I don't really upload any art on this website anymore because I refuse to jump through their hoops to do so. However, I find this newest twist ...eh.

Anyway, just giving a heads up to anyone who might not know about it yet. This is copied and pasted from another disgruntled user. More than one? Go figure. -goes to check out Shezzyart that everyone's been talking about-

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So then, deviantArt - with no notifications or warnings - throws a share feature onto the site. It allows people to share artwork they like on Facebook and Twitter and MySpace and whatever else they included in the feature. There was no announcement to the feature even being thought up, nevermind when it was put in place, and some artists still don't know about it. It's also, currently, impossible to disable this feature.

There was mass complaint. Many people did not like this new feature. Some of their claims were blatantly stupid, and others were very well founded.
"It will increase art theft!"
"We don't know where our artwork is being shared - why release an incomplete feature?"
"It's my artwork, I don't want it shared!"

The staff at dA took these complaints in there stride with one simple post. One simple post that told everybody disabling this feature would do more harm then good and shoving down our throats why they are doing us some huge favour.

Allow me to tackle this step by step.

1. "It will increase art theft!"

No it won't. Whether the share feature is enabled or isn't enabled, people can right click on your image and "save to disk" or "set as desktop wallpaper". Heck they can even take a screenshot if all of that fails and reproduce it that way.

If anything, the share feature allows people to share your artwork while assuring you get credit and linked back to.

However.

2. "We don't know where our artwork is being shared - why release an incomplete feature?"

This is a problem I agree with. It's all very well assuring us, dA, that we get credit for our artwork, but as of yet we still do not know where our work ends up. This worries me that you would release a feature that enables people to share artwork without the artists permission without giving the artists a way to see where exactly there work is going. I am appalled at how badly this has been thought out.

3. "It's my artwork, I don't want it shared!"

This is entirely true. Believe it or not, deviantArt staff, any work that we produce is artwork we have rights to. While we agree to your terms and conditions regarding the use of this work, publication and all the rest of it, we do not have to agree to having to use a share feature if we do not want to.

You refuse to give us a right to disable this feature and you shove down our throats how bad it would be if we did disable it. But the point is this is our artwork - work which we have legal rights to - and if we do not want it want it shared around the internet, in no way should you force us to have to comply with this new feature.

By posting up your six reasons as to why this new feature is so good and helpful and fine and dandy you act like a parent force-feeding their child their vegetables.

You have still refused to give us the ability to disable this new feature. Our artwork is non of your concern and whether your new feature is beneficial or not we have every right to want to disable the feature should we wish to. It's our artwork after all. Just like people can say that their stock is not to be used for images outside of dA, an artist can say that their work is not to go outside of dA and that is the final word on it. To be taking work outside of dA when the artist states clearly they do not want this is almost as good as theft.

And on a very final note, frankly your tone on this matter is disrespectful. DeviantArt is becomming worse and worse with each new additional change and new feature you put onto the site - and the artists that make your community what it is are clearly expressing a dislike of your new features, and your attitude towards them.

I hope, dA staff, that you aren't wondering why people are leaving DeviantArt for better art sites at such a rapid rate.