using tumblr and saw these complaints pop up, I sympathized mostly, because hey, I’ve had that happen to a couple of fanvids of mine and I know a lot of people have had their fics posted by other people without permission. It’s not cool to pretend someone else’s art is your own.

However, I further discovered that many of these complainers define stealing as “posting on a blog without credit.” Now, this is still within the realm of reason. If I post your art on my blog and you want credit, it’s my duty to give a source or link to the original. All that takes is a polite request and a blog’s compliance.

But then there are utter douchebags that get pissed and spit vitriol at you or, worse, outright forbid anyone from posting any of their art anywhere. I’ve had one angry artist come to my askbox and aggressively demand credit within my first month posting in tumblr, back when I barely knew that you had to source things and was already feeling out of the loop. Cause, you know, I wasn’t posting your art because I’m evil and steal things: I loved it. Now I like it a little less, just because I know the hands that drew it typed out the ugliest words possible.

Look, it’s the goddamn internet. If you don’t want your art shared,why freaking post it? Tumblr is not a national news organization. You should be glad someone liked your work so much that they wanted to share it. And for the argument that people shouldn’t repost a piece of art that the artist already posted: what if you found it somewhere else? I shouldn’t post art I like just because I don’t have express written consent or can’t find where the original post is?

God, imagine if everyone was this up in arms over fic recs or fan vids. You don’t see people complaining that their fic was linked in a blog or that their vid was reposted. And don’t you dare tell me art is somehow more sacred than any other creative endeavor. I’m sure you don’t want to suggest that writers are less skilled than artists, because as far as I see it, we’re all about equal.

So please, let’s get an attitude readjustment. If someone posts your art on their blog, kindly ask for credit if it bothers you. Don’t demand your due worship and don’t passive aggressively call out their blog and claim that they are stealing.