First of all, I've let this issue rise too far without addressing it. And deviants continue to come to me asking for my perspective on this. When Orphaned Works popped up as a topic of discussion again a little while back we checked immediately with our lawyers and it was determined by them that this wasn't something we should be seriously concerned with. So my view has been to let the pieces fall where they may knowing that $lolly and $Moonbeam13 have made numerous attempts to explain the situation to deviants one by one.

deviantART takes very seriously the rights of artists and the protection of their work. We have every interest in making you aware of things you should be concerned with and if there is a threat that we perceive we will not mince words in making you aware. If something was of the level of concern some believe this Orphaned Works situation to be, we'd probably take the header of deviantART, place a red bolded link in it and require everyone to read it and take action.

But alas, that's not the case here.

Please, please, educate yourself. I see many posts on this subject that are full of fear. And fear is contagious, so it is spreading. These posts are in some instances just plain foolish and uninformed. I don't know if it is that people just enjoy the drama or what.

Officially, Daniel ( $realitysquared ) has reviewed and responded to this situation on behalf of deviantART with a very informative Journal entry that you should all read.

Orphan Works Act of 2008 - READ THIS! BE INFORMED!



p.s. That aside, thank you for all of your awesome feedback on Sleek beta testing, and I hope you have enjoyed watching us hard at work fixing the many bugs that are being reported. We continue to do so, so keep checking in on progress! See you on #seniors