Blog & Updates

Wednesday 30 June
This weeks Oekaki challange is "Study of Emotion"
Over the past two weeks I've been working on brushes in any spare time:
They are not for public download unless I earn more than 30$ this summer in my webshop (not likely) because they took so much work but friends may request a brush or two via email.
Celestial (5 brushes) includes those used on the summer contest (2), glowworms, glimmer and deepspacebubble
Bubbles (14 brushes) includes realistic (5), fizz (2), tiny (3), misc (4).
I've got some public download sets coming up for you soon though: Roses and Line effects (criss cross/squares...) and possibly butterflies (all sets need completing)
Huggles to everyone, I havn't been around much I know ^^;; *usual excuses of crazy life* =p
Other updates:
Webshop new layout (peach flowers) and new customizable layouts to purchase.
New Qbee patches
I've put aside some neopets items (faeries, etc... see saffiechan's shop) for shadow-wings contests (as alternatives to Gaian prizes) so if you are running an oekaki contest contact me via oekaki-mail.I'll get some more soon as I have a few neopoints spare and nothing to do with them =p
Oh that's an idea...making a blinkie brush set (from the rainbow maker)... it's an open door for major plagiarism and copycat bmakers though ne? ^^;;;;
Can't be bothered anyway ^^; ...so hot..so tired =p it's 35° celcius average this week (= very hot for those of you who use farenheit =p) *melts into a puddle*
Much wub to you all <3 <3


Saturday 26 June
happy birthday to Chibi! I hope you have a wonderful year full of blessings and good suprises! thankyou for being a lovely staff member and pen friend. Many huggles and wishes from *saffy* Hugs to all


Tuesday 22 June
Aurélie sent me a cute Snoopy in a car with sweeties and this postcard *waiii*
If you look closer you will see that they are made out of various veggies: can you guess which?
I also suddenly had a flash inspiration for her Bday present which i'd been fretting about for ages so thats cool- no clues because she may (though I doubt it) read this.
I later made another doll/sprite base: It's small enough to fit in a 100/100 icon too.
I'll try and get round to posting my sprite bases and this new one in various skin colours (asian, africain, northern, southern) on a special page.
In the meantime if you use this base, please let me know (comment or guestbook) and credit suppi.net ^_^ Thankyou.
Genki Base (male and female)
This weeks Oekaki Challenge is Study of Story: using the animation tool - Pop by Shadow-Wings.net if you have a minute to look at the short likle doodle videos people have been making.
Hugs


Tuesday 22 June
Recieved a new review and worked to fix any bugs found by the reviewer.
See Review + comments (and Updates to SLG)
More news later (s-w.net related)
Huggles to all ^_^
*buzzy wuzzy*


Friday 18 June
Disabled neomails and neofriends on my neopets account- I'm getting too many neomails about the faerie pets (I have two - a faerie Kau and a faerie Shoyru - painted by the labray) I <3 them and no I don't want to give them away - I'm not terribly rich either (70k) see I worked a year to purchase the labray and that's what got them painted!
Poor Chibi must have it worse - she won the lottery 2Mil and it's notorious for attracting wierdos who look up who won and them bombard them with emails ^^;
I've also updated the FAQ, Credits, Contact, Doodle + Sitey pages.
This week has been the week of the nutty emails... must be the season! Whether its lawsuit threats, lab map requests, graphic requests, freak scares, wierd sign ups at anti-hentai with no comments + no website, spammage on the guestbook...*Aaaah they're after me!!! lol*
Um all that to say that neomails are disabled and that my spam filters are stronger ^^;;
Huggles


Wednesday/thursday 14 June
-Revamped Suppi fanlisting: version 3: "Suppi, How you get so fly?"
-Updated the porfolio
-Drew an oekaki for the first time in ages (Gizmo from gremlins ^_^<3)
-Added a new minikaki board for people who wish to draw/doodle under half hour on the timer (this board only stores ten piccies)

VOTE (see below for more): Should I keep the manga galleries up or remove them? Keep them up despite the Clamp request or remove them and leave only anime images online for CCSakura fans to see?
You can vote without giving your reasons if you want but let me know what you think!

Edit: thankyou everyone for your advice and support ^_^ Huggles


Sunday 13 June
-Wonderful visitors: Jess and Kyoko
-New Fanart by Ruby (see fans)
-2 new Qbee patch trades
-New award from Mazzie ^^
-Created 6/14 custom graphic prizes (see winners)
-New Anti-Hentai Article by Kinko Blast (see AHC)

Updates: I just had to post this:
I recieved this email earlier this evening
pictures do have copyrights stupid!!!!! >=[
hello, i was just looking at your oekaki site and i noticed that your picture (I think this refers to the top image here) looked very familiar and then i saw a picture from the anime Serial Experiments Lain , this one *shows pic of lain holding her head in her hands* and i also noticed that the hands are the same.You copied this picture and i know it because the hands are exactally the same. Yeah sure you added different eyes but still you copied the picture and you need to make your own and put it on your page insted of copying someone elses. It's kind of stupid if you thought that no one would notice because i did. Oh yeah..isn't lain copyrighted? That means it's illegal to copy unless you have permission from the actual artist... hope you don't get caught.....
feel free to right me back although you might not want to say anything because i will report you and that could mean jail for you.
~¿ § Jenni § ¿~
My Reply
Hi Jenni!
Which picture do you mean? This one? (points to top image of s-w.net)
It comes from usenet, I have no idea who created it. I don't think it's Lain though even if it's the same position. I think the creator probably used that lain picture as a reference to draw her hand though now you mention it.
This is the original:*shows original*
This is my own personal version (for my blog) *shows edited version with blue eyes, stars in hair and pale skin*
The Internet policy on distribution of anime images is the same as with celebrity images. It is allowed for non commercial purposes. (however If you sell images of a celebrity or an anime character or use them for your paid subscription magazine you can be fined) But for fansites, layouts, avatars, internet graphics etc it is widely tolerated. Because it promotes the celeb or anime and no money is involved.
Most fan sites will have a disclaimer stating that they are not affiliated with the anime and do not own any part of it.
Non edited images belong to anime company/celeb/film company.
Any edited images belong to their creator and to the anime company/celeb/film company.
Any fan-arts and oekaki arts belong to their creator only, even if they represent a celeb or character.(Belong to=copyrighted to)
Examples:
http://always.ejwsites.net/ (Elijah wood fansite-1500 images of him and many more edits)
http://kawaiisakurashrine.com (Sakura fansite)
http://www.cyberia-anime.com/ (Lain fansite)
http://www.cjas.org/~leng/open.htm (another lain fansite)
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/ (Harry potter fansite)
Many fan sites are actually visited by the celebs or creators themselves who want to know how the fans feel and appreciate the free publicity and fan support. The only cases of copyright enfringment were a few years ago when Walt Disney asked for people not to use their artwork and emailed a few sites that were distibuting animated gifs (not fansites) to ask them to remove their galleries... the webmasters did and there were no lawsuits.
http://allearsnet.com/ is a fansite that is legal and has disney pictures up. Believe me if disney had wanted people not to use their images anymore they would have asked this site owner to remove them.
For the image above: it does not belong to the companies who created Lain, it belongs solely to the artist who drew her. If this person ever requests it, I will remove the image. The only legal threat I will ever be under would be from the artist who drew the image and even then: only if they had asked me to remove it and refused, if i claimed it as my own creation or made money from selling it.
Copyright enfringment is only valid if you are saying you drew the image yourself or making money from someone elses work.
Shadow-wings is my only non-fansite, it's dedicated to allowing people to create an express themselves. We use unknown anime fanarts for the layouts or there would be a disclaimer. I have done lots of legal research on the subject. In some cases it may not be legal to use copyrighted images but it is tolerated and even appreciated (in the case of fansites who are basically free advertisments) by most companies.
Please don't email people with aggressive letters.
It's not fair to assume things and it's very rude.
What we do is legal: I never claimed to own that picture, The person who drew it did not steal the image they just drew someone else with the same hand position and even if they had reproduced lain, even if they'd taken a lain picture and colored it: It's still legal. I won't go to jail, the webmasters of those fansites won't and the artist who drew it won't either.
However you could get lawsuits for harrasment if you email someone less nice-tempered than me calling them "stupid".


If shadow-wings is accountable for a fanart vaguely related to an anime then what would this person think of this site or any of our fansites!

=======================================

The email did make me think again of the copyright laws surrounding anime.
It has bothered me for two years now, since I found out that the Clamp group requested that people stop circulating the scans...I've hesitated about taking down the manga scan galleries ever since....

(May be rewritten later as i find more info and make it more concise)
You see my problem is that I became a fan BECAUSE of seeing those manga artworks online.

Just how many of you went on to buy merchandise or the manga for your fave series AFTER seeing the scans or images online? I know that for me, it was definitly the net that made me love CCSakura: The french TV version had annoying voices and the picture was grainy but I thought it was cute, did a internet research and fell on some CCSakura images (notably the one with Sakura and Tomoyo in kimonos surrounded by glow-worms which is still my favorite)
If it wasn't for the CCSakura sites (Ann's CCS shrine, Michaels CC and Cherry Blossom Festival) I would never ever of known about the third series, the soundtrack, the movies or the manga. They never mentioned it on TV or on the official TV channel's website! The merchandise was not available at all at that time - even now there isn't much.
Another personal example is Haibane Renmei - I saw the images on a website, I fell in love with it, couldn't purchase it, so got the fansubs, loved it even more and will buy the complete VHS set if ever it gets licenced in france. What's illegal or wrong with that?

I think that especially with anime, the fans have done all the work, the anime companies have saved millions of dollars in advertising and marketing because the fans spread the word via fan sites, fan galleries, fan subs, lobbying and harrassing their stores/TV to get anime/manga in our own countries. I wonder exactly how many anime fans found out (or found out more) about their favorite anime via the web and then went on to purchase the merchandise once it was possible from our countries and thus supported the anime industry. How many of us Sakura fans are fans because of the net? So many of us only had access to cardcaptors and would probably not have been big fans if we hadn't found out about CCS the uncut version or the manga.

If it's illegal, then where are the lawsuits for the massive anime sites that are around (some of them even making money from them). Even one lawsuit would make us all think twice: because we webmasters, are for the most of us, dedicated fans who just want to share the love.
For example: It would of taken Nelvana only five minutes to track down the major CCSakura sites and email the webmasters requesting them to remove images. There were a maximum of 20 english speaking CCS sites at that time ... but they didn't and they don't have a clear notice to webmasters on their official website either (It basically only says "Don't use stuff from our website")

So I don't know if it's legal for us anime webmasters to have anime pictures, wallpapers even anime avatars, it may even be technically illegal but we are left in doubt.... Intentionally? Maybe because we are cheap (free) advertisers who also buy anime and get our friends to buy it! Maybe because they can't be bothered to email us or let us know!

What are your thoughts on this as anime fans and anime webmasters? (comment below)

=======================================

Clamp did let us know about the manga artwork, They make it very clear on their website that they don't want it posted or edited.
I've kept it up because no-one out of Japan would know about it unless its posted here or on other fansites but I'm willing to remove it if you think it's wrong (see below)

The Clamp-net.com legal disclaimer doesn't however mention the anime art, screencaptures or merchandise photos etc... So what do we do about them??

I would like you guys to vote, and if you think it's wrong then the manga galleries will be removed from SLG:
VOTE: Should I keep the manga galleries up or remove them? Keep them up despite the Clamp request or remove them and leave only anime images online for CCSakura fans to see?
You can vote without giving your reasons if you want but let me know what you think!

Huggles
*Torn*


Thursday 10 June
CONTEST OVER!
Counted up the votes, created the awards and blinkies, posted the results...
Hop over to the contest to check it out!
The cute flower blinkies were Chibi's idea *Arigato!*
This contest was really good - I'm always taken back by the talent of you wonderful guys. Even those who didn't win! ^^ Thankyou everyone for joining in! (^_^)
Gotta go: see below for job list/future updates
Wubwub to yall
*still buzzing*


Tuesday 8 June
I am absolutely overloaded!!
Some of the many updates over these past few days
-Created a button webset for butterflycash.com
-Wonderful visitors: Ryui and Beatrix4
-4 new affiliates to the John Bender Fanlisting
-New Qbee patches and checked for broken links
-Checked all links (slg/joined/webbie/blinkie) and removed 404s
-Updated all affiliate links (check out Sakura Cafe and Cardcaptor Studio who have gorgeous new layouts)
-Sakura/Yiyi sent in some cool information about Clamp's works (see info)
-New Challenge over at the Oekaki: Konoko
-Removed broken contest links on Splash page
-Current Contest vote status: 17/20 vote forms recieved

Over the next few days I will be totally preoccupied with CONTEST STUFF:
Creating the winner awards, Uploading the prizes, Creating the winner sig sets and almost 40 character blinkies, Emailing everyone, Posting results etc...
Please don't expect anything else from me as I will be too busy for it (T_T)

To do list: Update portfolio, Create ready made websets for the Shop, Create Butterfly Tube and Brush set, Sort through images on computer,, Sort out fonts (create fave font reference?).
mega huggles to everyone *wubwubs you*
*busy buzzy bee*


Saturday 5 June
The last deadline for sending in your entries is midnight tonight (neopets standard time)
Then it will be time for the jury to vote (more details in the email arriving later)
Joanna has kindly offered to help me count up the votes so if the jury reply quickly we should have the winners up sooner than last year!
New Mini Sites
-The official (approved today!) John Bender Fanlisting (from the movie: "The Breakfast Club")
-A ittle web design shop to get some pocket money (ie: Spending on fansubs for Joanna and hosting for me). I've had my first client today ^_^.
Huggles to all.
Ps: Big kawaii Huggles to SailorSakura (yes i did recognize you ^^!), Huggles to Kira-chan! and Mazzie..I'm currently harrassing a parent to get to the post office *hassle hassle*


Tuesday 1st June
Archived May's updates
Added new contest entries
New fan wallpaper from Vicki (see fans)
Wonderful visitors: Chibi Cindy and mei Jing