I am hesitant to post this one. People might dislike me for these statements about the Piracy I see consistently on the Web.

We all appreciate a good Blog, but only the most successful blogs will start using non-pirated images. I was thinking about this today. I had been so bold as offer some of my images without a watermark in return for a reading. I was wondering if the person would request to use the image on their Blog. Yet, of course Art being not considered money, this was turned down. You see the Blogger can easily do what I refuse to do, take pirated images from google images often with no credit given.

This unacknowledged piracy hurts the Art community. There are so many people with no care for copyright, just trying to make their Blog look better. So the Artist continue to be starving, because society does not care to set up any system to pay them for passing around their work. Many Artists also offer their work for Free, thinking their work not valuable enough to sell.

I have been guilty on both sides. I have used images in past blogs from other sites, and I have placed my Artwork on the web with no Watermark.

Similarly there are many sites that simply ‘advertise’ others people’s work, and never write their own posts. They receive huge Followings, while I think it rare that the readers actually visit the source (sometimes a source is not given). I have re-blogged before, and rarely does this equal any clicks to the original source. Yet, what these sites do is different then re-blogging (re-blogging requires a person to click the link to read the post) these people copy and paste the whole text with (maybe) a source at the bottom.

Now I will admit that there are certain cases where I have followed such sites. There are some such sites that I would be sad to see go away, but I am pointing out why all our Artists continue to be starving.

So the creator in general is encouraged to offer their art and writings to others for free, while others take and use their work without permission (then ask for donations). There are countless Bloggers and Artists who create quality work, yet in the process they only ever lose money. (Hosting fees, themes, etc.)

The only Art this society seems to actually value is that of the few who are decidedly given a value in the thousands for the same work that the great majority of Artists are expected to receive nothing for.

I, honestly, did not expect my Art to be accepted as payment. I would have let them pick any amount of images, and any image(s) because I trusted them not to steal the image. This was a good person, whom I have paid for a Reading from before.

I was so torn up about whether I should go into Art when I have never Sold a thing that I offered my Art because trading services is the same as selling Art. Then I could have said, “I have Sold my artwork.” I would have asked if I could Link to their site in telling others of the trade. (Hence Free Advertising to my small audience. You might have noticed that I like to offer Free Advertising.)

You might read this and think, this person is blaming others on the fact they are not able to create a successful Blog. They are blaming the internet, instead of their own lack of skill for the fact their artwork never sells.

I am blaming the entire system, which teaches most Artists that their artwork is not good enough. So they place it on the web for Free, in the form of writing or visual art. I am blaming society for raising people to disvalue another’s artwork so much they they feel free to take it without permission to decorate the web. Once again, this is done in with both writing and image.

We need to start teaching Society that it isn’t right to do any sort of Piracy. For the result of this isn’t just hurting the music industry. Artists in all fields are undervalued because of it.