We have had a couple threads around recently dealing with the grey-area of stealing, borrowing, inspiration....etc of art from other people. I am starting this thread up in hopes of getting input from some of the more seasoned artists and questions from some of the newer people how to go about properly contacting a current artist or former artist for permission to use their work and where the lines are between theft, inspiration...on and on.


All comments must be civil and geared towards the discussion. Any finger pointing, accusational commentary, dragging up of old drama, etc will get your post deleted as well as gain you an infraction. This thread is meant to help those who think they did right yet get accused of theft and those who are wondering where the line really is.


Hope this gains some good discussion and please, STAY CIVIL.

As an artist I've had shit loads of things stolen. One guy even took a mod I worked on, changed the logo, removed all our names from the credits and released it himself.

Its not fair when people take your work and don’t give a toss about you or any effort you might of put into it.

The amazing thing is I'm a very relaxed guy, and most of the time if somebody wants to use my work for something, I let them, provided they still "Thank" me in the readme some place.

But when you take somebody else’s work and don’t give a toss about the author, be in either in the mod scene or professional, you deserve to be laughed at and should be ashamed imo.

"IMO" don't ever use somebody else’s work unless you talk to them FIRST. Never ASSUME that the people will let you and always do your best to find out if its ok. If you cant get in touch, just forget about using it and look elsewhere.

Its better to be safe than sorry.

It's easier and less of a legal nightmare to make your own stuff from scratch. If you're going to use things like photos, take them yourself, or get them from VERY well documented sites.

When it comes to inspiration and reference I don't think its stealing to get ideas from other peoples work but the line is crossed at ctrl-c, ctrl-v. I think its all to easy to barrow "ideas" when dealing with characters and can be considered stealing much more easily.

With concern to environments I think its near impossible to detail things without consulting referance. Most of the time that kind of ref comes from real world objects and not really other artists work, unless you're looking to imiate a particular style.

So quick recap. viewing ref is ok, but never include it in your work. Don't knowingly copy another artist unless that is the goal. And CYA whenver possible.

Meh, I'll rip photos for textures whenever I find one that is suitable. CGTextures, Flickr, Google Images, etc. I couldn't care less. I just make sure I make sweet 2D love to it enough that its no longer recognizable as the original photo. Simply ripping a photograph and slapping it in as a texture is lame & wrong. But fuckin' it right up to make your own is awesome & right*.

I've also been working from concepts I found online that are not my own, nor am I asking the artist for permission. If I were going to do it for financial gain I would definitely ask before making it, but as it stands its just for me to do some shit for my portfolio without having to waste time designing everything about what I want to make.

I do, however, suppose that brings up the issue of using concept artwork to better my portfolio. Which in turn is bettering my life if i get a new sweet job with the work I did. Since I used someone elses concept to do that work for my portfolio and land that job. To me, though, the artist was credited and I made it 'my own'. It's hardly ever a direct rip.

Good thread.

*IMO

When it comes to this industry I think it inevitably bites you in the ass. Everyone knows a good amount of people, and if you're copying work while on a project it can have serious legal ramifications that you shouldn't mess with. If you can't alter something enough that it you can truly call it yours, you aren't worth a paycheck.

One of the reasons why i don't show many works, is because i have fear of plagiarism. From inspiration to plagiarism there is a very very short distance. The Internet is a very very bad place to show original things. People will copy what they like and they will imitate/plagiate the design doing it with their style. A sad reality. I personally hate to do what all people do, that's why i do "monsters" or "creatures".

What I mainly like to do, is to draw, and not modeling as many here may think. And due to my "fear", i don't show any image of my skeetch book, drawings, etc. I do not want they steal my ideas and designs.

Some works of mine were used as wallpapers in some cell phones portals without my permission (the plant i did is one of them). I quickly call them to remove my work. Are things that happens constantly, and are things we can't do much against them.

For textures, i always use my camera to grab photos. I use the internet and websites like pbase, for references. The textures found on the internet are not very original, they are used by too many people. I've seen the same texture used over and over again, and the same library models too.

what are these infractions you speak of ??? will I have deformed children ?

I understand that flat-out stealing an idea or even an entire piece is shitty, but Blaizer I don't understand not sharing a sketchbook because people may get ideas from you? I think if you're making anything worthwhile people can't really steal your stuff without it being obvious.

I guess if you're making something that just looks totally original and hasn't been seen before it could be a good idea to not show it off until you have enough to say "this is mine," but there are very few examples of that I'd say.

However, I'm not trying to defend people just stealing stuff flat-out; that's crap that people were just using your works as cell phone wallpapers without permission, but that's actually illegal.

It goes back to "it depends" in a lot of situations. I got the basic idea for the look of a comic I made from Sin City, but it looked significantly different. I also did some mock-ups of how it could look as a game, and they're all on my site. Recently that game "Mad World" was shown and it looks very similar to what I was thinking for the game, but I don't think they saw my site and thought "let's steal that idea!" And even if they did, they're doing a lot more with it than I have.

Just rambling mostly, but I think you shouldn't literally just steal people's work or parts of it, but otherwise if you're inspired by something then I don't think that's stealing it.

It saddens me that someone wouldn't share their work for fear of it being stolen. Isn't that letting the terrorists win?

Originally Posted by rolfness

what are these infractions you speak of ??? will I have deformed children ?

No, they would be the standard mutant spawnlings that you're accustomed to hatching. =P

Originally Posted by Ferg

It saddens me that someone wouldn't share their work for fear of it being stolen. Isn't that letting the terrorists win?

hahaha that should be on a bumper sticker.

Bromel & Brown, you might want to be a touch more careful with the flickr/google images. Here we have to document what site it came from and who owns it before we can begin to manipulate it. For a while we had a house rule that if you could change it enough to be indistinguishable from the original we didn't need the documentation to back it up but that changed when we switched law firms (and someone asked). Personally I wouldn't ask and I'd just keep doing what you're doing, just don't slack it and start butchering things (I don't think its in your DNA).

If it really is indistinguishable then it shouldn't matter. But technically it does, and its the technicalities that people look to exploit when they're after large sums of money that's not actually theirs. Its the technical holes the business end looks to plug, whenever called upon... (so just don't call on them).

For an example: I would consider this stealing because the focal points of the piece are still blatantly copy pasta, but it's borderline because it's the eyes/mouth really the only things that you can pull, but it's still obvious where they came from.

Now if the author would have maybe taken 3 minutes and colored them in via PS instead of using the actual photo, it might have been able to make it his own..

I agree with Adam you need to make sweet 2d love to them pixels, you can tell if you made sweet 2d love or you just fucked it.

Yup there is a line in stealing and refferencing. I personally just look and use ideas, but never directly copy and use. An idea is open and free, someones tangible work that they interprited the idea and put it down is owned by that person. I wouldnt steal your milk from your fridge, dont steal my models and textures from my galleries. That being said, I will gladely give my models and textures to just about anyone that asks. I have no problem sharing for the sake of learning....If the person wants my models to plop into a mod or what have you, then I have a problem.

I like what Adam said up there about using images, then making sweet sweet 2d love to them....mmmmmm love.

What I mainly like to do, is to draw, and not modeling as many here may think. And due to my "fear", i don't show any image of my skeetch book, drawings, etc. I do not want they steal my ideas and designs.

We all get stolen from Blaizer, while it's terrible and all that, it's even worse to live in fear of it like you seem to do. That's a rather sad attitude.

Let them plagiarize, what are you afraid of, copies will always be cheap copies and never as good as the original and god knows potential retards have hundreds of other great artists to steal from already. And the people that matter WILL know who did what and where it comes from.


I think artists that really worry about being stolen from need to do their best to be contactable, putting an URL or email in your images etc. Just because an image is originally on your website which happens to contain your email address, doesn't mean that image wont end in 2367 other places on the internet ultimately making it hard to trace back to the author.
If your work gets still stolen for commercial purposes after this (there are bad people like that afterall) then just kindly as them to take it down.


As for borrowing, I think it has all been said again and again for years...

If you don't know, always try to contact the author first. Artists can be an overly sensitive lot and some will not see what you do as compliment.

If you get no reply, imo go ahead, give credit where credit is due, keep in mind the author might ask you to not use his work later. If he does so, no big deal, take the stuff down, if he's all pissed, tell him to chill and get a life. Hobby/fan/non commercial stuff isn't worth a change in anybody's blood pressure.

If you are an artist and the victim of plagiarism or straight stolen work, ask yourself if the whole issue is really worth any attention.
I've had stuff from my website layout and skins and textures 'stolen' and used in other crappy goth websites or mods often enough over the past years... that stuff is all so below my 'care' radar, not worth a thought.
My cat throws up regularly, now that's something that keeps me on my toes.

Ultimately, nothing is new in this world, we all draw inspiration, steal, plagiarize, idolize and borrow from somewhere and change and warp it to the muddy point we can tell ourselves we did something original. Where that muddy point or line is, varies for each one of us and again it varies with time and age. Best thing you can do is stay tolerant and openminded.


For commercial work, keep your hands off anybody else's work in general. Use it only for loose inspiration. You are not to make money of somebody else's work... that's simply not legal.

My thoughts:

Is the ripped image necessary to create your piece?

• If not, why use it at all?
• If so, what does it matter how much it is resembled in the end if it was the catalyst that made your piece?

I've got a noobish question regarding basemeshes.

I'm not very good at modeling organic pieces, specifically human beings. However I've always wanted to take someones basemesh and sculpt it into something my own.

The question would be, is this condsidered a faux pa to include something like that in a portfolio or a website? I would include a note to credit the person with creating a basemesh or SDK. Also, to just make clear I wouldn't be useing basemeshes etc for any commercial work (should that ever come up).


Lastly, on my own personal note, I would hope that by the time I'm doing commercial work I would have the skills to make my own human basemeshes etc. But this was more of a general question because I see so many people use other peoples released bases.

For a portfolio i'd put a picture of the basemesh itself, or if you modeled something off of someone else's concept then i would include a small version of the concept in your image too to give an idea of what you actually did or not.

I think it's save to say that if you used someone else's basemesh for portfolio work, your work isn't good enough yet to be in the portfolio.
I don't think there's a problem with using a basemesh to do things tho, it's fun to bring in a good mesh into lets say ZBrush and be able to go nuts on it.

We're talking about having harmless fun, so whatever's fun for you and doesn't hurt others is good enough :p

I'm not much of a concept artist, so I usually model from concepts that have already been created but I always concact the original artist and ask if it's alright if I plan to show it (if I'm just arsing around for practice, I don't tend to bother) and I always credit them where possible. No one I've asked has told me to get lost, yet.

I always try and stay away from being too greedy when taking "inspiration" for stuff I do myself, though. Not out of copyright fears, just out of the fact that I'd know the idea wasn't totally mine.

Textures... I try and stick to what I have available that's completely legal, but like Brome said, if there's a result on google image that's perfect, I'll nab it. It's always modified heavily but... that's not really an excuse, just covering tracks. On the other hand, if someone took a photo or texture I'd made and edited it and used it as an overlay or something, I'd be cool with that.

I've had meshes stolen a couple of times before - which in itself is odd because I'd hapily release most of them on the basis that there's a "thanks" or "original author" somewhere, if asked. An odd one that happened recently was a bust basemesh for sculpting I released turned up in it's original unsculpted form as someone's model. I was at a bit of a loss as to whether it was theft or not... the vertices had been pushed around but the mesh was mine and they were claiming it as their own. I had released the mesh with the intention that people would use it to sculpt with and create their own thing, but I guess that also left the option open to just flat-out steal the mesh. Thankfully, the mesh was ancient and it sucked, but it got me thinking about this sort of stuff at least.

My take is mostly that if someone steals your work or ideas without credit and benefits from it to get a job or something... they're gonna get found out and it will end up biting them in the arse.

Does anyone know the legalities of using someone elses 2d character and putting a 3d model of it in your online portfolio?

It seems to me a lot of studios want to see that you can do work from someone elses concept. In this case I wanted to do a few characters from a european comic I'm a big fan of. I have TRIED to find out how to contact this person, and have been unable to so far.

There are several issues here. I want to use the characters to model off of, but only for my personal portfolio. I would give them full credit for design.

I want to include the concept art on the webpage with the model, but I believe it's illegal for me to place one of their images (either from a book or web) in a location that they did not approve.

If I found just the perfect image online, I doubt employers would really want to click back and forth between links to compare. I think there may be legal issues there as well.

I could just go find another artist to work off of, but there are many published artists that I would love to model in my portfolio.

Does anyone have more information about this kind of scenario?

DEVILS ADVOCATE:

So, here is my question, Dekard used the example of The Desforgeries guy, so where is the line between, "Inspired By" and Strait rip?
I did a quick Drawing to illustrate:

If he had done something like this, Would he have been reamed as hard?
It's obviously inspired by the Gladiator Image but, the pixels are fresh. Is this still Stealing?

in a world where the bad was not existant and you used good as ref to make acceptable, then your acceptable would be good

but if the bad, was the orriginal and you did the acceptable one, then it would be close, and the acceptable would be bad.

hmmmm

Yes, I see what you mean.
Pretend the "BAD" example did not exist, rather the artist made the "ACCEPTABLE" image using the "GOOD" ref.
Is this Stealing?
The "BAD" image is obviously stealing because he simply smudged the existing pixels around and tried to profit from another's hard work.

Singh, my opinion is that if you used good as a ref for acceptable, then it is fine. If you used Bad as the ref it is fan art (as it is all original). Hell, every man and his dog has made a superman or wolverene. The thing that makes bad SO bad is that it copy>paste>manipulate>smudge. Still with the acceptable, I think you would have to give credit to the original (eg, inspired by good) but yeah, as long as you gave credit where credit was due, and wasn't making money off it then I don't really see the problem with that. But what would I know, I'm not a lawyer.

One thing that does show is how easy a person with talent can create something some quickly

Josh this is somewhat in the gray area here. But I think this is just as acceptable as painting from someone else's photo, as long as you change the style & proportions to make it your own. Probably OK as far as legality goes. But I'd still call you on it, pretty unoriginal, same coloring.

Originally Posted by adamBrome

I've also been working from concepts I found online that are not my own, nor am I asking the artist for permission. If I were going to do it for financial gain I would definitely ask before making it, but as it stands its just for me to do some shit for my portfolio without having to waste time designing everything about what I want to make.

But are you crediting the concept artist, or are you just leaving it up to the viewer to assume you came up with the design yourself? if so, that's unacceptable IMO.

Always credit others if you have used their work as direct reference (for example, making a 3d model as a direct translation of someone else's design).

If the Vogons were used as inspiration, (which looks to be the case from my perspective), that wouldn't be considered theft. But blatantly copying and pasting parts of the Gladiator render into his own art, is what makes the author's work "theft."

I believe that if a person can site a specific piece that inspired their work of art, then they should do so. If inspiration comes from a number of places that happened to have gotten squished around in their mind over time, (becoming one rather nasty mess of useful and useless gunk), then it would probably be fine to skip the details. I suspect that confident artists would be proud to site their inspiration (if there was one), rather than leave it up to speculation.