If an artist has disappeared for an extended period of time, is there any point at which it is acceptable to upload things from them? I'm not talking about ones that have deleted accounts, I'm talking about if every single account of theirs has been silent for over 4 years.
The specific artist I'm referring to is exed eyes, as I have some of their old art from tumblr and can find no activity from them on anything for the past 4 years. Not to be an extremist or rude, but is there protocol for if an artist is completely MIA (or presumed dead)?

kingboo said:
If an artist has disappeared for an extended period of time, is there any point at which it is acceptable to upload things from them? I'm not talking about ones that have deleted accounts, I'm talking about if every single account of theirs has been silent for over 4 years.
The specific artist I'm referring to is exed eyes, as I have some of their old art from tumblr and can find no activity from them on anything for the past 4 years. Not to be an extremist or rude, but is there protocol for if an artist is completely MIA (or presumed dead)?

I haven't come across this situation before, but if a DNP is in place, you aren't allowed to upload it. Unless the artist already had set up a conditional DNP in place where you could post it, you can't upload the art from said artist.

No, of course not.

Technically, yes. Practically, no.

Technically, the answer is yes. The art enters public domain in the US 95 years after the death of the artist. Other factors will also come into play depending on the work. (Someone will likely fact check me here, which is fine as I'm no copyright lawyer, but the point is that copyright does expire eventually, thus meaning the art can theoretically be posted here.) But that's a long time to wait.

Practically, the answer is no. It would be incredibly amazing if e621 itself or any of us last that long for the above to happen. So, from our point of view, the DNP of an artist who's gone and kicked the bucket doesn't expire.

That's the long answer.

The short answer:

cinder said:
No, of course not.

Fair enough.