Premades and the legal problems within

Blog written by kuschelirmel
PREMADES #Photomanipulated SubmissionRules CHANGE!First, let me clarify: I'm not just talking about premade backgrounds, but also about cut-out stock and brushes or anything else where people use images (their own or other people's) to create the resource. And while this is mainly geared toward members of Photomanipulated, I do hope that this journal will also be able to shed some light on things for others.
Personally, I've never been a fan of premade backgrounds, but I'm also not the type of person who thinks everyone else should do as I say just because I have a bad feeling about something. So far, that held true for premades: I steered clear of them because I feared copyright issues, but I didn't have much more than a bad feeling and some research on my part to confirm this. Now, an official dA blog has strengthened my believe that as an artist, using premades will do you more harm than good.
Copyright is something that often falls by the wayside with premades. And if it turns out the image
Copyright is something that often falls by the wayside with premades. And if it turns out the images used to create the premade were not legal to begin with, the end result is that not only will the premade be taken down, but all the images created with it (in good faith!) will be deleted along with it!

How can you prevent this?

Either, you steer clear of premades completely, or at least you check their sources! If anything feels off, don't use it - and don't fav it either! No more spotlight for those who can't be bothered to check/credit their resources!!!

How do you know if the sources are legitimate?

Often, this is hard to find out, because no sources are listed. This is against dA policy (see this article), but it still happens.  If you really like the premade (or brush etc), ask them where they got their images from ("Did you shoot all these different things yourself?").

If sources are listed, do follow them and check the terms of use (i.e. the stock rules) these are licensed under. There are a few things that should set off alarm bells with you:

    Professional stock sites (such as  sxc.hu, fotolia, dreamstime,...), whether they are for free stock sites or pay-sites - do NOT allow their stock to be redistributed - and that is the word that is usually used in their terms of use.
     Just because someone on dA is okay with their stock being used for manips does NOT mean they are okay with it being used in premades/brushes/etc. Unless there is explicit permission given for this kind of use.
     Websites offering "renders", backgrounds, wallpapers, etc where anyone can upload love to have a clause in their terms of use that basically states "the site is not liable for any copyright infringements because anyone can upload anything" should be treated with extreme caution. BUT the shady sites in question usually have very short Terms of Use and the main part is "we cannot be held responsible for what our members do". Be wary of sites with a lot of celebrity images, too. A site offering legitimate resources should at least be trying to comply with copyright laws and not just claim they aren't liable making plain that they don't care!

On top of that, conditions set by the original copyright holder MUST ALWAYS be fulfilled!

PLEASE READ BEFORE JOINING!

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FAQ #157: Can I use things created by other people in my submissions?
FAQ #306: Does "Crediting" let me use whatever I want?
FAQ #8: What are violations of the DeviantArt copyright policy?
FAQ #155: How do I report a deviation which I think breaks the rules?

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