Art Resources - Commercial vs. NonCommercial Usage
I’ve been following lots of links lately to “64 FREE and Beautiful Photoshop Brushes!” or “100 of the BEST FREE Vector sites online!” and I’ve been seeing lots of amazing and inspirational work by really talented artists. But what I’ve also been seeing a lot of in these compiled-resource lists is links to resources which are not licensed for commercial usage. And unfortunately those are not resources I would ever download.
As a sometimes-content-creator/provider myself, I understand the desire to have ones work recognized, and the hesitation to release that work into the wild for anyone (corporations, creepy porno people, etc.) to make free use of. That would suck. But at the same time, as a content USER and a freelance designer, I can’t take a risk in downloading something non-commercial that I might accidentally use in a paid project. (And I think we all know that I am not organized enough to keep separate databases of free-for-commercial-use and not-free-for-commercial-use products. Especially when it comes to something like Photoshop brushes, which are too hard to keep in order anyway.) Nor do I want to be in the position of having the perfect resource at hand but having to explain to the client “Yes, well I can use this image in your ad, but we have to have a link back to contentProviderX’s Deviant Art page.”
Since the content I create is for my own pleasure and education, and because I do not aspire to ever become a paid creator of art-related resources, I don’t restrict or limit usage of the resources I create.
For those who do make money from the content they create, I would think that any freebie is released as a teaser, in order to help publicize the paid content. If so, the goal is to maximize downloads and usage of the resource to get as much exposure as possible and to introduce the end-user to your products, which they may want more of. Limiting the usage to non-commercial leads to fewer downloads (from people like me, at least) and less exposure for your work. It also prevents me from ever discovering that you make the best brushes I’ve ever used, or that I can’t live without your vector scrollwork files.
For those who are strictly hobbyists and create resources purely for their own pleasure and that of their peers (and/or the name recognition that goes along with being a premiere freebie creator) I can understand a BIT more the instinct to keep your work non-commercial. You’re a hobbyist, your friends are hobbyists, you don’t want commercial entities coming in and misappropriating something you have a passion for. And you want to KNOW, darnit, when someone uses your product. As a 3D hobbyist myself I do understand that, but would still rather have my products downloaded and used as much as possible, even if I don’t know about it. If it brings more people into my hobby, or it helps someone sell a product, then I think there’s been some positive benefit. To me that’s at the root of the instinct to create and share. To make people happy, to be part of something bigger, to learn and grow as an artist.
I regularly buy content created by both amateurs and professionals, and I would never say that I (or anyone else for that matter) “deserve” free commercial-usage product. That’s not my point. But I would encourage those who release freebies out into the wild to go ahead and release them for commercial use. You’re needlessly limiting your user-base and cutting out a lot of professionals otherwise. And I would encourage those who compile these “BEST FREE VECTOR RESOURCE” lists, which are so popular on Digg and Reddit at the moment, to make clear that you are linking to non-commercial-use licensed wares. If you don’t know the difference yourself then you need to learn it, and if you do know and mix and match commercial and non-commercial freebies you’re just wasting my time.
Filed under: 3d related, art stuff |4 Responses to “Art Resources - Commercial vs. NonCommercial Usage”
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As for my own freebies, I don’t think I have ever put in any commercial restrictions on purpose. So if anybody has anything of mine that says you can’t use it in commercial renders, odds are really good that it’s an oops.
I just can’t take a chance with NC freebies, am too disorganized. But freebies which start out as free-use and magically morph into NC… that’s just ebil.
Then later the vendor claimed that her TOU were being violated, because my friend was using the base to create free characters. I have a copy of the original readme, and it has no restrictions beyond what a normal character resource would have. Not one word about no free characters. (Yeah, I was actually mad enough when I heard all this to go look up the product readme. LOL.)
So far that I know of, this vendor has tried to get my friend thrown out of two different stores for copyright infringement over it. It didn’t work either time, so now she’s spreading lies about her around the vendor community. Real nice person, huh?