Where does everyone get their cover art?

[AliceShiki]

To make it short, theft. Even now, on a quick look, of the 16 fictions visible on the recent series and trending lists, 8 use someone else's artwork without permission. That's half of them. Saying "I took the picture from google images" in the description doesn't somehow make it okay. It's a copyright infringement, and unfair and damaging to the artist. I've seen some authors here make big bucks each month through patreon, using gorgeous but stolen artwork to promote their stories. Covers do sell books, as everyone well knows, but even a child should also see why it's wrong to make bank on another person's work.

Strangely enough, the people running this website have decided not to care or do anything about it. Even though the website owner can be held legally responsible for the content hosted on his/her site. Besides the original artists and the young users who aren't aware of what they're doing, this is pretty bad also for those who work hard to make their covers and post legitimate works among the heaps of frauds. Amateur covers can never rival professionals in terms of visibility and popularity, even though the professionals who made those covers never allowed their imagery to be used.

Tony doesn't own any of the novels posted in here, the one that owns them are their respective authors. I doubt he is in any legal trouble for allowing people to upload images they don't own to his site.

If this kind of thing was an issue, no forum would have access to image uploading features ever.

 

[Nyan_sempai]

Hello again, another noob question here. I see all these amazing covers/cover photos for people's stories and I am wondering where ya'll are getting them? Are they free? Are the custom? Are all of ya'll super skilled in writing AND graphic design (if so that is sooo unfair :( ) Please share your secrets!

I was told that I could try to start taking requests for cover art but I don't think I am ready yet...

 

[NCKZMA]

pixiv.net artstation.com

 

[ImFiction]

Tony doesn't own any of the novels posted in here, the one that owns them are their respective authors. I doubt he is in any legal trouble for allowing people to upload images they don't own to his site. If this kind of thing was an issue, no forum would have access to image uploading features ever.

As said, technically, the site owner is responsible for the content that is posted on his site, regardless of who uploads it, as it is his service and all is done with his permission. Most forums have rules for these things and moderators who ensure that the rules are followed, and who delete illegal content. Of course, there are a lot of shady sites out there, who don't do anything. If enough complaints are made by copyright holders, they will be shut down. Sometimes, the sites can go unnoticed for many years. It's a gamble, really. Naturally, the bigger a service grows, the greater the chance that action is taken against them, as often happens with sites that host manga scanlations, for example.

 

[AliceShiki]

As said, technically, the site owner is responsible for the content that is posted on his site, regardless of who uploads it, as it is his service and all is done with his permission. Most forums have rules for these things and moderators who ensure that the rules are followed, and who delete illegal content. Of course, there are a lot of shady sites out there, who don't do anything. If enough complaints are made by copyright holders, they will be shut down. Sometimes, the sites can go unnoticed for many years. It's a gamble, really. Naturally, the bigger a service grows, the greater the chance that action is taken against them, as often happens with sites that host manga scanlations, for example.

I don't think you got my point... Literally every big forum in existence, that allows the upload of images, breaks someone's copyright with the upload of images to the forum a few dozen times per day... Does it matter? No.

And did you ever read the image uploading rules of pretty much any forum out there? 99% of the time it just says: "No NSFW nor racist images" or something along those lines. Copyright protection has never been a worry for anyone in internet forums.

And why is that? Because nobody (including the site's owner) is in danger of anything because of randomly uploaded images by the users of the site.

Things change a bit when you go novel writing because you're now using someone else's copyright to promote your own work and stuff, so you are liable to receive a takedown notice or worse... But Tony? The site's owner? He is safe. You uploading someone else's copyrighted material to his site is no different than you doing so in a random internet forum, which has never been an issue.

 

[CautiousTitan]

I don't think you got my point... Literally every big forum in existence, that allows the upload of images, breaks someone's copyright with the upload of images to the forum a few dozen times per day... Does it matter? No.

And did you ever read the image uploading rules of pretty much any forum out there? 99% of the time it just says: "No NSFW nor racist images" or something along those lines. Copyright protection has never been a worry for anyone in internet forums.

And why is that? Because nobody (including the site's owner) is in danger of anything because of randomly uploaded images by the users of the site.

Things change a bit when you go novel writing because you're now using someone else's copyright to promote your own work and stuff, so you are liable to receive a takedown notice or worse... But Tony? The site's owner? He is safe. You uploading someone else's copyrighted material to his site is no different than you doing so in a random internet forum, which has never been an issue.

I agree. Tony should be fine. The author will most likely receive a takedown notice if the owner finds it. Since SH isn't widely famous, it doesn't have to worry about that issue for now. As it grows, the takedowns will most likely increase

 

[SleepingFox]

As said, technically, the site owner is responsible for the content that is posted on his site, regardless of who uploads it, as it is his service and all is done with his permission. Most forums have rules for these things and moderators who ensure that the rules are followed, and who delete illegal content. Of course, there are a lot of shady sites out there, who don't do anything. If enough complaints are made by copyright holders, they will be shut down. Sometimes, the sites can go unnoticed for many years. It's a gamble, really. Naturally, the bigger a service grows, the greater the chance that action is taken against them, as often happens with sites that host manga scanlations, for example.

I don’t know where you got your information on copyright.

Based on my understanding, website owners are not responsible for user generated content. As long as they aren’t publishers who (materially) screen everything on their site.

Otherwise YouTube would be sued left and right.

Now, if the actual owner sends them a take down request and they ignore it, then they are held legally liable (responsible).

Normally speaking, though, only the user uploading the material is legally liable for copyrighted material.

If you want to actually learn about copyright, I suggest you watch something like ‘lawful masses’ (on YouTube) who is an actual copyright lawyer trying to spread accurate information.

Edit: Scribbly is protected under Section 230: The Communications Decency Act which “... grants interactive online services of all types, including blogs, forums, and listservs, broad immunity from tort liability so long as the information at issue is provided by a third party.” (http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-under-communications-decency-act)
And the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) providing limited liability for online service provides.

(Sec 230 doesn’t affect copyrighted material, however DMCA does.)

If this didn’t exist, it would be too easy for users hostile to a service to just upload copyrighted material maliciously and the service provider would be hit with countless copyright claims.

 

[RoseRogan]

I was told that I could try to start taking requests for cover art but I don't think I am ready yet...

Well I wish you the best of luck in that! I'm sure you will know best when you are ready

 

[Jemini]

Me, I just pulled a stock photo off Canva and then superimposed some lettering over it. I have since started making some money in donations, so now I'm looking into getting some artwork from other artists, and will likely have a cover art made once I have enough of the core characters given images.

 

[tahu653]

i commision artists, and on some places, like artists&clients, you can easily set budget, time until needed and more. it makes it nice, easy to do, and helps supports artists directly!

 

[Terok]

Mine is just photoshopped google images. Honestly, just use something that fits the theme of your story. I've seen some covers that literally used stick figures and had a high count, so go nuts.

 

[BenJepheneT]

i draw on twigs and use my sony ericson flip phone 240p camera

 

[Khiricastares]

Seduce an artist with sweet yuri. Or else ask artists if you can use their works, a lot of the time many of them are fine with it.

 

[Geek_Aflame]

I downloaded a background picture from https://unsplash.com/ (the best free stock photo website I know) and created the cover in Canva using a book cover template. My current series cover is my favourite so far as I feel I've found the perfect photo and title font.

 

[DekuKurohi]

I draw them myself using ibisPaint X, not exactly good looking but at least it’s my own covers for my own stories.

 

[ImFiction]

Otherwise YouTube would be sued left and right.

Youtube has in fact been sued several times over copyright issues, which a simple google search will tell you. Tons of videos are deleted each day, because according to the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, the service provider is obligated to do something about it if users specifically inform them of infringing content.

But I'm not here to debate law with anybody, or demand SH to do anything. I'm no police and it's a pain. I was just wondering if anyone here is even aware of what's going on. It's been made quite clear that whoever runs this place knows and doesn't care. It's then up to each user to ask themselves how they feel about that. I personally won't be posting here anymore after this. Because if other creators' works are free game, then what protection do I have? Or you?

 

[tiaf]

Youtube has in fact been sued several times over copyright issues, which a simple google search will tell you. Tons of videos are deleted each day, because according to the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, the service provider is obligated to do something about it if users specifically inform them of infringing content.

But I'm not here to debate law with anybody, or demand SH to do anything. I'm no police and it's a pain. I was just wondering if anyone here is even aware of what's going on. It's been made quite clear that whoever runs this place knows and doesn't care. It's then up to each user to ask themselves how they feel about that. I personally won't be posting here anymore after this. Because if other creators' works are free game, then what protection do I have? Or you?

The site owner is just one person atm. Of course, if the rightful copyright owner makes a complaint or someone reports it, then Tony will remove the content. It's not that he doesn't care, but checking every cover of copyright is too much of work for one person, don't you think?

Don't blame the owner for the lack of moral people have. Users are and should be very aware that using other people's creations is wrong/illegal. But tbh, as long as the rightful owner doesn't make a loss, most wouldn't care. At least I wouldn't, but there are always petty people yk.

In the end, the moment you post something on the internet, there will always be the possibility that people will use it without your consent. Whether you post on ScribbleHub or not is still your decision. However, the issue with stolen covers is a problem every publishing site faces, not just scribblehub.

But we on ScribbleHub at least have a reasonable owner who cares about the users and the site. I've never met such a chill person as Tony and the horror stories of other site's mods make me reluctant to post anywhere else for future projects.

 

[AliceShiki]

Youtube has in fact been sued several times over copyright issues, which a simple google search will tell you. Tons of videos are deleted each day, because according to the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, the service provider is obligated to do something about it if users specifically inform them of infringing content.

But I'm not here to debate law with anybody, or demand SH to do anything. I'm no police and it's a pain. I was just wondering if anyone here is even aware of what's going on. It's been made quite clear that whoever runs this place knows and doesn't care. It's then up to each user to ask themselves how they feel about that. I personally won't be posting here anymore after this. Because if other creators' works are free game, then what protection do I have? Or you?

All webnovel platforms in the world have tons of stolen covers on them and in 0% of them the owners care about it. If you don't want to publish in a site that allows stolen covers, then the only option you have is to stop publishing webnovels altogether. (Or publish in your own personal blog I guess)

The owners of any webnovel platform do not have the time nor the resources to manually check each and every cover submitted to them to see if they infringe copyright, and if they do, to ask the author if they got written permission to use said cover or not... It's far too much work for basically no return.

If the owner of the copyright of any stolen cover wishes to have it taken down, it shouldn't be that hard for them to get this done. And it's definitely a lot easier and time-efficient to wait for a takedown notice than to actively try finding out if the cover of each and every novel is stolen or not.

As for what protections me and you have? Try reading those:

About Us | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

Help Center | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

Terms of Service | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

Privacy Policy | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

They should answer your question.

 

[Silvareiel]

I uses ClipStudio Paint I've used photoshop and gimp in past, but since I tried ClipStudio I became an absolute fan. ^_^

 

[FantasyDeath]

You can find legal images that are free for commercial use with no attribution required here:

Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash

Beautiful, free images and photos that you can download and use for any project. Better than any royalty free or stock photos.

unsplash.com

https://pixabay.com