"In the event that we have sublicensed your materials to another website, it is your responsibility to have your materials removed from that website and you will not hold us responsible or liable if the other website refuses to remove your materials.
License. to Use Artist Materials. Artist hereby grants to deviantART a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to do the following things during the Term:
b. to display, copy, reproduce, exhibit, publicly perform, broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute through any electronic means (including analog and digital), and electronically publish any or all of the Artist Materials, including any portion thereof, and to include them in compilations for such purposes, by any and all means and media now known or hereafter devised (for avoidance of doubt, the rights granted to deviantART hereunder include the rights to make Artist Materials available on deviantART Site(s), third-party websites and electronic devices);
d. the right to sublicense to any third party any of the foregoing rights in the Artist Materials, or any part or element thereof, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
Payment Unless otherwise agreed between Artist and deviantART in a writing signed by both parties, the license granted to deviantART pursuant to this Agreement shall be royalty-free."
Well, say what you like about the jark thing, commercialization vs. community, and the like. In my mind, none of this has anything to do with a huge personal spat, and everything to do with how this site works.
Laid out above are direct quotes from the DA submission policy. As you can plainly see, the rules are simple - DA can, at any time, grant any other third party a universal license to use your artwork in any way they choose, without any compensation to you whatsoever.
This is a clear example of what I would consider "legalized theft" - and, while there is no indication that it has happened yet, the sad fact of the matter is that this agreement allows it to happen at any time. And, with the sea change in corporate attitude that is becoming fairly apparent, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of you start seeing your work being used for profit by third parties - and then learn that you, simply by using this site to share your work, aren't entitled to any compensation for the commercial use of your works.
There's not much more that I can say - besides, perhaps, be forewarned. I will most likely be pulling anything of note from this website, in order to protect my rights.
It's kind of funny - if this was all just merely allowing my work to be distributed for free, I wouldn't mind. It's when work I freely contribute is used for someone else's commercial gain, with no compensation, that I get mad. If I'm giving stuff away for free, I'm certainly not going to allow someone to profit from works that I intend to be made freely available.
If you want community, there are plenty of sites that you can visit - and I'm sure you can find some that don't make that community contingent on providing them with royalty-free licenses for everything you post.
Edit: I have now removed a good number of deviations. I will most likely remove more once I have them up on my site. I intend for you to be able to view my deviations here, and much more, from my own site - and under my own terms.