[DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

Summary:

A discussion on commissioned art and attribution

[DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

Pedagon 23 Jan 2024 02:47

Hey everyone! I am posting this as a discussion for a policy to possibly arise from based on a discussion that has happened a few times now and has, once again, come up as the result of a kcon. The big question up for discussion is about commissioned work during contests but also just in general on the wiki and how people are compensated.

To start, I want to give an example. The issue, as it was presented to me and has been argued in the past is like this:

I want to write a big mind-blowing article
I want this article to be quite image-heavy
I pay someone to do all the art for me
The end product is extremely dependant upon the art, maybe even more than the writing
I post the article

Who gets attribution?

In general, this is a question about attribution and contribution. We currently already have a policy towards paying for coauthors (you can't) and it is agreed upon that you cannot pay a ghostwriter or post an article that you yourself did not write. However, art is currently in a weird spot where some would say you can absolutely pay an artist to make something and then also still attribute them on the article and others would argue that that is just as much an issue as paying for someone to coauthor your article with you. This is especially an issue when it comes to contests where an artist might make art for many articles but may only be given attribution on one, per contest rules of one page per person.

So the question becomes what do we do about commissioned art and giving attribution credit (meaning in the metadata since attribution would either way still be necessary in the licensebox) to artists?

O4 link: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-16680267/discussion-how-does-commissioned-art-work-on-the-wiki#post-6407720

Last edited on 23 Jan 2024 02:50 by Pedagon Show more

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

Prismal 23 Jan 2024 03:01

The other day when were discussing in staff chat I caught the tail end of it. But so to wrap my head around the issue here, the problem is the inconsistency between:

-Authors and Artists want to be treated the same on the site.

-Artists can be commissioned to make art that can then be used in someone's piece. Artists do not always, but can, receive co-authorship for this.

-Authors cannot be commissioned for writing that can then be used in someone's piece. Authors cannot be paid to co-author something with you.

Something along those lines?

If that's the issue, I'm not really sure how to work that out personally, because I think this is a situation where the three individual points are sensible on their own, but obviously they conflict in some way.

Not really sure what the solution is myself just commenting to try to get a better idea of what the problem is.

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

Pedagon 23 Jan 2024 03:08

Yes, the issue, as I understand it, is that you cannot be commissioned for writing or commission someone else and that does not align with how we treat art currently. And this goes along with our attempts to celebrate artists more as a part of our hobby community which there have been many initiatives for to try to do and yet some people still see the art community as supporting role to the writing, partially because of the different rules and the view of artists as being around for commissions rather than hobbyists themselves.

I will also add that currently authors can turn down coauthorship if they want, so letting artist accept commissions and turn down the coauthorship would not be an issue here. the issue is more with the inconsistency between groups and whether we want paying for collaboration to be a thing on the wiki

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

Uncle Nicolini 23 Jan 2024 03:01

i approached Raddagher in 2019 to commission illustrations for a tale i wanted to write. they declined, and instead wanted coauthor credit. they are attributed in the metadata, and i would have still attributed them even if they had charged for commission and never brought up coauthoring the piece. its the right thing to do.

on the other hand, i recently made a theme for Prismal to use in her 8k entry. i did not charge her for it, nor am i requesting i be credited as a coauthor. is this acceptable?

its a tough question.

personally, i think we should ask artists¹ if they would like author credit on top of their commission rate.

Footnotes

1. and lets be real here, css theme makers are artists too. they deserve credit for their work.

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

Rounderhouse 23 Jan 2024 04:00

Co-authorship, in the context of the site, means combined ownership over the work; this is reflected in existing relevant policy. When you commission someone, whether for CSS or art or writing, they make the product and, in exchange for money, release ownership of it to you, to do with as you wish; that's the foundation of that business relationship. You can't have a commission that is also of combined ownership between the purchaser and the creator.

As such, my proposal is that an article for which an artist or a writer or a CSSsmith was commissioned with a financial payment cannot have that artist, writer, or CSSsmith listed as a coauthor (because they relinquished ownership of the thing in exchange for money). If someone would like to be listed as a coauthor, they cannot charge a financial payment for their services.

Last edited on 23 Jan 2024 04:01 by Rounderhouse Show more

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

EstrellaYoshte 23 Jan 2024 06:49

go back for a sec, and let's re-examine the no-comms-for-writing thing. i think the entire reason we even have this is to prevent ghostwriter situation and non-site-members participating in writing for the wiki. The root of that situation is obviously much different from commissioning art for articles.

i disagree with rounder on the financial pay/co-authorship thing; money isnt the crux of it, our stance on attribution and the requirement of the license is. If someone contributed to a work in a significant authorship way, they should get co-authors, unless they get snagged by the non-site-member thing, in which case the article gets deleted (i think?)

westrin says this isn't a legislation-able thing, and i agree in part? but also our metadata is not that flexible; there's only author and translator as registered roles, when there shouldve been more room for other nuances, which in this case would be illustrator/artist. the rest should be decided among the creators themselves.

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

DrEverettMann 24 Jan 2024 05:12

Full disclosure: I have two commissioned pieces of artwork on the wiki: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/the-lombardi-tales and https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/those-you-leave-behind

I think it depends a lot on how the commissioned work is used. If it's just an addition to the meat of the article, I think it's fine. If it's a significant part of the article, that's where things get a bit sticky.

Re: [DISCUSSION] How does commissioned art work on the wiki?

FlyPurgatorio 30 Jan 2024 20:54

Disclosing that I too commission art.

I'd say there is a difference between an artist who draws additional art for a piece that stands on itself, but might add to the "flair" or delivery, and an artist that is also contributing to the conceptualisation, adding ideas to the shared narrative, coming up with interpretations etc. The latter behaves more as a co-author and in my opinion, should be credited as such. I feel that the author and artist should be able to hash it out.

I do not mind if there is commission going on alongside that, if both parties deem that fair. You're just about as guaranteed upvotes from the art as you are from flashy CSS, so it's not against our rules either. I also disagree with the notion that "less words than art" means something here. Maybe the writer wrote something small and the images take up a lot of real estate, but the writing ties the images together, or the concept and/or narrative through those images originate from the writer. Writing is more than just the words you see on the screen imo.

Commissioned work that was credited by co-authorship can still be asked to "draw this in your style", rather than having artistic freedom and do whatever they "feel" is right for the piece. It's about who has final say on the drawing, too. If an artist feels that compensation is warranted, I see no reason for us to interfere there.

As an aside: I hope that after wikijump it would be easier to also credit the artist and CSS creator of a piece.

Last edited on 30 Jan 2024 21:01 by FlyPurgatorio Show more