Shipbucket

Here's my toughs on the matter

I think we have never actually given deeper tough on the ultimate concept and purpose of Shipbucket. I mean I just thought it was cool and easy way to draw ships and have a collection of ship drawings. So we who like to draw ships are now drawing them, collecting them, discussing about them, judging them and fighting over them here in internet. But why? I don't know, we just do it because we like it. We don't have any common purpose to what we do with the drawings afterwards.

Now ever since I've known about shipbucket there were cases where the shipbucket images are used in various occasions, in internet sites and even in published magazines and books. As the shipbucket grew from the small group it was at the beginning, even more of use of the pictures in other occasions emerged. Larry Bond hit the spot on his statement that Shipbucket is a valuable collection of illustrations of ships in uniform standard and that is not only a huge complementary but also basicly the essence of the whole shipbucket. That is also the reason why the shipbucket images spreads around internet and so on.

I personally feel bit silly that we try to hog all the rights of enjoying these images just to ourselves when we are posting them and showing them in public internet site and forum. Colo said something that we don't need a bigger audience. But whats wrong with it? I mean we are still talking about drawings of warships...not the most media-sexy subject that gathers million viewers globally. The naval enthusiast circles are rather small but we are part of it and I think if we want to consider whats shipbucket's role in it is, it would be exactly what Larry described, a source of best illustrations for the ships for everyone interested of naval affairs to enjoy.

Of course when someone does something for hobby and someone does something for money there is a big difference. But even if we turn down every single suggestion of using Shipbucket drawings in some publication which someone is making profit out of it we would still find out someone doing it and in reality we can't stop them. Only way to stop shipbucket drawings being used somewhere is to keep the drawings hidden and not show them to anyone. That means there would be no shipbucket anymore.

So my opinion is that we should allow our drawings to be used in occasions where someone else is making profit with them as long as the artist(s) who made the drawing gains compensation, just like any other artist for use of their work in others projects. However like mentioned, some of compensation should come to shipbucket community as well as most of us uses parts-sheet parts which cannot be traced to any drawers particulary but to the whole community. How it is done in practice I don't know. I don't want the money for myself and then trying to convince you others that I'm using it for the sake of community. No..it needs to be done some other way. But I think we can find a way.

So there's my 50 cent. I still want to hear more opinions on the matter and we might even set up some sort of advisory referendum over the matter if we can't get bigger picture othervice.

PS: This isn't a sellout of shipbucket. Like I said we aren't talking about business of millions and we are not talking about "drawingfactories". We can continue shipbucket as it is at the moment. This wont change anything regarding the basics of our work. So far we have got like 2-3 request to use our drawings per year, and I don't think the rate will dramatically increase even if we agree on Larry's suggestion.

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"

And I want to put my 50 cents. In terms of compensation.

I'm not sure but we don't use free server, Golly pay from his own money for it. So why not put that compensation if it will be in some currency, in our server preservation. Maybe even buying some more memory space. And as our illustrious leader say before me, we are not some secret society.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

we also had some plans for an update of the main site and the parts sheets. the money COULD be used to hire somebody to set us up something......

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. (Because that could turn really really ugly, really really fast)
Anyway, I agree with Golly on this one

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

This makes total sense to me. Agreed on all points.

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Worklist: Portuguese Navy and Barnegat class seaplane tenders

I'm ok having my drawings 'commercialized', and while it is ever so true that a few people's generosity in purveying the necessary equipment (I e the servers) has enabled all of us to reach out to a broader forum, as hobbyists, with daytime jobs, we find ourselves occasionally hard pressed with time. Therefore a sharing of any copyright profit ought to be considered. Of course the site, which puts up my drawings, should have a share, but I also think the artists need to be compensated. So, in other words, I'd be a matter of what share goes to whom.

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

As for my thoughts regarding the matter, I totally agree with the above, in as much that we are not a secret society, all of our drawings are in plain sight so to speak. And so we come to the question of compensation for the use of drawings by some party who will make a profit from it. In general, for my part, I've never thought of gaining any money from these drawings, I did those because I like the concept of a data base of uniform scale and style drawings of ships, and I like ships and I like drawing them. These drawings were done in my Free time (emphasis on the word Free), but here we have a representative of a commercial concern, who intends to make money from our drawings, and he has the decency to offer some compensation to the artist of the drawing. As my drawings (like many others here) have been done using parts from other artists, I believe that it will be only fair to compensate the community as a whole, and the idea of paying for the Shipbucket server fees or storage seems only just. To cap it all shortly, if Mr. Bond is willing to pay, and agrees to pay for the servers and/or storage space (exact amount and other details to be decided by the Shipbucket administration team), than I don't see any reason why not allow the use of the drawings, wile keeping in mind the above mentioned restrictions as outlined by the Fair User Agreement and the copyright provisions

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Thank you Kim for the crest

"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

I've followed this discussion with great interest. First of all I will thank Mr. Bond for his acknowledge of our art. It's certainly a praise when someone from a commercial game comes here to us and ask permission to use our drawings with proper credits. I realize there could be a danger for the SB as soon money are involved, but if it could be sorted out in a proper manner where some fee goes to maintenance the SB (I know Gollevainen mentioned he doesn't want any payment, but in this matter I disagree) and some to the relevant artist's it could be an advantage for us all. BUT! It should be done right from the beginning and that - I think - it's the most difficult task to do.

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Work in progress:
DD County Class PNS Babur (1982)(PAK)
FF Type 21 Class D182 PNS Babur (2000)(PAK)
All relevant Coat of Arms

I have a couple of opinions, but they are much the same (sort of) as others mentioned previously. Some hypotheticals, should SB go down a commercial route...
How would prices be negotiated, and who would negotiate them?
If SB were go into business selling pixelart, how would violators of copyright policy be pursued? I'm not sure how the current 'system' works.
Some drawings have several artists in the credit line.

I'll probably post more later. Bed now.

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Jabba's Worklist

Thank you all for your kind words. I think I can answer Jabba's questions.

• Prices: When it comes to using commercial art, "everything's negotiable," but I'll keep it simple: When I first started producing supplements, the going rate for a line drawing was $10 US. We paid that to Weyer's for a bunch of their stuff we used. But that was 1980. Given inflation, I'm willing to offer $30 US for this drawing. That's also about the price of the supplement, so it seems about right. I'm sorry if the amount is less than you might have imagined, but aside from the printer's fee, the development budget for Bywater's War is small - very small. But from your point of view, it's money you were not expecting. It's not a lot, but "a buck is a buck."

It's your decision how to split it up, but my recommendation is a 50/50 split between the artist and SB.

If Novice (or some future artist) wants more, then we can talk. We can always talk. Remember, "everything's negotiable."

I have a PayPal account, which is free to set up and is an easy way to send money internationally. It would be my first choice for sending payment.

One caution: I don't know where Novice lives, but some countries are pretty funny about foreign income. One of our regular authors, who lives in Germany, get his royalties in Clash of Arms merchandise. Why? Because in Germany, if someone receives any foreign income, they are taxed at the highest percentage possible. Not good. Getting paid in kind works for him, since he's a wargamer.

That may not be the case for Novice, but depending on where he lives, he should check his tax code. And Novice may not be a wargamer. Or there may be some other issue, but remember Rule #1: Everything's negotiable.

I also recommend that SB post whatever policy you decide on the FAQ, which is the first place I looked for guidance. Of course, there wasn't any. But new people really do read the FAQ.

• Enforcement of copyrights is up to the rights holder, and I can only speak to US law. If I see someone using my material, I'm responsible for notifying him and telling him to stop. If that doesn't work, and if he's working for a larger organization, or posting it on a website, I go to them and say, "he's using my stuff!" and they make him stop. Hopefully. If that doesn't work, then in the US you can have a lawyer draw up a "Cease and Desist" order, which is a legal notification that you've been a bad boy. If that still doesn't work, then it's time to decide if you want to sue. The tradeoff is measuring the damage you've suffered against the cost to sue.

Realistically, a nonprofit organization like Shipbucket usually wouldn't go past step number two, especially since you'd probably be crossing national boundaries.

• Artist's credits can be as long as needed to make sure that everyone is properly recognized. If there's more than one name, then the credit will have more than one name. And as I included in the example, we can have Shipbucket listed there as well.

That was a long answer, and hopefully a clear one. If not, ask away.