I didn't realize this had just come up today, had been gone for a week or so and thought it had hit somewhere in between.

I would have to vote No given the current options, though I can certainly see how some artists would want this protection. I'm not against artists having the option to do this (even though, honestly, it provides no protection from the thieves that would steal their artwork for money anyway), but I am against forcing it on everyone.

I DO NOT consider people who use my artwork for desktops, learning or anything else, as thieves as I've stated in other threads. I am actually quite honored that they would like it enough to keep it and have offered wallpaper in my gallery at times or made sure the size was right for such paper. I put up artwork to share. As long as my signature stays on it, I'm pretty happy, but if it doesn't, then it's my responsibility and decision on how I would deal with that. If I was truly worried, I wouldn't post at all. I would print them and have a private gallery or website that I could control the distribution via a java solution or some other watermarking system.

Tammy, I have the greatest respect for the administration of Rosity, but I just can't buy the "It's too hard" argument. Having been a programmer practically all my teen and adult life, and a professional internet developer for many years including quite a bit of use of mySQL and HTML, I can't understand how it would be too difficult to offer this as an artist option (or better yet, a picture by picture option). Obviously the pages are served by databases and coding which can make branching decisions, so I'm unclear how adding a flag, like the nudity flag, would be so difficult. True, it's harder then just sticking some HTML in the code template, but really, is it worth alienating lots of folks to save a bit of programming? I wouldn't think so, but then I'm not a mod...

As I said, in lieu of a Yes, and Optional, I'd have to vote No. It's not that I don't support the theory or the artist's right to protection if they so desire it, just the method on which it is thrust upon all of us.

Interestingly enough, Epilogue, which is filled with high quality artwork, has not had to take this approach, either because it was deemed to offer no protection, or they don't feel that it's a necessary step. I don't think cgtalk does this either.