--- In SkunkworksAMA_at_yahoogroups.com, "Karl Kratt"
<khalfani.flavius_at_...> wrote:
>
> Well, that's not exactly true. Max has a day job as do like 90% of
the
> artists in the fandom. The ones that don't are either homemakers or
are self
> employed or are students.
Hell, I can vouch for this. Case in point: before the internet
became rife with such unsavory practices, I was making enough money
from the production of anthro artwork to the point where a "regular
job" was unnecessary (anyone remember me cranking out 6 or more
folios a year, not to mention a ton of prints and other stuff?) Once
my stuff started getting passed around like a five-dollar whore,
however, sales began dropping noticeably. Hell, the only reason I
had even gotten on the internet in the first place was to find out
who was doing the file sharing. This was back in the late 1990's.
The cost of producing work has gone up over the years, yet I never
increased the price of my work. As an example, one Skunkworks folio
costs me about 11 bucks to make. I wholesale them at a little over
17 dollars. So out of that 25 bucks they retail for? Yeah, I'm
getting about six and-a-half bucks. Multiply that by, say, 50
folios. That's about 300 dollars, which equates to my average hourly
pay for producing the folio (time it takes to draw it and print it)
to only a few cents PER HOUR. Now go ahead and take a bunch of those
possible sales and toss them out the window because some twat decided
to scan the entire thing and share it with his 6 million buddies
online. Doesn't look too prosperous nowadays, does it?
I do work a regular job now (and thankfully, it's still art-
related). I make far more money at that than the anthro stuff, due
to rising production costs and product theft of the latter. As such,
this allows less time for me to draw anthro artwork. Which, in my
book, sucks. The anthro stuff is a lot more enjoyable to draw than
the regular old "mainstream" crap people like to buy. But hey, there
are bills to pay.
It's a bit ironic how the whole mess seems to be one huge circle.
Refusing to pay for someone else's work, pirates cause a loss of
revenue for the artists. The artists then either have to get other
jobs, or cease producing the artwork altogether. Now the pirates are
clamoring for more art from the artist, but it doesn't show up as
frequently anymore. So the pirates continue posting any and all art
they can find from the artist, who, upon seeing this, will often
decide it simply may not be worth it to continue producing the art.
As soon as something new comes out, it is posted within days, if not
hours. And the whole thing repeats again until the artist leaves for
other pastures or goes insane and chainsaws someone. Sad, really.
Personally, I'm all for permanently crippling and/or disabling such
thieves by removing fingers or hands in their entirety. Hell, I'd
even PAY to be able to do that. Unfortunately, that's not allowed in
this country, so there's nothing to do but bitch about it or take the
required steps to protect one's property.
Also, this thread is veering dangerously close to the edge of Flame-
war Cliff. I'm aware there are folks on the group who think pirating
is perfectly okay, and there are others who, like myself, think it
should be rewarded with the death of all you know and love. But do
be careful of where you guide this conversation, as flame-wars really
aren't tolerated on this group and no solution can realistically be
reached with such a diverse and clearly opposing group of ideals from
its members.
--JMH, watching this conversation closely with one finger over the
kill button. But don't worry, my depth perception sucks, so it might
take a few moments for me to hit the damn button. ;P
Received on Thu Jul 24 2008 - 13:16:00 CDT