Fri, 11 Oct 2024
Well, not just ethics, I'm sure plenty of designers have them, but also the knowledge of what should and shouldn't be done.
And I'm not just referring to "fan art" designs, which obviously I make - I avoid selling them directly, but that's more because I don't want anyone to be able to stop me from selling designs I rely on income from. Being explicit about not having permission is enough to satisfy me.
No, it's promotion, the thing I keep whining about.
See, I've gone as far as I can go with self-promotion. I naively thought "my designs are so neat people will share what they've made organically." And as I've said: that's not happening. So I have to think about how to incentivize people to post. You know the drill: "follow me and tag someone in the comments" raffles. Those are cringe but ethically fine, and I guess I'll do some of that.
But pleading with people to post pictures of finished stuff doesn't work either. So I thought "oh, what if I offer this design for free to people who post pictures" and then realized that to be ethical, that would necessitate them including a disclaimer that they'd been compensated to make the post. Which would stand out like a sore thumb amidst all the sock puppets and non-disclosed compensated posts because no one, not one single designer, currently requires disclaimers in any of the groups I'm in.
It's really discouraging. But I think referral rewards are okay - to date, I've just done a celebratory "we got new members, everybody gets a free design" which is what the Pac-Men will be. But I think I'll come up with an "if you refer someone, you and they both get a coupon for this" design.