Agreeing that it could be in the sidebar — though that's Troy's purview.

Re: images in general: I don't think we need to panic about every image on the site. However, it would be worthwhile to:

1. Discourage people stripping watermarks, or in general using copyrighted work that they know is copyrighted without permission.

2. Encourage the use of public-domain or CC-compliant images.

3. Make sure we are easy to contact if someone has a complaint. We don't want people to stew about their work being used and either go straight to Wikidot, or rant about it off-site and make us look bad.

4. Respond to complaints about improper image use.

None of this is criticism; I think this incident was handled well, once Staff became aware of it. But written policy about image use, with contact info in case of a problem, would be good.

Aelanna, would we be able to use your pic template thing and include an exterior link in the caption?

EDIT: Guh, I'm an idiot. I forgot to include the "http://". Caption has been successfully edited.

Hi Zyn,

I like the idea of the in-character attribution in the caption, with a clickable link to my site. I will be updating my website in the hopefully-near-ish future, so it might be better to link to the general website — www.EirewolfCreations.com — instead of the specific page with the Dragon Snail pic, so that there are no broken links later.

I definitely do NOT want the photo to be licensed under Creative Commons. I actually have a site dedicated to photographs that I *have* put in the Creative Commons, and none of my sculpture pics are in it. (cc.EirewolfCreations.com — people may use those for SCP articles; feel free to let the SCP members know about it if you wish. There are a few critter photos there.)

I do encourage the staff to add to the SCP site a simple way for non-members to contact the admin regarding copyright violations. It was very frustrating for me, feeling that I had no recourse but to fume over the theft. :-)

Thanks again,
Erin

(Technically, 173 isn't CC either, nor are articles that the original author didn't approve of porting; but that's a legal area that's beyond me. As far as I know we're probably fine with those, but let's not pretend that ANY of the images we randomly pulled from Google are CC or ever will be.)

EDIT: To be clear, the author has already been contacted appropriately early in the thread, but their input is irrelevant to us here. They are free to — once they see this — remove the picture entirely, or negotiate something else with the author (so long as everything is kosher), but we don't need to wait a week or two for them to respond as we normally would in the case of recently-active authors. We act now, and send a second PM once we've reached a final(ish) conclusion.

Also, if Erin doesn't want the picture under CC, which it seems clear she does not, we should clarify that the picture is not under CC (I would think that a clarification in the comment thread would be fine in combination with the suggestion above).

EDIT: Just so we're clear on what should happen next — Zyn, can you relay this request to her? (I'm sure you'd be on it anyway, but just in case~)

We could even do an "in-character" attribution in the caption, something like "Photo taken by Agent Erin Metcalf", with a link like above. Again, subject to approval by Erin. I do think her name needs to be in the caption one way or the other, though, so the attribution is right there on the page, with no additional clicks necessary to find it.

Hi Zyn,

Thank you for keeping me in the loop. I appreciate that the staff is taking the issue seriously, and that discussions are underway to update the site policies regarding copyright. I also appreciate that attribution has been given and the watermarked image restored.

However, the image is so tiny that the watermark is not readable. (I do try to keep my watermarks unobtrusive, but in my original images they are large enough to read.) Is it possible to make the photo a clickable link to my site, or put the copyright info in a mouseover, or put a note at the end of the photo description? (The latter would probably take the least amount of coding.) I do understand the desire for the immersion experience, but I would think a "Photo copyright Erin Metcalf" note under the photo wouldn't break immersion too much. (Also, in all honesty, I don't think that should be up to the author, as he didn't bother to get permission to use the photo in the first place.) :-)

I don't mind you posting my emails regarding this matter in the staff forums.

Thank you again,
Erin Metcalf

E: Image re-uploaded, attribution given.

Hi Zyn,

Thank you so much for contacting me. I appreciate that you share my concern regarding the violation of my copyright. Had the author of the SCP article contacted me to ask for permission to use the photo of my Dragon Snail sculptures, I would have gladly given it (with the caveat that my watermark be retained, the artwork attributed to me, Erin Metcalf, and a link to my website, www.EirewolfCreations.com, be made available on the page). It does upset me that he didn't see a problem with stealing someone else's artwork (and even going so far as to strip the watermark from it — unless that was done by someone else and the image was later found by the article's author). Several people have since found me because of that image, so I know it is not very hard to track down the source and ask for permission.

However, I am willing to forgive and allow the image to be used on the SCP site with the aforementioned caveats, so long as the author of the article, and the SCP authors in general, are made aware that, if they did not create a work of art themselves, that they must obtain permission from the artist and give attribution if the artist wishes it. My art is my livelihood. Several people in the discussion on that article have expressed a desire to own a Dragon Snail…. Maybe they could have, if there had been a link back to the artist.

The original source of the image in question, with the watermark included, is at the following link:
http://www.eirewolfcreations.com/?page=gallery&gallery_id=1&piece_id=110&picture_id=8

Thank you again for your attention in this matter.

Blessings,
Erin Metcalf

Straightforward and I agree with everything said. Let's make this happen.

1. Using watermarked images for SCPs kills immersion and should be avoided.
2. Removing watermarks is tantamount to plagiarism.

Obvious conclusion: if the image has a watermark, don't use it unless you have specific authorial permission to remove the mark. I don't think anyone here is arguing otherwise, for what it's worth — we just may want to clarify this particular policy point.

Edit: Still no replies, but with help from Fantem (who found the artist's non-dA website), I've sent the author an email regarding the matter.

shouldn't it be very much against Site Rules to use someone else's work and deliberately take steps that avoid giving them credit?

It should, although with copies of things floating around the web, it's hard to know if someone here modified an image or just picked it up after someone else did.

We have to be careful about this stuff because of the DMCA. Someone who finds their image being misused here could report it to Wikidot instead of us, and they could be jerks about it and take the entire site down in response. This would be stupid and excessive, but I don't trust them not to be.

E: Sent this:

Subject: SCP-111's picture
Basically, the original creator isn't happy that the picture was used without their permission. See the O5 thread on the issue, the post on the discussion page, and the original art here. The staff is already making attempts to get in contact with the artist, but I don't think it would hurt for you to make contact as well and see if you can't get their permission to use it (with attribution).

That being said, I would actually suggest the picture be taken down right now and the conversation be about whether or not to put it back, because we're definitely not in the right at the moment. I think that can be a judgment call on your part, Drew.

1. The picture was used without permission or attribution and the watermark was cropped off. Whether or not Adam Henderson was the one who did this is irrelevant.
2. The original artist is aware of the usage and has explicitly reported that she emphatically does NOT want us using it.
3. We need to immediately remove the picture, with a note in comments explaining why.

I move that we follow step 3 ASAP. As in, before the end of this weekend. I'm seeking consensus of at least 3 Admins, please.

They've been aware of the infringement for a while, apparently, and have made efforts to get in touch with us, but didn't really know how to do that without joining Wikidot (which they had no interest in doing). We might want to get an attribution in soon, maybe by editing the first comment in the discussion thread to include whatever copyright information they want posted.

Question: Somebody cropped the original watermark out of the photo before using the picture. Should that be something that we specifically forbid, if it isn't already? It's a direct attempt to circumvent giving credit to original artists. I'm not saying Adam Henderson (the author of SCP-111) needs to be punished in this case, since we can't prove he was the one who removed the watermark anyway, but shouldn't it be very much against Site Rules to use someone else's work and deliberately take steps that avoid giving them credit? Or am I just over sensitive about this?

I've messaged and posted a comment, and will discuss with her when she replies. Right now it is late and I have midterms, but I thought I'd throw this up for record-keeping.