Ooooh, Save Us From Scary Evil Fan Art

[filkertom]

Apparently, LiveJournal is no longer going to let fan artists have LJ accounts.

As in, cancelling existing accounts, and not letting new ones be put up.

Now, goodness knows not all fan art appeals to me. Heck, a lot of it doesn't. Because my kinds don't go in those directions. You know what I do? I don't look at that fan art.

But, as usual in these moralistic times, some narrow-minded repressed freaks who need to defend their supposedly all-powerful whatever from The Horrors Of Teh Sex yelled at someone with a public forum, and said someone (in this case SixApart, the owners of LJ) knuckled under.

I'm getting sick of this noise. Guys, the only thing anyone has to do to find porn is deactivate SafeSearch on Google, mmkay? It's every fucking where. And do you know why it's every fucking where? Because people want it. If you didn't work so hard to make it seem bad, when most everyone knows it isn't even though they're not allowed to say so out loud or nothin', maybe people wouldn't get into a froth over it, and we could all lead normal, healthy lives, and sate our kinks safely and reasonably.

Naaaaaaaah.

I don't know if this is enough to make me leave LJ, but god DAMMIT I thought the idea was for people to express themselves.

The nasty evil picture isn't going to make anybody do anything, you cowardly sanctimonious emotionally stunted backwater nonfucks.

Sigh.

Your thoughts?

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that this is starting back up. I don't know...by all accounts they're targeting art which is in violation of US law this time, which they said they would.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

actually, teh art piece in question was of two over-the-age-of-consent boys engaged in an entirely consensual homosexual act.

Which leads one to wonder, given that LJ's boss has said:
jssangel: In the eyes of Six Apart, is Harry Potter Fanfic, featuring an under 18 Harry an example of child pornography?
What about illustrations designed to accompany the same?

barakb25: No. Child pornogaphy is fairly well defined by law and I have not seen any reports of it in HP Fanfic.

Just which bit of that did they find objectionable?

[hms42]

So... What service are the fan artists jumping to since LJ decided to start StrikeThru 2007 #2?

Harold

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

It's a scattering thing: Journalfen, Greatest Journal and Insane Journal are getting most of them

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Can I get a link to an LJ biz post or somesuch?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The last one they had was this one (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241428.html). No, this is brand-new action: some LJers have found that some art LJs just aren't there anymore, and instead of strike thru they're getting automatic bold nonlinks. More info here (http://community.livejournal.com/innocence_jihad/159327.html).

[robgonzo.livejournal.com]

Good Lord, again? You know, you can't please everyone, I wish that, rather than make an arbritray decisions, they'd consult the community that would be affected and ask them because it seems to me that they respond only to a vocal minority rather than to the grumbly majority.
Aside from all that, what does this achieve? If an artist posts all their stuff over on Deviant art but posts an announcement and a link over here then what difference does it make? Perhaps I'm not getting that part.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Liability, I suspect.

[sdelmonte]

1. I'm not bothered by the decision to do this so much as by the attempts to do this without telling us they are doing it, after it looked like SixApart and LJ were really trying to be transparent. So much for hoping that SixApart got the point.

2. It's not just about the excessive moralism of the time, but also that hottest of hot button issues on the Net, kiddie porn. There is something about the topic and about the fanatics who are trying to "stop kiddie porn" that just puts people on edge. And for what it's worth, I think that SixApart is right to be worried that they will be sued and dragged into court. Again, I don't think this is the best way to address the concerns, but I do think it's only a matter of time till one legitimate kiddie porn case causes the Net community a lot of trouble, rightly or wrongly.

3. I don't think that leaving LJ will help, since the forces that are bedeviling SixApart are going to bedevil every blog site and fan site. That said, I have to wonder what the people who run the other major blog sites are saying and doing about these concerns. (I really have no intention of leaving LJ, but I suspect that I will have to start using the other blog sites when the exodus starts.)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

1. I'm not bothered by the decision to do this so much as by the attempts to do this without telling us they are doing it, after it looked like SixApart and LJ were really trying to be transparent. So much for hoping that SixApart got the point.

If they suspended *two* accounts, I'm not entirely sure why they should tell us, especially if it was reasons that were outlined previously.

While I disagree with the notion that non-photographic visual art should be illegal if it depicts minors, the courts are leaning in that direction, and SA does have an obligation to take what it considers appropriate action. And when it does that, people who are prone to bunching panties will get their panties in a bunch.

See also: Hard place, between a rock and.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

It is the way things are going. i expect the other blog sites will also knuckle under to the kind of pressure that can be exerted on them. The underlying purpose, of course, is to stop people talking to each other, because that can be dangerous. Unfortunately for the censors, SixApart are making money out of people talking to each other, so they can't stop it entirely...but they can make it damned uncomfortable. Watch for restrictions on people (a) criticising the war (treasonous), and/or (b) using swear words in their journals (won't somebody please think of the children), next.

It's going to take a lot more pressure than any one of us--maybe even all of us--can exert to get this pendulum swinging the other way.

How does that poem go again?

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

I think it begins, "First they came for the fan-art forums, and I didn't speak out, because I wasn't into fan-art...."

[fiawol.livejournal.com]

If someone calls it "fanart" of actual characters, the trademark holder is within their rights to ask that specific images be removed. If someone draws "Wonder Woman", DC should have the rights to have it taken down if she's, like, being raped, broken and bloody, or doing anything else Wonder Woman wouldn't "do". All a person has to do to protect themselves is to NOT call her Wonder Woman or use any of her trademarked costume elements. Is it THAT hard to call a drawing "Amazing Amazon" rather than Wonder Woman? Or "Student Wizard" rather than Harry Potter? If someone were to take a song that you wrote, change 3 or 4 words (or even change nothing), record it, call it a "Tom Smith fan-appreciation song" and put it on a CD and sell it without asking permission, would you have any objections to that? Even if they were giving it away for free, as "fanart" galleries usually are, it's still your song, your ideas, you should have a right to protect what you created. It's nice that the copyright holders usually don't bother with chasing down every trademark violations, but they ought to have that right available to them, and in fact are guaranteed it by our form of government. If the system starts to beat you down, you learn to work within the system. If that means drawing "Batdude" rather than "Batman", so be it.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

The problem wasn't ever the fanart, though, in this case. It was that they decided--rather arbritrarily actually, since you can't tell by looking--that one of the characters was a minor. The only thing calling them Neil and Bob or something would have done is that the abuse team might not have come to the decision that one of them was under 18, without previous canon.

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to find out more information on this from non-livejournal community sites since you posted this.

The best I found was on a news (http://firefox.org/news/articles/511/1/Livejournal-Bans-Underage-Adult-Fanfiction/Page1.html) site that states they are banning accounts that depict underage adult fan art. If anyone else has any resources on this, let me know.

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

And even then, my link is about fiction, not art.

[mdlbear]

Doesn't surprise me much.

[hughcasey.livejournal.com]

Links, please?

And any official comment from SA/LJ?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Above, in my comment to RMJwell.

[ericcoleman]

Just on a quick look, this seems to be about 2 accounts. 2 ???

[pagawne.livejournal.com]

My major questions are; 1) do they state what it is and 2) is it behind a cut tag. I am very well over 21 and I really do know how to *NOT* look at something that is going to offend me. I am NOT a child, DO NOT tell me what I can and can not look at.

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

From what I have read on other links now, the problem was not about whether something was offensive but whether something was legal to post. lj_biz states they deleted for US Obscenity Law purposes. The picture in question can be interpreted to be that of a minor (Harry) and an adult (Snape) being intimate.

I have heard no mention of whether or not it was behind a cut tag but that doesn't matter when it comes to Federal Law.

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

Ok. Lawyer weighing in here. I have heard of at least two cases, in two different and widely disparate jurisdictions, in which several people went to federal prison for taking non-erotic nude photos of pre-teen girls for the stated purpose of using them as artist's models for fantasy drawings. They weren't even remotely sexual, the only "public" thing about them was that the photos were taken with a film camera and the film sent to a lab for developing, and the accused did have portfolios of drawings of fairies in one case, and of humanoid aliens in the other.

So I want to know more. If they're targeting all sexually oriented fan-art, then I have a serious problem with LJ's censorship. That sort of art isn't to my taste, but as you so cogently observed, I don't have to look at it if I don't want to. But if they're targeting depictions of children that have the slightest erotic elements, then no, I don't blame them. Not in the current legal and political climate.

I don't like it, not one little bit. And if it was done without notice to the account holders, then I will certainly condemn that lack. But I do understand why they'd do it. Basically, SixApart doesn't want to be the legal battlefield upon which these ideals are tested.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

If it helps, there's no way to tell just from looking at the picture in question that one of them is underage--hell, the artist didn't even say he was underage; LJ came up with that one basically on its own. It looks like a picture of two men having sex. The decision that one was a minor seems to have been arbitrary on LJ's part, because clearly nobody would ever draw an AU Harry Potter who's been aged up a bit...oh, wait, that's what most of fandom has been doing for the past ten years. :p

[jacob-day.livejournal.com]

Gee, maybe someone like, say, a popular prolific witty filker, should come up with a song on the subject, maybe something along the lines of "Nekkid Hermione Ruined My Life..."

[alymid.livejournal.com]

This is one of the reasons I have taken the blogging I want control over offsite to personal hosting, and then crosspost to here.

Not that right now I have had time for much personal blogging. But Funny I have a LOT More control over what I host on my own domain.

Cencsorship Sucks

[celtickittenmew.livejournal.com]

This is bullshit! How long is SixApart going to cower under the weight of the right-wing's red-headed-step-children, namely ZEALOTS!? I am shocked and appalled by this second round of censorship and will be looking for a personal hosting space immediately. I have friends who do fan art and not all of it is sexual or "immoral" or whatever sinks on-line boats these days. Shame on LJ for censoring us all. Mew ^ ^

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if this has more to do with Scholastic putting pressure on LJ than anyone else. Mightygodking's LJ is still gone, is it not? And if the only two LJ's that have been hit with this are ones that have posted (allegedly) questionable pictures from the HP universe, that may be what's behind it more than anything else.

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's still gone, and the last time I talked to mightygodking, he was planning on moving on to some other venue.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

So, does this mean I lose points for my depiction of SixApart's directors kissing Dolores Umbridge on all cheeks while chanting, "Yes, Mistress"...?

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

Not in my book. :)

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

"Your thoughts?"

Apparently aren't printable under our new Masters regime.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Morals aside, I can understand doing so for the sake of protecting one's intellectual property.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

Normally, Tom and I are about as far apart as two people can be, politically (I'm a libertarian---small-l variety---and he's a liberal) but on this, he and I are side-by-side. I've grown increasingly sick and tired of the endless panics about pictures, stories or other things that might, somehow, somewhere, inflame a "pedophile." Here and now, pedophiles are rather like witches were in the Reformation---convenient scapegoats, against whom all measures whatsoever are appropriate. If it were accused pedophiles instead of accused terrorists, most people would think Gitmo and such were too bloody good for them.

And, of course, one big problem is that we cast the "child" label very widely indeed. While everybody can agree that adults having Vile Disgusting Sex with pre-teenage children is bad and wrong, we insist on using the same term, "child," for anybody at all under the Magical Age of 18. In a lot of states, I could get into oodles of trouble for bedding a willing female partner who'd already been married and had a child, just because she was *gasp* under 18, and, therefore, a Chi-eld, and therefore "innocent." One myth that has plagued our culture for far too long is the myth of "childhood innocence." I once wrote an essay about that very subject, titled "Innocent of What, the Reichstag Fire?" detailing all the crimes "children" have committed.

[kayshapero]

It's got relatively little to do with actual protection of actual kids, and quite a bit to do with pushing people's buttons to get power. How's that for obscene...

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

But how do you really feel, Tom?

Seriously, though, since all of the art in question seems to be Harry Potter related, what is the possibility that JK Rowling and/or her publishers were at least possibly responsible for the complaints?

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

I heard the first rumblings about this yesterday, and I still haven't quite found anyplace with a non-partisan grasp on the situation.

Is it still just two accounts?

The Prigs are everywhere

[j-e-richards.livejournal.com]

The Dayton Art Exhibit just finished up a Marilyn Monroe Art Exhibit and it was amazing the number of people who complained about the nudes...(really, who did they think Marilyn Monroe was???) The newspaper article that reported this said that the DAI also periodically got phone calls that people were coming to the regular exhibits and could they please cover up any nude paintings and sculpture? I will admit that there were some rather disturbing paintings in the Marilyn Monroe exhibit but I was more affected by the exploitation of Monroe than the sexual. (photos of Andy Warhold dressed up like Marilyn was a bit mentally sick but..)

Re: The Prigs are everywhere

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Aaaaiieeeee...
The Andy Warhol dressed as Marilyn Monroe line has just flashed a very traumatizing image into my mind. I require some brainbleach immediately.

[superherogrlcat.livejournal.com]

You said it so well I don't think I can say it any better. Kudos!