Forums » Art & Creativity » unintentional art theft

Before I start explaining what the topic is about I just need to mention that I'm not gonna talk about the kind of art thieves who claim to have drawn a drawing, taken a photo or all-in-all simply claim to have the ownership to an image that is not theirs. I'm gonna talk about unintentional art thieves, people who simply find an image, post it as their character design and are not aware of that being art theft. I think we need to spread awareness of the fact that you can't use an image without the permission of the owner. It's rather saddening to see so many friendly and down right nice people on rpr and other sites who aren't aware of this and continue posting images in their characters galleries that obviously don't belong to them. Being an artist myself it's not exactly pleasant to know that somebody might steal my art without even realizing what they are doing.

If you are one of those people please ask the owner/owners of the image/images for the permission to use it/them. Yes, asking might result in you not getting permission to use the image/images or not getting an answer at all, but there are always alternatives. Some examples are using character creators, buying commissions from artists or simply drawing the character designs yourselves. Just don't forget to link to the character creator or artist who commissioned you if you chose any of those options.

Here are some links leading to some pretty nice, highly customizable character creators in different styles;

http://www.rinmarugames.com/game/?game_id=421 (male and female)

http://www.dolldivine.com/ocean-fashion-scene-maker.php (male and female)

http://www.rinmarugames.com/game/?game_id=392 (male and female)

http://www.dolldivine.com/urban-chic-deluxe.php (female only)

http://www.dolldivine.com/dinogeddon-character-maker.php (female only)

http://www.dolldivine.com/anthro-maker.php (female only)

http://www.rinmarugames.com/dress_up_games/?category=27 (male and female)

This is a great post! RPR actually has a bunch of articles and topics that discuss this issue frequently.

Here's another useful link that explains inspiration versus art theft:

http://www.rprepository.com/community/newspost.php?post=64

I and a bunch of my friends also use and recommend MorphThing as a good resource to make a facial human reference:

http://www.morphthing.com

If you want to be totally above-board about things, it's always good to read the terms for doll creators before posting any doll created by them -- some don't allow this, and some only allow it when certain conditions are met (like a link back).

I actually took a look at that before posting the links and as far as I saw there were no issues with that. Honestly speaking, I don't find it overboard to do so. Afterall, a character creator or doll maker is a piece of art in itself when you think about how much time and effort it took to create it.

Thank you! I actually tried to look up something on the topic, but i only found two forums talking about intentional art theft. And that morph thingy looks pretty interesting, it gives people who want photo references of their characters an alternative to.

I am thinking does it stand, for people who want to RP as the person, from a anime. I do it my self but as I stand on this, I can put I do not own and it goes to the real maker. I mean what do you think on doing that? As well I could put a link to the person, I am RP as.

Legally speaking, adding a note saying that you don't own something or don't take credit for something doesn't make the use more legal, it is just an admission of guilt.

That said, many companies encourage their fans to discuss and pretend with the characters and stories that they create. You're also not very likely to hurt the feelings of a large company (though they are more likely to take legal action). With an individual artist who drew a picture of their own character, you might really hurt them if you steal their character art and use it as your own, and they might not be comforted at all that you put up a note saying you don't own the thing you stole. Other artists will be flattered and not mind at all. So it really depends. The only safe course of action is to ask before using an image you didn't create.

I strongly recommend this article and the comments that follow it for more info: http://www.rprepository.com/community/newspost.php?post=64 (Sanne posted it earlier in the thread, but it's worth pointing out again!)

Regardless of you posting that link or not you still don't have the consent of the owner, so in theory you don't have the right to do so. But since we're talking about an anime I get where you're coming from, contacting the owner is simply speaking close to impossible. Still as long as we keep to big medias like anime its often overlooked since screenshots help fueling and expanding their fanbase and therefore make more money. So in cases like yours I'd actually have an exception. That is as long as you don't make money on their material. I hope this was informative enough.

Copyright includes the rights to claim, display, alter (this even includes using small, seemingly meaningless pieces of the work), produce copies of, and grant copyright to others for a given work. If you do any of those things with any work which is not explicitly public domain and to which you have not been granted permission for, it is copyright infringement. It doesn't matter if you aren't making money on it (though profiting from someone else's work certainly makes it a much bigger deal) or if you acknowledge that it's not yours.

But! If you're not willing to try contacting the creator, that does still leave public domain (though that can get tricky too - a photo of a public domain painting, for example, gets copywritten to the photographer) and the variety of open and sharing licences that have been growing in popularity. Anything with the RIGHT one of those licenses can be used as the licence exists to grant permission under whatever terms it's defining.

I didn't say that that only thing copyright doesn't allow is making money of the copywritten material. I simply stated that if you don't do so most big medias with solid fan bases chose to let you get away with it, but your comment certainly cover the rest so thanks for putting copyright into a nutshell.

I know you didn't, I only brought it up because it's a common misunderstanding. ^^