Beatrice the Biologist: "Do Not Share Uncredited Artwork. Ever."

Katie McKissick writes and draws. As a cartoonist, she draws under the pen name "Beatrice the Biologist."

A prominent Instagram account, "Sciencetagram," posted one of her cartoons. That was nice, but the image had her name scrubbed out. And the only way she heard was from her sister, who had seen it on Sciencetagram and recognized the cartoon. So ... no credit, no web site mentioned, nothing.

She writes about what she did on the Scientific American blog in an article titled "Do Not Share Uncredited Artwork. Ever." with the added subtitle "If you contribute to a culture that keeps sharing stolen works, someday there won't be enough art to go around."

So, what to do? She she complained on social media.

The nice thing is that everyone agreed and the image was replaced with one where you can see the credit clearly.

A nicer thing would be that Sciencetagram asked permission and paid for content.

She ends with several warnings. Go read all of them here.

If you are going to share something, it is your duty (duty, I say!) to credit the person who made it. You know why? Because if you contribute to a culture that keeps sharing stolen work for your selfish, lazy reasons, someday there isn't going to be enough artwork to go around. 

And you know why that is? Because those artists whose work you stole will be too busy working day jobs to pay their rent, leaving less time to create more stuff for you to steal. See, they can't exactly support themselves by being creators because so many people stole readership and money from them.

Sciencetagram does not care. If it did, then it would have NOT scrubbed her name off of the comic. If it did, it would ask permission. If it did, it would offer compensation. 

Good to see that the shamers won, but Sciencetagram's behavior is wretched. And it seems more and more standard. 

Thanks to Betsy Streeter for letting me know about this.