Q: What is the fundamental purpose of the Submission Agreement?

A: The purpose of the Agreement is to lay out what the obligations, reservations, and limitations of deviantART's involvement with your copyrights will be in order to protect us as a company from lawsuits.

Without any agreement at all in place, it would be possible for someone to upload their work and then turn around and sue us for distributing their artwork without permission. While they might not win, we would be forced to defend ourselves against the lawsuit, and that could be costly.

This agreement states what rights you will transfer to us by uploading your art to our servers. It also states other warranties and restrictions and things we cannot be held liable for. For example, it says that we aren't promising that uploading your art to deviantART isn't some kind of promise that you're going to have 500 people look at it before next week. Resultantly, no one could sue us because they DIDN'T get 500 views on their last submission. (This example is not restrictive.)

The Agreement is also intended to specify whose responsibility certain tasks are. For instance, if you have third party obligations on a piece (for example, something you use other people's stock art to make), the agreement specifies that it's the Artist's responsibility to make sure the stock art was paid for or used with permission.

Ultimately, the Agreement is a shield for us against lawsuits. Facetious lawsuits don't always get thrown out and can be costly and expensive. We use the Submission Agreement to close the loopholes that people could have to sue us facetiously and allow us to focus on developing tools for the community to use.

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Q: What's changed in the Submission Agreement as of 3 April 2005?

A: Not much.

The only substantial change is that the original agreement we had written up only applied to digitial distribution via personal computers. The revised agreement has been altered to provide for distribution to all digital devices (such as cellphones, Palm pilots, iPods, etc.)

Other than that, the agreement is largely the same as it has been since 2000. There were some clauses that were clarified. For instance, Section 2 of the Submission Agreement is now much more direct in affirming that the Artist remains the owner of his or her artwork and retains all rights to their work.

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Q: Will deviantART use my work for other projects without my permission? (Section 3.e)

A: No.

A careful reading of the Submission Agreement reveals that we do, in fact, reserve the right to use your artwork in "side projects" like banner ads and brochures about deviantART. However, this is not because we intend to do so without permission.

Quite to the contrary - it's so that when we do approach you about a project like this and get your permission, there's no red tape or paperwork to slow down the process.

Historically, we have always approached artists whenever we want to do something uncustomary with their artwork, whether it's featuring them in a banner ad, including them in a press kit, or showing their art to a huge audience on national television.

Cross Reference: How can I trust deviantART?

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Q: What's all this business about third parties and sublicensing? (Section 3.d)

A: An agreement like the submission agreement is between two parties. In this case, those parties are deviantART and you, the Artist. A third party, therefore, is ANYONE else.

But that's not a complete explanation. There are certain contexts in which the phrase "third party" is used where it means certain things.

For instance, Section 3.d of the Submission Agreement says:
the right to sublicense to any third party any of the foregoing rights in the Artist Materials, or any part or element thereof, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

This means that deviantART has the right to grant AT MOST the rights you have granted to us to other parties. This could include strategic partners or private individuals. Here's a better look at how this clause is employed.

Let's say we create an affiliate program once again for the deviantART Prints Store. This would let me set up my own store at dygel.net from which I can help sell some of my favourite artists' prints. In this scenario, I am a third party and by being a part of the affiliate program, I have been granted a sublicense to display your art within the context of the affiliate system.

A second example would be a system that allows you to download a screensaver of your favourite artwork. When you do that, you will be granted a limited sublicense to display the art you have downloaded on your own computer. You will not be allowed to redistribute that art, though.

One last example is the upcoming deviantMOBILE service, which will allow subscribers to give their audience the option to download their art to a cell phone. deviantART has worked with certain strategic partners to make this technology available to you, and the partners we worked with have a sublicense under the submission agreement. This is how they are able to help us deliver art to cell phones legally.

It's important to note that you still own your art completely and control all the rights to it. If you terminate the agreement and remove your work from deviantART, the sublicenses that have been granted under that agreement also expire.

There is one exception to this, but I will address this under Survival.

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Q: I don't understand the final clause of the Submission Agreement about survival! (Section 14.f)

A: The last clause of the Submission Agreement is about what happens to the agreement after it is terminated by either deviantART or the Artist. It specifies that certain sections of the agreement expire and others do not.

Most of the sections that survive after the agreement is termination deal with liability and warranties. These survive because they're an assurance for us as a company that you won't sue us for "breaking promisies" that were never warrantied and such. This is designed to protect us from frivolous lawsuits.

Section 4.b also survives, and that section says that the Artist waives any claim to any copyrighted works that have been created using your artwork during the term of the agreement. So, if we were to approach you and ask to include your art in a brochure we wanted to hand out at a convention, this is what Section 4.b would apply to - you'd still own your artwork, but we'd own the brochure.

Cross reference: Will deviantART use my work for other projects without my permission?

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Q: How can I trust deviantART?

A: The relationship between deviantART the company and deviantART the community is symbiotic; what's good for you is good for us, and what's good for us is good for you. On the flip side of the coin, the death of the company will result in the death of the community and vice versa. We need each other for survival.

As such, you've got to realize how stupid it would be for us to do anything that would be directly detrimental to artists in the community. The result of us getting in the habit of screwing artists over is that all of you would leave, and the company would fail. As such, there's literally no attraction for us to do something bad with your artwork to "make a quick buck" - making a quick buck for us that way would ensure the destruction of the company.

But, in reality, our relationship with the community is more than just some shaky alliance or a simple truce. Those of us on the administration come from two groups: the ones who built the community or the ones who started in the community. I was a deviant before I was an administrator. This is our home too! The idea that we'd do anything to tear it apart is just silly.

Some people seem to have this picture in their head of DA executives as old men sitting around in a dark smoky men, plotting and scheming. The reality of things is that the average age of deviantART's executives is less than thirty.

We aren't an oil company or a huge energy conglomerate out to screw our customers. We're like Mozilla, Nullsoft, or Napster - what we want to do is provide you with tools to do more things with your art. Our goal is to enable you as artists to do more.

The fact of the matter is that you're not "customers" to us. You're members of this community.

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Q: Can deviantART sell my artwork?

A: Not unless you set up a print account, and even then we can only sell reproduced copies of your artwork.

The Submission Agreement gives deviantART absolutely no authority to sell rights to your artwork either with or without your participation. When you submit to deviantART, you remain the owner of your artwork and all rights to it.

Cross reference: Does deviantART own my art?

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Q: Can deviantART use a loophole in the submission agreement to "sublicense" my artwork for money?

A: No.

All sublicenses to a third party under the Submission Agreement that pertain to distribution will expire when the artist terminates the agreement by deleting their artwork. This means that any sublicensing we do, we have to engineer it so that when you delete it from DA, it's removed from whatever services those third parties are providing.

So, for instance, an advertising agency could not ask us to "sublicense" art to use in ads - if they were to try anything like that, they'd have to change their billboards everytime an artist deletes their artwork.

Furthermore, it should be noted that Sections 3.a and 3.b are limited in scope to digital transmission, manipulation, display, etc. This agreement does not give us permission to print your artwork without an additional agreement, which means we couldn't sublicense the right to print your artwork to anyone.

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Q: What is a "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive" license?

A: The Internet is international, and accessible from just about every country on the planet. Since deviantART is an Internet company, the license granted to us so that we can create thumbnails, display your art and so on cannot be limited by country. Therefore, the license must be worldwide.

Also, since you've come to deviantART because we're offering to host and display your artwork for free, the license must be royalty-free. That means that YOU can't charge US for displaying your work for you.

Non-exclusive means that you can give whatever rights on your artwork to whomever you want, whenever you want. An exclusive agreement would mean that only we could have that right. But this isn't an exclusive agreement, so you're welcome to do what you like with your art - after all, it's YOUR art!

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Q: Can you explain Section 3 in greater detail? It's confusing, and it seems like it gives you a LOT of control over my art!

A: It's actually not very broad at all. Let me go through it subsection by subsection...

Section 3.a
to prepare and encode Artist Materials, or any portion thereof for digital transmission, manipulation and exhibition in any format and by any means now known or hereafter devised;

This allows us to process your artwork into the file formats we'd need to properly display it.

Note that this section only allows us to do this for digital transmission, manipulation, and exhibition. We cannot print your artwork with a supplement agreement.

Section 3.b
to display, copy, reproduce, exhibit, publicly perform, broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute through any electronic means (including analog and digital), and electronically publish any or all of the Artist Materials, including any portion thereof, and to include them in compilations for such purposes, by any and all means and media now known or hereafter devised (for avoidance of doubt, the rights granted to deviantART hereunder include the rights to make Artist Materials available on deviantART Site(s), third-party websites and electronic devices);

This section is the one that allows us to actually showcase your artwork. All of those verbs (display, copy, reproduce, exhibit, publicly perform [think of a Flash file], broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, retransmit, and distribute through electronic means) have to do with showing off your art.

Note that this section only allows us to do this for digital display, etc. We cannot print your artwork with a supplement agreement.

Section 3.c
to modify, adapt, change or otherwise alter the Artist Materials (e.g., change the size) and use the Artist Materials as described in Section 3(b); and

when you upload files, you're only uploading your files. We go to the trouble of making thumbnails and storing smaller JPEG swatches for browse pages and previews. This section is what gives us permission to do that.

Section 3.d
the right to sublicense to any third party any of the foregoing rights in the Artist Materials, or any part or element thereof, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

This section allows us to build tools that will let you do more with your artwork. There are two scenarios to discuss here - end user sublicenses and distribution sublicenses.

If we were to create a tool that let users download their favourites as a screensaver. When the user downloads your art in a package like that, he or she will get a sublicense that authorizes him to display all of the art in the screensaver on their computer, phone, palm pilot, iPod, or whatever device it was downloaded to. But all they can do is display it - they can't redistribute it. This is an end-user sublicense.

The other kind of sublicense is with a company as the third party - these are distribution sublicenses. Sometimes, we work with strategic partner companies to help us develop technology that will drive the tools we build for artists. For instance, the deviantMOBILE technology is built with the cooperation of a partner company. Per section 3.d, they are granted a sublicense to your art that allows them to help us distribute and display your artwork.

They can't do whatever they like with your art, and when we do business with companies like these, it's always going to be so that the license only applies to how they're helping us. So, companies that help us out with building technology won't have free reign to do whatever they want with your art either.

Cross Reference: What's all this business about third parties and sublicensing? (Section 3.d)

Section 3.e
Artist hereby disclaims any and all right, title, or interest in any and all material with which Artist Materials may be combined or into which all or any portion of Artist Materials may be incorporated. As used in this Agreement, the term "Artist Materials" means Artist's name(s) (including professional names), trademarks, trade names, likenesses, photographs, biographical materials, artwork, liner notes, and other graphical or textual materials that Artist uploads to deviantART, and any and all "skins," computer-generated images or other artwork or images that Artist submits to deviantART.

This section pertains to any works created by us that INCORPORATE your artwork. For instance, if we ask you if we can use your artwork in a brochure we're making or some promitional materials for the website and you agree to let us, Section 3.e states that the derivative work that we create is owned by us.

You'll still own the piece of art you created, but we will own the copyright on the brochure or the promotional materials.

Cross Reference: Will deviantART use my work for other projects without my permission? (Section 3.e)

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Q: Can deviantART do whatever it wants with my art?

A: Absolutely not. The Submission Agreement is fairly restrictive in what it allows us to do. The terms that are in the Agreement are sufficient to allow us to do things like make thumbnails of your art, display it, allow people to download it, and things like that.

In fact, Section 2 of the Agreement states clearly that you are the owner of your artwork and you retain all the rights that go with your work. What you grant us is a limited license we need to perform the tasks we've told you we'll do for you.

Cross Reference: How can I trust deviantART?
Cross Reference: Can you explain Section 3 in greater detail? It's confusing, and it seems like it gives you a LOT of control over my art!
Cross Reference: Can deviantART sell my artwork?

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Q: What is this section about "indemnity" about? (Section 8)

A: One of the definitions of indemnity - the one that best applies here - is "a legal exemption from liability for damages."

So, let's say you post pictures that slander your neighbor. He finds out about them and sues you. Section 8.a says that, even though you used deviantART in the process of slandering your neighbor, deviantART isn't responsible. That puts the responsibility of your actions at DA on you.

Now let's say that you're a REAL awful person and what you're posting to deviantART is child pornography. Section 8.b says that the feds will be knocking on YOUR door, not ours.

Now let's say you post artwork you don't have a right to post. Section 8.c says that, since you misrepresented yourself and your right to post that artwork, that's your responsiblity. So if the actual copyright owner wants to sue someone, it'll be you, not DA.

Basically, Section 8 says that you're responsible for your actions. We give you tools, and if you do illegal things with them, you're going to be the one to pay for your abuses.

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