A few weeks back we released Share buttons on deviation pages, making it easier for our visitors to express interest in different deviations while on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Digg.

While our intentions were good and many deviants were glad to finally see basic sharing features implemented on deviation pages, we had a lot of feedback from the community indicating concern regarding facilitating the promotion of artwork outside of the confines of the deviantART community. For some, this is because they feel as if the people on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Digg are those who turn around and end up stealing their art; whereas the folks at deviantART are more respectful of these issues.

Conceptually, we understand where you're coming from. Here's what we'd like to propose. When posting to deviantART, you're given an option regarding Sharing; enable or disable.

If left ENABLED, you have the nice clean options for others to share and embed your work on other websites, with a link back to your deviation page and a prominent mention of your name for credit.

If DISABLED, these options are removed, share link options are removed, and the deviation becomes accessible only to logged-in members of deviantART.

If someone links to a deviation that has been disabled, a page similar to this would display:



* Please note this is simply a rough mock-up.

Once there, a person would have to sign-up or login-in to deviantART in order to see the work. This doesn't prevent someone from logging-in for the first time and seeing the work and it certainly doesn't prevent art-theft via save-as links (basic browser function) or screenshots. But, hopefully, it discourages unscrupulous activity by requiring the person to be logged-in.

Would you like us to enable this? Yes or No? Share your comments below!

We're looking forward to talking about this, and we'll collectively figure out the right solution. There are also more things we want to do to help you in this area, and this is only one initial solution that we can get up and running quickly.

-- A