I have an ethical question. Do you think its wrong to use free-to-use (often public domain or attribution required only) pictures of people’s actual apartments (bedrooms, living rooms) as the background or scenes of NSFW visual novels or games?
I mean it might be alright to share pictures of your neat and tidy place to the public domain for others to use, but then you might not be comfortable with seeing the pictures being used in sexual scenes?
For example, this lovely apartment picture on Pexel is completely free to use with no attribution required (stated clearly in their license), but is it really alright to use it as the background of a NSFW scene in my VN? Asking for a friend
Personally, I don’t see any problem with it; public domain is public domain. If there were people in the photo, that might raise more questions, but I think you’re pretty well in the clear.
when you release something in the public domain you have no control what is made with it and all responsibility on what is made with it is lost. if someone tries to degrade someone because of how there public domain work is used, it would be like degrading a tool shop for selling chisels to someone that makes lewd sculptures.
if the person that made the public domain work have some objections with how it’s used then they shouldn’t have put it in the public domain. if someone is the type of person that don’t want there work to be associated with some type of creative work then they shouldn’t give away control of how their work is used. it’s on them to take that into consideration and if they fail to do so then they have to live with the consequences of their poor decisions.
As long as it’s actually public domain, CC-0 stuff, there’s no issue.
I’m sure they don’t mind if their stock images get used for porn and things.
Now if it was a stock image that included a real person and you were shopping cumshots on them or something, then that’s probably a line that shouldn’t be crossed, despite being technically (and legally) okay.
