Commonsense Copyright Policy

Copyright on the Internet can be a tricky field to navigate. Pragmatically speaking, it might simpler than it first seems -- when you look at how people actully use and share data online.

Giving Artists Credit

The de facto guideline most people and artists on the Internet use is that if you post someone's artwork, always give them proper credit. This forms the general consensus among those who create art as a hobby (many "concept" artists, cosplayers, makeup artists, etc.) and artists who post to personal accounts on sites like Deviantart.

Over the past few years of development, artists and fans consistently echoed that sentiment: it's crucial to credit artists for their work. The vast majority of artists, especially hobbyists and non-professionals, are satisfied with receiving proper credit for their art.

That's part of the reason why all artists are credited here whenever possible, including a direct link to the artist's web page (or, if that's not available, a link to the source page where the material was found).

Our commonsense guideline for all artists at all times: credit all artists and link directly to the artist's page whenever the source can be found.

Contacting Artists

As a general rule based on experience, professional artists almost always provide an email address by which they can be contacted.

AltSciFi contacts professional artists via email when their work is included here. In fact, we have to do this; it's how our online store operates. We don't keep inventory and we have no "products" to "sell". This has been the case from the beginning stages of this project, because AltSciFi is structured to help artists get paid for their work.

Note also that AltSciFi does not conduct professional communications through social media. If you want to contact us, use email.

DMCA Requests and Content Removal

The other de facto standard on the Web concerns content removal. On practically every forum and social media site, a "Digital Millennium Copyright Act", or DMCA, link can be found. This enables content creators to request that their work be removed -- without resorting to mistakenly assuming nefarious intent, leading the artist to embarrass themselves by slandering the website in public instead of handling matters quickly and professionally between the parties involved.

Far from its ominous-sounding name, the DMCA takedown procedure offers sensible guidelines for artists to verify their identity as creators of an original work. When you email us a DMCA notice, we have a clear, concise record of your content removal request.

From the time of a DMCA notice, the usual period before deletion and email response is usually twenty-four to forty-eight hours. In other words, we'll probably respond within a day or two, and almost certainly in less than a week unless extenuating circumstances intervene.

At the top and/or bottom of every page, you'll find links to our copyright and DMCA policies to advise you of where you can submit a content removal request.

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So that's the AltSciFi commonsense copyright policy: we'll try to contact you within the bounds of practicality, and you can request that your work be removed at any time by sending an email that uses the DMCA notice template below.