Those WorldCon rules are really annoying, in respect to digital art. What I find interesting about them is that, as they are written, they are not concerned with the artistic integrity of the work in question, but, rather, the saleability of the product based on guaranteed scarcity. This is a continual issue for digital artists, and it arises out of the art market, although it bears little or no relation to artistic integrity. It also arises from the heretofore analog nature of art; an analog copy of a work is inherently inferior to the original. There are also shades of the snobbery that the fine arts community can feel towards so-called commercial artists or illustrators.

What, in effect, policies like this are saying is that the effort, vision, talent, and technique of the artist are of secondary importance. In order to even be considered on any of these grounds, the art must have a certain perceived value dictated only by its limited availability.

At the same time - and I may be wrong about this, but consdering that "fannish" art is specifically allowed, this seems to be the case -- one may freely use the ideas of another creator. This strikes me as profoundly backwards.

In any event, I suspect that, given the numbers of professional artists working partially or fully in the digital realm (as a survey of the most recent Spectrum collections will attest) that this will eventually change.

Sorry for the rantlet there. You can imagine, I'm sure, why this might be of some interest to me. ;)