Hey, remember that post that Adam made about Google enabling random people to steal hi-res images and post them wherever they darn well please? Well, there's a petition for that. Sorry I didn't post about it sooner. I signed it some time ago. I hope some of you will, too.
You guys remember my big ol' rant when I complained about stolen art not getting removed. Well, I think I know why.
I recently saw a thief spamming theO with other people's pictures, and decided to report them. Might as well, just in case, you know? I clicked the "Submit" button and instead of the "thank you" page that pops up afterward, I got a page that looked a little like this:
hi
Nothing fancy. Just "hi".
I had posted a comment on Klassic's blog about how there might have been a bug preventing or reports from getting through, and I PMed Adam with the same suspicion. Now I'm beginning to think that this is actually the case. I'm not 100% certain, though. I'm guessing that the "hi" page is a makeshift page that people get redirected to while the staff at theO work on teasing out the bugs in the reporting system.
If this is true, I will be THRILLED when the problem is finally fixed. In the meantime, I'll be cheering the bug catchers on from the sidelines, and wait patiently until I can report again. I'll be ready.
...art thieves get promoted. Seriously.
Without naming names, I was going to make a comment about that in the October Promotions announcement, but that would just cause an uproar and I'd probably get banned. How ironic. I'd be banned instead of a shameless thief.
I know this person is a thief. I've reported them with proof. Did they get banned? No. Did the stolen artwork get taken down? No. And it's been, like, a month or two since I reported them.
I know theO is lacking in the activity department nowadays, but that doesn't mean the higher ups should be so passive. I know of at least three thieves at large here. Yeah, three is a small number, but it's still three too many. Admins, please nip this in the bud before art theft becomes out of control.
Let me tell you a horror story summed up in one word: tokyopop.com (which I shall refer to as TP). For those of you who aren't familiar with the manga publishing company that doesn't actually publish manga anymore, they had a site that was trying to be a DeviantART/MySpace hybrid (do you guys even remember MySpace?). Instead of being a fun place for aspiring manga artists and fans of Japanese culture, it became a bug-littered haven for art theft and porn.
There were no regulations. If you found 258 identical instances of official "Naruto" artwork posted by 258 different people claiming it as their own (or not their own), none of them would be taken down unless the original artist contacted TP personally. You can see how impossible that situation would be. Flagging the stolen artwork would be a lost cause.
Flagging was solely reserved for notifying the powers that be about inappropriate content. The system was highly inefficient, and items had to be flagged multiple times before the TP staff would do anything about it. Eventually a team of users, (no, not administrators, users) created a list of posted porn that needed to be flagged as adult content. Eventually, the task became so overwhelming that the leader of this group publicly announced her retirement from both group and site.
Then there was banning. If you were an art thief, you were practically immune to banning, despite your warped morals ("I didn't draw this. All credit goes to whoever did."). If you were a porn troll, you wouldn't be banned unless it was live human porn, as opposed to anime porn. The anime porn would only be hidden as "adult content". If you were a bully, you wouldn't be banned. You'd be *given a cookie* for your insightful comments. However, if you were to publicly criticize the TP staff for their apathy in the hopes that after your 73rd blog post about how the site isn't working, they'd finally change their ways, you'd get banned. You'd be a martyr, but banned nonetheless.
I've seen it happen. I saw it with my own eyes. You probably wouldn't believe me, though. After all, TP shut down all user-related content to their site some years back, so you'll have to take my word for it.
I came to theO with the belief that it would never be like TP. While this has mostly held true, I fear the day when art theft becomes out-of-control. Art thieves want praise and attention for doing as little as possible. It's appalling that even the administrators are giving it to them.
I'm not bullying or exposing any specific thieves publicly. Heck, I'm not even doing it privately. It's just that the higher-ups aren't enforcing discipline on them when they should. How many more times must I quietly report the same three art thieves over and over (with proof, of course) before they and their stolen art are removed from an otherwise decent, friendly site?
I don't want to be banned for speaking out. I'd rather be a proud Otakuite than a martyr. But what will it take for the higher-ups to notice that we have a genuine problem?
Thank you for reading. If you have some position of power in theO and have taken the time to read this, thank you twice over. Believe me, I would love to talk to you about making theotaku.com a better place.
