The jerk we’re talking about did pay. Hell, we probably don’t have permission to use that image even with the watermark intact (not that I’ve looked into gettyimages licensing agreements ever)
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You have to pay extra for Moral Rights in order to remove the signature, you don’t automatically get complete control over and credit for a piece of art through just buying it, the artist maintains some rights that have to be waived.
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You have to pay extra for Moral Rights in order to remove the signature
I’m not interested in removing signatures from anything. I’m just noting that digital commissioned art I’m accustomed to encountering in the real world tends to not have the mark of the artist attached to it.
How about this image? It seems unlikely that Garmin has a staff of photographers on salary. Eh, maybe they do.
What about the endless background images built-in to my desktop OS?
I’m not convinced that it’s really a case of “paying extra for Moral Rights” if that’s the standard practice. If anything, we’d be discussing special arrangements to “pay less to get the image with a signature”, wouldn’t we?
Really? You can’t imagine the other option that multiple people have presented… that those companies likely paid special prices, likely with negotiation with the artist, for the rights to use the artwork without attribution??
A lack of attribution on artwork used by a commercial entity in no way indicates that the “standard practice” is to not attribute artwork, and it says nothing about the negotiations or pricing that is behind that artwork. It’s also an apples-to-oranges comparison when talking about an artist who has been approached to create artwork for an individual, or art that is obtained inexpensively with attribution attached.
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I like John Scalzi’s list of points on this topic. This flowchart posted in the comments is also somewhat entertaining.
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Again, you’re comparing photos to hand drawn art.
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Oh, but that’s a nice drawing of miss Heavenly Nostrils.
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yeah, for a tax deduction to put money in your pocket, you have to have made enough money to pay taxes…
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Not too often, or you’ll get banned.
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This is exactly what happens. Companies negotiate with photographers, artists, etc to NOT have attribution on the work. Garmin probably paid a freelance photographer and had a moral rights waiver in their contract with the photographer. It is a standard part of contracts for commercial work in countries with moral rights as part of their copyright laws. Now, you have probably bought the desktop images or got them from someone who has either chosen not to put their attribution on it, or has (more likely) waived their moral rights in a contract with the desktop wallpaper company that distributes the pics to you.
I’ve had clauses waiving moral rights in practically every contract job I’ve ever had - with clients that provide me with their contracts to sign. Contracts I write do not usually contain default waivers of moral rights. I don’t usually enforce my moral rights, but would do if all of a sudden the company that bought my work was making guns for military regimes or something else that I don’t want my work associated with.
If one were buying a piece of visual art in the US from the artist, then it would most likely to be illegal to use it as toilet paper or take off the signature without the permission of the artist - usually that permission would cost extra money.
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I do a lot of design work for musicians, and the ones who ask for free work are poor.
The ones who expect free work are very rich. I haven’t had too many ‘big name’ clients, but they always, always expect me to work for the privilege of having their name on my resume.
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“For free” might be an bogus distinction, if it means presuming transactionality as the norm.
What is needed is something like a creative commons license. YES it is perfectly kewl if I don’t get paid (that would be some selfish bullshit) - provided that nobody else is getting paid for my work, either.
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You don’t get rich by giving your money away!
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There have been so many times that I’ve seen people say, essentially, “I can’t afford your prices for support. Can’t you just do all the research and troubleshooting for me to fix my problem? Oh, and show me how you did it, so I don’t have to ask you again the next time I break it?”
Then when they’re told no, they threaten to take their business somewhere else…
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Well, yeah—but that’s more in the context of a friend asking for a quick favor. “You’re a doctor, does this infected to you?” is different than asking a stranger for free drugs and surgery but presenting it as an “opportunity”.
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Yeah, it’s rich when someone who won’t pay money threatens to take their business elsewhere.
Someone once told me “the customer is always right” but was really upset when I said that they were not actually a customer, having never paid for anything. They were a person who called me and wasted my time periodically, that’s not a customer, that’s a nuisance. (Edit: I didn’t say the nuisance part, because I dislike confrontation.)
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About commissioned digital images without signatures:
those companies likely paid special prices
The bit that’s tripping me up here is that it seems to be standard practice, not special pricing. Where are all the images with signatures?
A lack of attribution on artwork used by a commercial entity in no way indicates that the “standard practice” is to not attribute artwork
Can you point me toward an example of a commissioned digital image with a signature intact? I honestly can’t think of one.
apples-to-oranges comparison when talking about an artist who has been approached to create artwork for an individual
Is there a market for individuals commissioning digital images? I can think of all sorts of reasons I might hire an artist (paint my motorcycle, design my wedding gown, paint my dog, etc…), but I’m coming up empty on scenarios where an individual might commission a digital image of the sort that you’d expect to be signed and displayed with the signature intact. Not that it never happens… I’m sure it has. But often enough that there’s an established standard practice?
Yeah. You should check this place out, there’s a lot of great work.
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It’s just about exactly the same thing: Asking a professional for free services for no good reason. Notice, even in those incidents listed above, not everyone is presenting it as an “opportunity”, either. Or read the responses here, from those asked to provide free IT services. Yes, a medical/dental diagnosis IS a “professional service”.
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you’re comparing photos to hand drawn art.
The screenshot in question said:
I’m not going to link back to your page
and
I edited out your ugly signature
So I assume we’re talking about a digital work of some sort, probably displayed on a web page. Everybody here is telling me that maintaining signatures is standard practice for this sort of work (Moral Rights and whatnot), and I’m saying that, of the thousands of commissioned digital works I encounter every day, I can’t think of a single one that bears the creator’s mark. So how standard can this practice really be?
Even the creators here have indicated that they routinely sign contracts which waive attribution requirements and, even when no waiver is in effect, don’t assert their rights in this regard. It seems like no attribution is the real standard practice.
