I think it's time for my official statement now, as I signed the
contract with myPSPtubes on 20th June and a day and a half later,
before even I'm officially released there, I've been swarmed with
e-mails because the gossips spread, I guess. Some really impolite and
selfish. Now let me explain:

Yes, I will no longer allow my art being used for free as tubes or in
tags. Why? The reason is very simple - as you know, I've been allowing
free usage for many years under few, simple rules. Being credited and
unaltering my work were the main ones. There are some great PSP
communities which respect all what I asked for and I thank them, but
the majority did not and I grew tired of fighting that.

I can't even say how many times I found my art being badly tubed,
unproportionally resized or even REPAINTED (for example I found my
Swamp girl with colours changed to purple, horns and wings added and
not only it was in one signature, this has been shared as a tube as
well!). I also found many sets of tubes with my artwork shared within
groups, where some of the pictures in it weren't even mine!

This is why I decided to sign this contract, after few months of
negotiations. Really. I don't want you to think money was the reason.
I've been asked by other companies as well and myPSPtubes are selling
tubes for lowest prices from what I saw. This way I can guarantee the
quality of my tubes as well, as I'm tubing all my illustrations myself
from original pictures, not from low quality images found on the
Internet.

Not to mention, unlike many other artists, I will still allow FREE
usage of my art, but as a whole, unaltered and not tubed.

I've been accused by some people I'm selfish because I signed this
contract and that to many people I ruined their hobby. One person even
said that all the groups were promoting my art this way and by signing
the contract I somewhat betrayed them, being ungrateful and all. It is
true it was a free promotion for me, but frankly finding tags with my
art so badly used was hardly a good promotion in my opinion and in many
cases I was even quite ashamed some creations were signed as mine.

And actually I think this approach towards me was selfish - I never
were an artist working for PSP tubers, right? I didn't even have to
agree to allow free tubing for so long, especially since it was mostly
my personal artwork being used in a way I can't say I often liked.

It's not that those tubes are that expensive, especially when compared
to other offers like this, 2$ per tube is NOT that much and you'll be
getting a high quality tube done by me.

I also wanted to thank all the people and groups who were creating
great tags with my art always placing proper credits. There were lots
of you and I thank you for your support for so long.

I hope you can understand my decision,
Gracjana.

_________________________________

Here are the new rules:

1. You can only use my artwork for blogs, livejournals, myspace layouts
and similar - with proper credits placed, of course. You may not,
however, use it to illustrate your stories, or share them in any other
way (this means tubes, avatars, wallpapers, etc.),

2. ©vinegaria.com or ©Gracjana Zielinska and the link to
vinegaria.com or my DA account - vinegar.deviantart.com is required on
anything of mine that's used. Clickable link would be prefered,

3. ALL PREVIOUS PERMISSIONS OF MY ARTWORK FOR TUBES ARE NOW REVOKED. If
you wish to continue to use my art for tubes or in signature tags, my
official PSP tubes are available now at myPSPtubes.com.

4. In regards to rule #1, there is no need to inform me about using my
art if you're following the rules, but it's always welcome if you wish
to send me the information.

5. Please save images to your own server, no direct linking to my
website.

Still 5 simple rules, so please respect them.

And as always, to those of you intrested in seeing what I'm working on
at the moment feel free to sign up for my LJ at
http://vinegaria.livejournal.com

P.S. I also added fish poetry to the gallery  :)