Cyn 52 Share Posted November 5, 2017 I'm a celebrity FC fan, I'll admit it. I have my favourites, too, mostly because my characters have been a part of my life for a long time and I can't see them as anyone else. I like the visual aspect and I love it when my members bring in someone who isn't classically good looking because it adds variety. I especially like using plus sized models <3 If a site was perfect for me but didn't have FCs? I'd probably still join, but knowing me I'd have some sort of image in my signature anyway. It helps me as I write to visualise who my character is interacting with without having to refer to the apps. My memory isn't the best, I'm getting older, so it's nice to have a quick reference. Personally, I have never looked at a face and expected them to act a certain way because of some role they've had. I'm also not a fan of pic shipping even though I know others are. Maybe it helps because my site is 18+ but most of my members are there to write, not fangirl over the pretty faces, lol 1 Find me on my sites! The Next Incantation :: The Last Island Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deep Sea 326 Share Posted November 5, 2017 Well, this thread has pretty much sold me on not bothering with faceclaims for my board, lol. It's just too much effort and at the end of the day, I don't want anyone joining who isn't willing to write/read descriptions anyways. 4 Glub glub. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quell 249 Share Posted November 5, 2017 7 hours ago, Morrigan said: Oh you're adorable..... I read everything from my PoV. No matter what celeb, no matter what description.... no matter what... My version circumvents yours. However. If you allow celeb interpretations I will likely use them. The thing is you can't say "he frowned crookedly" and have Karl Urban as the playby because he doesn't actually frown crookedly. I'll be honest, when I read books, I replace them with celebs for myself. Drizzt Do'Urden would go Liam Hemsworth.... Super slender. Super sleek. Give him purple skin and I'm sure he could pull it off. This is fascinating to me... Like you kind of imagine the actor playing the role? That's so cool. That makes FCs actually make more sense to me. (I'm very visual, but I never use actors to portray characters when I read for fun unless I saw the movie first. Like if you asked me to describe or draw Valentine Morgenstern, he would look nothing like the actors who have previously played him.) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuki 0 Share Posted November 5, 2017 It depends on the person. Being a writer, I believe that character imagery can be just as perfectly depicted and painted with words as well as faces. However, truth be told, I probably wouldn't join a board that didn't use play-bys or face-claims, because I like to have a visual for the character I'm playing. It's also an easier way to find pictures of and portray "your character", for other people to understand what your character looks like. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webs 14 Share Posted November 5, 2017 I find face claims are a little necessary to my roleplaying needs, even if I'm not actually using them in something - I'm still basing it off of a celebrity. However, I feel like there have to be some kinds of rules to ensure that images aren't just creepshots/taken without the permission of the person. There are celebrities who request for themselves or their children that they aren't used in roleplay, though most of the time this refers to using them in fake life roleplays. Like Tsuki said, I like having the visual, and it helps people to easily picture you. You can't constantly describe your character in every single thread as being X or Y - yeah, the little things can be mentioned, how they smile, what their hair looks like today, what colour their eyes are as they look or express something, what they're wearing - because it would get tiresome. A face claim represents the appearance of your character as a constant, so you don't have to remind people what they look like. That said, I think sometimes people can get a little too... perfect about their face claims. You can write a character having particular scars or tattoos without finding a face claim who has the exact same. Not everybody has flawless skin, most images of face claims involve makeup. You're not going to find many pictures of them with a particular colour dyed hair, because most face claims just don't dye their hair or only do it for specific roles / shows / photoshoots. That's something you can write in. I've seen one person in the past drop a character because the face claim didn't have the right hair style, and they couldn't find one who had the style they were after on a high-res image. I think it all depends on what you're after. There are people who prefer only using animanga face claims, and others like myself who focus more on real people representing our character's appearance. 1 RULES :: RATIOS :: FACE CLAIMS :: HANDBOOK :: APPLICATION Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherstone 69 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 (edited) @webs you know what weirds me out a bit? That we're overly concerned with a celebrity saying they don't like being used for RP (even when, like in a case I read about, it's someone who signed a model release and thus has almost no saying in what happens later), while the actual issue is that those pictures belong to a photographer who, if they decide they care, could 1) trace them just as I can do with 30 seconds of retro-search on google and 2) ask money for it and/or get your site closed because it's violating ToS. (Yes, posting copyrighted stuff violates ToS just like posting smut on Proboards. Neither makes you a bad guy, both are equal grounds to shut down your site. Perception is very different, though, for Reasons). Then again, common sense says 99% of fashion fotographers don't give a damn, and those pics that are plastered all over tumblr and 85 other RPs are most likely safe in practical terms. Then you get the player who crops the watermark out of a pic that has a freakin' (high) price and a very visible link to buy it. True story - I found out entirely by chance because I was looking where images came from, out of curiosity. I couldn't care less whether it's ethical or not, I don't care if the photographer is charging too much and if information wants to be free, what I'm saying is that a case like that is precisely the scenario where a photographer is likely to find you and kick your ass. So should I run around retro-searching all avatars and saying, "hm, this is copyrighted but nobody seems to care, I guess" and "hm, this one is legally the same, but the photographer gives me a more proactive vibe so please remove it"? I dunno, I'd rather have more clear-cut rules - for the same reason everyone freaks out if you "steal" a drawing, but photos are okay because they're not TrueArt and are apparently public domain even when they have watermarks and big warning signs all over the place. This is a bit of a digression since the topic was on celebs, but it plays its part too, as I'm quite protective of my sites and to say it all of money and peace of mind. Edited November 5, 2017 by featherstone UNMASQUED Vampires are real. Now the world knows about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webs 14 Share Posted November 5, 2017 @featherstone That's actually a really interesting subject - they hold the copyright ultimately. Which is why I actually tend not to use images from photoshoots or the like, I use screencaps (unless I can't find a suitable screencap and then I use a photoshoot until I find the perfect screencap to use). Photographers definitely have those rights, and when it comes to ones that cut out the watermark? Yeaaaah... They really shouldn't be doing that. I get a little "really?" when fansites put their own watermark on a photo they clearly haven't taken themselves, since they're distributing it anyway. Because while they're doing it to obviously advertise themselves and they are providing the image, it's not theirs. Particularly if it's a screencapture. I'm not sure how you'd go about dealing with that though. For the most part I doubt anybody would, unless they officially were given a cease and desist, or the copyright-holder reached out to them to say "hey, no." It could be a little bit of free advertising for themselves, but without that credit... not so much. Hm. Legally, I think the site would be forced to shut it down. For instance, I know of several fansites where they state that they're in contact with the celebrity's family (because the fansites are of under-18 actors/models) and, on their gallery, state that images cannot be used in roleplays and that legal action might be taken (paraphrased, but it definitely suggests it). In those cases, I think that it's far safer to not use them and to ban the faceclaim, because they're not comfortable with it. Generally, this definitely seems to be leaning to the fake life genre though, but better safe than sorry, right? It's like using somebody else's concept art or drawings. You don't own the right to those images, and the artist is definitely allowed to say "hey, no" to your site using those images. Basically, when it comes to any kind of playbys, whether celebrity or art... you need to be aware that there are situations where you might find yourself in a bit of a legal scuffle if things went really bad. Very unlikely, but it's still possible. 1 RULES :: RATIOS :: FACE CLAIMS :: HANDBOOK :: APPLICATION Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Morrigan 1,826 Admin Share Posted November 5, 2017 4 hours ago, Thyme said: This is fascinating to me... Like you kind of imagine the actor playing the role? That's so cool. That makes FCs actually make more sense to me. (I'm very visual, but I never use actors to portray characters when I read for fun unless I saw the movie first. Like if you asked me to describe or draw Valentine Morgenstern, he would look nothing like the actors who have previously played him.) Oh yeah. You can guarantee that Danielle Radcliffe wasn't Harry Potter to me before the movie came out. I'm pretty sure I used Elijah Wood from the Good Son to start with. 2 Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherstone 69 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 sorry, you've got nothing to do with this, but I tagged you by mistake and now it seems I can't untag you... @webs okay, so this is you. ^^ Indeed, screencaps are much better also to the extent they are a PART of a larger work of art, and thus are more likely to be plausibly Fair Use (although Fair Use must be discussed case by case, and you don't really want to go there because it means you've already being sued). More concretely no director would scan the web for individual screenshots that have no value on their own. But as I said, saying "show me your Creative Commons licence" is much more straightforward than, "eh, screencaps are cool, overused pics from forgotten ads, kinda, but wait, what is that watermarked stuff from hell?" It's subjective, and easy to get wrong. TBH I was considering something like what social media do, that is to say having a rule that you shouldn't violate copyright, that you as a member are the only one responsible for all that you post, that by posting something you imply you have the right to do so, that if one sees a violation it can be reported to [insert address]. That'd minimize the effort on my side, although it's more than a bit hypocritical since while, say, pinterest materially can't check all the stuff people put there, it's a bit harder to believe that I visit my small site every day, I see everything that's going on, and yet I believe 90% of the members sent a mail to fashion photographers to have their pics okay'd... 2 UNMASQUED Vampires are real. Now the world knows about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webs 14 Share Posted November 5, 2017 @featherstone Yeah, it seems to be a very tricky thing and I think the best way to do it from a site owner's point of view is that disclaimer / agreement. I'm not really clued up in legal things, and being from outside of the US means that it's even more complex since there are roleplayers all over, and fair use in the US will differ from fair dealing in the UK. Luckily the probability of legal issues arising from it are fairly minimal, but then there's all sorts of arguments when it comes to YouTube policies with video games... but that's digressing even further. 1 RULES :: RATIOS :: FACE CLAIMS :: HANDBOOK :: APPLICATION Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherstone 69 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 (edited) @webs I studied law, but not in the US, although I took my time to dig into the American archive on cases about copyright (I don't remember the name now), looking for examples of Fair Use. And yes, it's quite varied, and predictable only up to a point. What I'm sure is that just saying "everything here is Fair Use" doesn't mean it is, duh. I'm seriously considering the disclaimer thing, because hypocritical or not it's at least it reduces the workload on my side. Edited November 5, 2017 by featherstone UNMASQUED Vampires are real. Now the world knows about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webs 14 Share Posted November 5, 2017 @featherstone Of all things, I think the disclaimer would be the best way to go to deal with the potential problems. I hope it works out for you too ^^ RULES :: RATIOS :: FACE CLAIMS :: HANDBOOK :: APPLICATION Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherstone 69 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 I'll overthink about it a bit more. #lawschoolwillruinyourlife 1 UNMASQUED Vampires are real. Now the world knows about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death Kitten 200 Share Posted November 5, 2017 In the US there are laws to protect service providers, in this case someone hosting/running an RP, if they make a good faith effort to comply with copyright infringement take down requests. Which is to say, as long as there's a clear way for the copyright holder to contact you and request you remove their stuff (and you do so when contacted such), you're protected. 2 1 2 Captain Amelia Waterhouse, Commanding Officer =/\= Join =/\= Roster & Openings =/\= Rules =/\= Chat =/\= "It is human nature to yearn to be what we were never intended for. It is singular, but it is so." -Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherstone 69 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 @Death Kitten thanks! I knew that you could be asked money even if you promptly removed the material (again, this scary story: https://www.contentfac.com/copyright-infringement-penalties-are-scary/), I didn't know about service providers however. Hm if I study the issue a bit more it feels like it should go in my CV lol. UNMASQUED Vampires are real. Now the world knows about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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