Stealing is the least they're doing...

I can't describe how angry this is making me... but I'll try.


You'll have to forgive me.  This subject is really pushing my buttons right now.... and not the good buttons.

I'm not naive... I know how the internet works.  You see something you like, then you can simply save it, publish it on your own site or blog, and claim it's yours.  Doing so against corporations is risky, but doing it against individuals is pretty easy.  I can't count how many times I've seen my caps posted on other sites and blogs.  At first it really upset me, and even got me to start adding a watermark.

Now this upset me on many levels.  First... Damn it I worked hard to make these caps.  I don't seek money for them, but I would at least like to be acknowledged as the creator.  Don't just hand pick the caps you like and post them to your blog as if they were your creations.  Second you're denying people the ability to see more of these caps.  Oh sure, you hand pick from dozens of artists and post them all, but what if your viewers would like to dive a little deeper and see more from a particular artist?  All it takes is acknowledging that you didn't create them, and pointing your viewers where you found it.

When you do that... adding something as simple as a link back to the blog of the artist you change everything.  It goes from theft to an honor.  You'll still keep your viewers, but you acknowledged that there is more to see than what you think is worth while.

But to be honest, fighting against this is like trying to push back the tide.  It's not just my caps, but most cappers that have a blog.  I see dozens of cappers caps around, and while I occasionally see someone point their viewers back to the original artist's blog, it is the exception not the rule.

So I let it wash over me.  I don't fight against it, I don't reprimand those who do it, and I try to let it go.

But it seems that there are others who take it further.  Who don't just take a cap they like, and post it up as if it were theirs, but who alter it.  They change it in an ugly and obvious way and then post it.

Now not only is the cap outside of the artist's hands, but it no longer even represents what the artist intended.

Imagine this.   Here is a cap form Mistress Simone:

This is a lovely cap.  You can see Mistress Simone's artistic effort.  Not just in selecting an image that convey's much of the story's dynamic, but also in laying everything out.  Everything in this cap is part of the story.

Beautiful no?

But what if I liked most of it.  Say I liked the fist paragraph, but wanted something different for the ending.  Something like taking out any part of helping Simone with her lovers since I don't like the idea of serving men.   And you know, forget the idea of Sara truly serving her wife by having sex with her former colleagues.

Well if that was the case, I would find a similar image and make a cap of my own.  I get inspired by a lot of people's caps and rework some of them into caps of my own.  Will mine look as good as Mistress Simone's?  No, probably not.  But at least I would have the integrity of having my own caption.  I wouldn't hurt Mistress Simone's work, nor would I hurt the person it was made for.

But look what I found:

Ewww

Take away the fact that I like Simon's story better.. after all beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  This story may be perfect for someone else.  And if someone did this and saved it to their hard drive to read and enjoy later, well more power to them.

But they really crossed a line when they published it to their own blog.

This is about the closest thing I can think of to physically finding Simone and slapping her across the face.  And just to be clear, this isn't a theoretical case... this altered cap is posted on someone else's blog.  I'm not going to link to it as I don't want this person to get a single page view.

This is just wrong in just about every way I can picture it being wrong.  The story takes a viciously different turn than what Simone wrote.  Black all caps text over a white background as opposed to yellow shadowed text over a yellow background makes it look like someone painted graphite over a piece of art.   And think about how they did that for a moment... they obviously know enough about a graphics program to make their text box fit over the text box that Simone created.  To blot out what Simone wrote, and change it up to what they wanted to see.

So what exactly is stopping this person from creating their own cap?  They have inspiration and skill.  So they either loved Simone's cap enough to keep the way it looks (but didn't love Simone enough to consider how she feels), or were just too lazy to try and create something original.

Now again, I'm not a cold callous bitch.  If you want to do this and keep it for your own enjoyment, then that's fine.  But don't put it out there for others to see.  I mean for Christ's sake it has Simone's watermark on it!!!  If I didn't know Simone I might assume that she made this cap.  I for one find the crude attempt at changing the cap to be obvious.... but I make caps.  I recognize when styles don't match up.  Even if I didn't know and respect Simone I would see that someone put they're crayons on someone else's art.  But not everyone will do that.  Not everyone will recognize that.  I imagine there are people out there thinking that Simone DID create this.  And again.. that's just a slap to Simone's face.

And is this the only slap they're dealing?  No.  Their blog is chuck full of stolen and altered caps.  Several of Simone's are up, as well as dozens of other cap artists.  Artists who spend hours making caps for no other reason than to express their feelings and share their visions with the world.

Now as I understand it, the person who is running this blog was in a relationship.  Their 'male lesbian wife' who collected and altered these caps passed away in May.  If that's true then I am truly sad for this person.  But it still isn't an excuse to post these stolen and altered images.  Keep them... look at them often and remind yourself of your wife... but don't post them.

Simone contacted this person.  I think she made an entirely reasonable request.  Remove the altered caps.  Leave up the unaltered caps if they want, but give credit to Simone.  If they would do that Simone offered to make a custom cap for them.

Let me tell you, my respect for Simone grew a lot when she told me that.  If I found my caps on this blog, I wouldn't ask politely and offer a reward for them doing the right thing.  I wished Simone the best though and hoped that it could end amicably.  I still don't think it would have finished the issue as they still had dozens if not hundreds of other altered caps from other artists... but hey I don't have a dog in this fight.

Their response?  They don't know how to remove them.

Really?

That's the best lie you can come up with?  You've been running a blog longer than I've had mine up, you've made over 50 posts with hundreds of images most of the re-sized.... and you don't know how to go into the post, click on the image and click on 'Remove'?

They DID go in and add in 'courtesy of misstresssimone.blogspot.com' (even though the altered images ARE NOT courtesy of Mistress Simone) so we can clearly see that they can edit a post.  But evidently clicking on an image and clicking on 'Remove' is beyond them.

And I'll be honest... I don't believe that their wife did all of this.  Several of the altered caps were from posts made around the time that the blog stated that she passed away.  I'm not doubting that there was a wife, and that this person loved them deeply.  But between saying that they don't know where the images came from, saying that they don't know how to remove them, and making MORE posts before acknowledging Simone's simple and kind hearted request tells me that there is a level of dishonesty here.

At best, they don't respect Simone or other artists. At worst they are willfully and knowingly doing this and have no intention to stop or make it right.

This is the type of attitude and action that makes me want to close up shop and just stop posting my caps publicly.