halp an iconist?

[consequences.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering what the policy (generally) for iconing fanart is. I've seen a lot around and it seems like crediting them in post/resources list is the right thing to do, but is there anything beyond that? I would contact them but I can't read any Japanese and my computer messes up all the displays on the sites; I've only figured out how to get to the pretties.

Kind of a noob to iconing doujinshi/whatnot so please don't yell. 8D;

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[sapphirus.livejournal.com]

...I would say lock the post to further cover your tracks. Regardless of crediting of the source (don't hotlink to their sites since there are ways to track where visitors came from), the original artists won't be pleased if they ever stumble on those.

Honestly though... If you really insist on making djs/fanarts into icons, I would just say email them in simple/basic, plain English and wait for an answer. If they say yes, cool. If they don't, it's no big loss and you just don't do iconing. But that's my personal view on it.

[consequences.livejournal.com]

thanks for the quick reply.

well, since I can't find the email on this place, I guess I simply won't make them. Kinda wanted to do a Suzaku fanarts spam for his birthday because the official images I have kind of suck, haha.

but really, thanks for the advice. :)

[lb-x.livejournal.com]

Most doujinshi artist sites I've been on have it written in English somewhere on their site that art should not be used without their permission. I think the general policy (and I say general, because some people are 100% against it while others don't care at all) is that you should state whose art each icon is made from.

[consequences.livejournal.com]

gotcha. thanks for the reply.

[powercorrupts.livejournal.com]

Most japanese artists aren't going to be happy with you for doing it, no matter how you credit them or how good your intentions are. I've started seeing sites with noticed on the front page saying that if stealing continues that they're going to ip block or password protect.

It's really up to you what you do, but there isn't anything you can do that will assuage your worries and make the original artist totally cool with it. Just do whatever you feel is sufficient.

As far as contacting, some japanese fanartists can read/write rudimentary english. Whenever I've had a need to contact japanese artists in the past (though rarely for permission, I'll admit), since my japanese is poor, I usually include the same text in english with simple sentence structure and low-level words in case they can understand it and my japanese is too poor to convey the idea properly. Several have replied back in readable english before, so the language barrier isn't as huge as it seems sometimes. But all the same, odds are, they still might not allow you, and contacting them might only make them give you a specific "no," so if that will deter you, then I guess it's up to you about whether or not that's a good idea.

[x-reggg.livejournal.com]

the links on the userinfo (http://community.livejournal.com/code_geass/511323.html) are here for a reason :)