It really bothers me when people don't make their deviations available for download.

To be honest, I will never be a good enough artist to have my artwork stolen, but I still don't understand why people get so upset about it. Sure, it's annoying, but I think I would be flattered. And then there are minor instances of art theft, like people using your artwork to make icons. Again, I think I would be flattered. The point of being on this website, and the point of creating art in general, is to be able to share something with people. If your work manages to communicate something to someone to such a degree that they feel compelled to use it to express or represent themselves in some way, that's a good thing. Right?

I personally like to collect images on my hard drive. My main reason for doing this is the simple pleasure of collecting things, but I also like to know that, even if an artist decides to delete his or her account or website (it happens quite often), I will still have the pictures that amazed and inspired me. Also, sometimes it's nice to use a really gorgeous piece as my desktop background for a week or two.

So what I end up doing, at least on deviantART, is collecting the pictures via a screenshot. It works, but I don't like it. It makes me feel sneaky and kind of guilty. I just wish that, if artists want to share their work on this website, they would actually share it.