THEY ARE BEING BOTHERED DIRECTLY. I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE DRAW HORRIBLE PORN OF CHARACTERS AND SEND IT DIRECTLY TO THE CREATOR WHILE TAUNTING THEM.
This is not about fan porn, even violent or gross or whatever fan art, that's fine, especially if you don't share it with the creator. Or hell, you even mistakenly think Byron Howard will be into your take on Nick Wilde being sodomized by a chainsaw, so you forward it to him (though I don't blame him if he blocks all further communication, either). That would be stupid, but not necessarily harassment.
But I have seen targeted harrassment campaigns against people using their characters to symbolize them and spamming obscene, oftentimes violent, "hate" art under their social media posts, where they can't help but see them. That is harrassment, designed to hurt the victim emotionally and drive them off social media platforms. (And, yes, in these instances, I think it's fair to assume the goal is to equate the character with the victim, especially if, as is common in furry, the victim exclusively represents themselves as that character online.)
If you're a fan artist, go with God, you have my blessings. Like, even if you're drawing violent pornography of the characters you listed, you do you. I'm just getting sick of the lack of nuance here; the pro-AI side is screaming "all fan art is evil because it is theft" and I'm at least trying to be fair and say, "I disagree with that, but I can see instances of fans and fan art being used in less than ethical way", and now I've got you screaming at me "all fan art is inherently innocent, and I'm not even going to back that up with reasons, actually" and it's like, come on, guys, I wasn't attacking you personally. Jesus Christ, don't get so defensive, it actually makes you sound guilty of crimes I wasn't even accusing you of.
Please read what I am saying:
THEY ARE BEING BOTHERED DIRECTLY. I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE DRAW HORRIBLE PORN OF CHARACTERS AND SEND IT DIRECTLY TO THE CREATOR WHILE TAUNTING THEM.
This is not about fan porn, even violent or gross or whatever fan art, that's fine, especially if you don't share it with the creator. Or hell, you even mistakenly think Byron Howard will be into your take on Nick Wilde being sodomized by a chainsaw, so you forward it to him (though I don't blame him if he blocks all further communication, either). That would be stupid, but not necessarily harassment.
But I have seen targeted harrassment campaigns against people using their characters to symbolize them and spamming obscene, oftentimes violent, "hate" art under their social media posts, where they can't help but see them. That is harrassment, designed to hurt the victim emotionally and drive them off social media platforms. (And, yes, in these instances, I think it's fair to assume the goal is to equate the character with the victim, especially if, as is common in furry, the victim exclusively represents themselves as that character online.)
If you're a fan artist, go with God, you have my blessings. Like, even if you're drawing violent pornography of the characters you listed, you do you. I'm just getting sick of the lack of nuance here; the pro-AI side is screaming "all fan art is evil because it is theft" and I'm at least trying to be fair and say, "I disagree with that, but I can see instances of fans and fan art being used in less than ethical way", and now I've got you screaming at me "all fan art is inherently innocent, and I'm not even going to back that up with reasons, actually" and it's like, come on, guys, I wasn't attacking you personally. Jesus Christ, don't get so defensive, it actually makes you sound guilty of crimes I wasn't even accusing you of.