This is kind of long but I'd appreciate if you'd take the time.
I just had situation that forced me to make a really difficult decision. I had to re-evaluate my strong support for one issue in order to prevent the appearance that I supported another. This is my Kobayashi Maru and I don't know if I passed or failed
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayash… Did I make a good or bad decision? Just one disclaimer. I'm going to share my opinions on some issues which you may or may not agree with. I'm not looking for a debate and I'm not going to take part in one. At least not on my DA page!Here is the problem: a member used one of my resources in a piece that contained a racially offensive caricature of President Obama, racially offensive comments about him and the standard lunatic fringe radical right wing opinions that Obama is a socialist, pro-gun rights etc. The member said he was inspired by a protest sign he saw on Fox News. Ugh. I'm not going to post a link to the piece. I'm not going to indirectly support it by directing people to it.
But as offensive as it is, I'm also a very big advocate of unrestricted stock and resources. I guess I never considered somebody would use a resource in artwork that promotes racism, hate and divisivenesses. Maybe I'm naive, but I believed artists to be more enlightened and above that kind of stuff in general. I also didn't have any rules that restricted him from using the resource in that way. I can't change the rules after after the fact. If I did, that would make me a hypocrite. It's a true no win scenario and a very large moral dilemma.
My solution was to have him remove my name from the credits to avoid any chance of someone assuming I support those views. Truth is I hate the fact the piece exists with or without my resource involved. If similar situations arise with previously downloaded resources, this will have to be the answer. Going forward, I'm going to stay true to my belief in unrestricted stock and not place usage restrictions on them, other than no corporate use. I'm changing no commercial use to no corporate use as it's more to the point. I will however add a disclaimer / request that states if people intend to use a resource in artwork that promotes hate, right wing views or Fox News I'd prefer they not use them at all. Ultimately it's their choice. They can either honor the request or ignore it. If they choose to ignore it, I'll just demand they not credit me. I'll have to live with it but at least I'm staying true to my beliefs.
For the record, the member who posted the piece was very cooperative and did immediately remove me from the credits. I don't really think he realized exactly how offensive many (most, I hope) would find it.
Did I do the right thing?
A quick message about Fox News. Please do not mistake Fox News as a objective source of news or as a legitimate source for journalism. They promote the very narrow agenda of corporate America, a small minority of the Republican party and at least two extremely radical, right wing political groups.
Videos -
Doggy cuteness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNC4d… www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYtrSf…
Kitty cuteness - youtube.com/watch?v=rP0Yu71J95… www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPzNl6…
Fun with explosives - www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU8joi…
Fun with exoskeletons - bleex.me.berkeley.edu/CV/Bleex…
Fighting Robots! www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAxi38…
Fun with Vader www.bestviral.com/video/14024/…
