Important decision made regarding my Text Art

It has been a while since I posted at my Text Art Blog about something that is actually Text Art related. To everybody who does not care about this topic, sorry, the recent events in Internet Marketing (CJ, Google etc.) had to get my almost complete attention and did along the way pretty much managed to hijack my blog.

Update: I had to refine my statement and did so in this post, Please read it as well to avoid any misunderstandings regarding the use of my art work.

The transformation happened slowly but steadily during the last 2-3 months. No, it is not my intent to convert the blog! Okay, now am I really getting to the Text Art news which I did promise.

I made an important decision last weekend. I decided to release all my ANSI and ASCII Text Art, as well as "scene" related pixel art into the public domain.

Yes, you heard right, I did give up the copyright, which I did own, on my art pieces.


Most Text Artists or "scene" artists in general I know don't care much about their copyright and have no problem with the fact that their stuff gets copied over and over again. Most are even happy about that, because it proves that they are respected as artists and that people like their stuff. The problem is, that this good intentional attitude does not change existing copyright laws. If you don't specify somewhere the copyright status of your art piece, it is being copyrighted automatically by current laws. Your rights are protected by simply doing nothing.

Grabbing and replication or showing your art under those circumstances without getting explicit permission from you to do so would be a violation of your copyright and you could hold me liable for any "damage" or "loss" this might have caused you. There are some exceptions, such as "fair use", but I don't want to make this post a Copyright Laws 101 resource. If you do want to learn more about Copyright, check the article about it at Wikipedia.

I wanted to avoid this confusion and make my intention clear. I put all my Text Art online some weeks ago. You can look at every single piece I created with your browser at my Roy/SAC Artist Website. Every Artwork I did release into the public domain shows that clearly and without conditions in the full size detail page. See the Skylight BBS ANSI as an example.

List of Roy/SAC Art Galleries Roy ASCII Text Art Gallery Roy ANSI Text Art Gallery Roy Best Of Text Art Gallery Roy Latest Text Art Roy VGA Art Gallery

If the if does not show this for any piece of art on my side, then it means, that I did not release the copyright. This is the case for my Web Art, where I used other copyright protected content in fair use, and can not give up the copyright because I never owned it in the first place. I got aware about the whole issue and the actual status of my art during my editor work at Wikipedia.

Go ahead and check out the about one-thousand pieces of my artistic creations which I did release into the public domain. Good candidates for possible re-use are my vga fonts Gold Font and Font 3. Use them as you see fit. If you do, mentioning my name or artist handle in the credits would be appreciated but is not a requirement. I also put up a link to a special Amazon Honor System Page. Feel free to donate any amount you feel being appropriate. Donations are voluntarily. You don't have to donate anything to use my art. They are only one of many possible ways of showing respect and appreciation. Thank you.


If you think about giving up your copyright for something to release it into public domain, be warned. Released is released. You can not "regain" protection for something that was officially released into public domain.

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Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany - News Update:
Germany lost against Italy at the Semi Finals.
France emerged victorious from the match against Portugal. This means:
... Italy will meat France this Saturday 07/09/2006 in Berlin/Germany to the Soccer World Cup 2006 Final. I hope that Italy is going to kick some french butt since Germany can not do it for them anymore.