Well as most of you already know, a certain large website has altered their TOS. That is thier right, no problems there. But it is the reason for the change and the results of it that seems crazy. The new TOS clamps down on the ways that youthful characters can be depicted in pictures posted there. I understand what they are trying to stop, but the way that they are doing it seems to be over kill. Besides, I have not seen any cases of what they are trying to stop, having been posted in their gallery in the first place.
Their new TOS would prevent the purely innocent scenes such as two boys wearing swimming trunks having fun in the waters of a local pond. Also, two of what it think of as DV's best series to date are also now unacceptable by their TOS.
Since the announcement I have seen pictures posted in other galleries by refugees from the change in the TOS. These were of images that from what I understand were once posted there and now the artists who created them were required to remove them.
My Mom also saw the refugee pictures and she was quite disturbed. Yes, she was disturbed, not by the pictures but rather by how those sweet and lovely images are being treated. As she says, their mind are in the gutter and the only reason those pictures are seen as filth is because those who made those rules have filthy minds so they can only see filth. Even much of church art is now in violation of their TOS! The famous images of "Madona and child" are now considerd pornographic at that site. As my Mom says, they had better never visit Rome, all the beautiful statues there would give them a breakdown. They would want to condem about three quartes of the public art in that city.
The new TOS does not affect any of my works to date. However, I do have a couple of series that I am thinking of working on, that if I had already completed and posted there, I would now have to remove from their gallery. One of the series that I have planned to create is an illustrated story, only a few of the parts of that series that would also be effected by the new TOS.
Now I am in a quandry about how to proced with these two series of pictures.
While, I was thinking of including grime dirt and other such tinting and stains in the textures, none of the images would have any "filthy" content. I would like to show those pictures in multiple gallerys as I do now, but I don't like the idea of altering the contents of the images to have them fit in with the letter of the wording of the TOS.
One option would be to alter the contents of the images and as a result the story line also, to be acceptable to all sites. I don't like this beacuse it would remove the reflection of reality that I seek for those pictures. Another option is not ideal, but is the way that I am now leaning twords. Create both series as I had intended, post all the pictures of the series in each of the galleries, but omit posting certain individual images on that site that would violate their TOS leaving gaps in the storyline meanwhile adding to the descriptions, saying that to view the entire series visit PF.
Pangor