#do u see where i'm coming from w the 'performing miracles' etc. like i don't actually believe this but it would be a funny conspiracy imo

[sunprophets]

someone needs to start a consipracy theory that mr beast is dajjal i think it would be funny

[play-now-my-lord]

i saw ur post on ip law, piracy, copyright etc. w regards to indie creatives and i want to ask something. i saw a post recently going around with a lot of notes that emphasised this idea that ‘you are not entitled to the labour of an artist’ and if u can’t afford their work u should save up or skip it etc. it seemed convincing because it was phrased in a liberal ‘protect small artists!’ manner. so how would you dispel this idea? is it a half truth or something? it seems wrong but i’m not sure exactly why

the kernel of it is true - artists should be compensated for what they do. I'm a pretty strong believer in not trying to beg art off of my friends or cajole people into lowering prices; if anything my friends who do art set their rates rather low for the amount of work that goes into translating someone's ideas into pleasing artwork. this is, of course, a bit apples and oranges between visual art and writing - because being a writer who doesn't do specialist erotica, I don't actually write on commission. I could, I guess, if someone was truly interested, but it'd be a mite weird, and certainly isn't the main thing I do.

the place I land is that in commissions-facing forms of art, the many forms of labor involved account for the price. an artist working on comms has to communicate frequently, translate from one medium (instructions, often vague ones) to another, and manage people's individual sense of ownership - does this piece go in a portfolio? can it be shown publicly? is it of special sentimental importance to the commissioner, such that they'd prefer it be completely private? These are areas where "emotional labor" or in even some cases stuff that is tantamount to sex work absolutely comes into play.

Another thing to consider: Visual artists will cheerfully perform their actual metier - that is, making visual art - for themselves, for their own satisfaction, to make friends laugh or smile, and in a sense commissioning diverts time that could be spent on the Work towards someone else's design. This isn't to say it's useless to work off of commissions, counterproductive, a waste of time, etc - but outside of a very few people, most artists will not lie in their deathbeds kicking themselves that they didn't spontaneously draw (say) a giant Falco from Starfox fucking a train more often, and money is a fair exchange for this diversion of a human being's limited time on earth, like it is for any other form of labor. (The ideal artist is petit-bourgeois in character - that is, owning all the capital necessary to sell their labor at whatever rates the market will bear - but this isn't really a judgment call, nor is it one-size-fits-all. Prosperous artists tend to be secure and have petit-bourgeois class interests; less prosperous artists tend to rely on other things for income and have different class positions altogether, generally either working-class or lumpen.)

I think the moral obligation of the commissioner is "don't be a jerk", mostly, and to the extent small-time working artists have any, it's towards class consciousness - don't work dogshit cheap for no reason, value your time as you'd see it valued, value the time of other artists as you'd see your own valued.

(ALL THAT SAID, there are plenty of people who do free comms and there's nothing immoral about taking them up on it - sometimes artists do want to stretch their legs outside of their comfort zone and draw new things, and between that and the free publicity, free comms can be a reasonable way to accomplish both. But don't expect miracles, obviously!)