I've been seeing this complaint for a while now, and I think many people are confusing one thing: paying for an illustration does not always mean buying all usage rights.
Licenses exist specifically to define how that work can be used.
VGEN separates usage into three categories:
- personal use,
- indirect monetization,
- and stronger commercial use (merchandising).
The difference is not “how much effort the artist put into drawing it,” but how the illustration will be used.
It's not the same to:
- use an image as a profile picture,
- use it for monetized content,
- or sell products with it.
In the first case, the use is private.
In the second, the illustration becomes part of content that generates indirect income.
In the third, the artwork itself becomes a commercial product.
That's why different types of licenses exist. This is not something invented by VGEN or internet artists, it has existed for a very long time in illustration, design, photography, and music.
A different discussion is whether some artists explain their terms poorly or charge excessive fees, but the existence of commercial licenses itself is not strange at all.
@dontyoudaretoo هذيل ما مر عليهم مادة التربية الاسلامية بالمدرسة ؟ طيب كراتين قصص الانبياء الي كانت تنعرض على قنوات الاطفال برمضان ؟ ما قد مر عليهم قصة سيدنا
ابراهيم مني ولا مناك ؟ والله لو ترباية لوس انجلوس مو كذا
you don't have to like kaveh but can you all stop lying about how he's not useful to the plot when he built a device to help defeat rerir and helped with renovating aaru. nahida herself choose kaveh both times cause he's one of the best and top scholars in sumeru.