Roleplay Character/Art Theft

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Do you think Art/Character Theft is bad?

YES! BOTH!
67
88%
No! Neither!
0
No votes
Yes. Art is, but not character.
2
3%
Yes. Character is, but not Art.
1
1%
Who cares?
6
8%
 
Total votes: 76

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HobbitFeet
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Re: Roleplay Character/Art Theft

Post by HobbitFeet »

This is an odd topic for me. Let me preface it by saying that I've been an RPer for going on 14 years and that I grew up during a time when the internet was just starting to take off.

If you're RPing, say, here for instance. Or on a webpage forum that you made with a friend (y'know, back when they were free), and you designed a character to fit whatever you were RPing... and you took an image from Google to represent your character. Back when I was younger, I wouldn't consider that as theft. Mostly because it was with the understanding that the picture wasn't yours unless otherwise stated. It was just common practice. Now that people are using the internet more commonly to establish themselves as artists in one way or another, I would pose that it's more polite to state your sources. I made sure to do that when I created my shop here, using images from various sources, as well as my current avatar.

If someone posted somewhere that they made an OC and you carbon copy their OC for your own personal uses, it's not nice, but it's not copyrighted. It's just unsavory. If you took elements of their character and came up with your own, that's fine. A lot of times I drew inspiration from existing characters and never outright revealed my sources simply because it's an RP on a server that a handful of people saw. Big ol shrug.

I would only consider something as real and truly theft if you took someone's art and claimed it as your own, or tried to pass it off as something you made, especially if the artist explicitly stated to credit them or not repost their work, or if you profited financially in some way from taking, claiming, or copying someone's work.
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Re: Roleplay Character/Art Theft

Post by Doglover2509840935 »

I would say that while I do not support taking other's art to use in roleplays and feel that it's better to use descriptions instead. Another problem with using art in roleplays is also that this also contributes to and supports the belief that if it's online you can use it for whatever you want.

Character theft is a touchy subject as it is generally only actually intentional in a few cases. In many cases however it's simply using the same theme. For example two phoenix characters will likely have many similarities especially if both are based of the same type of bird. A quick search shows that most seem to be based off hawks or eagles. Sometimes people also believe that they were the first to come up with a different idea for said character such as a dragon with fur which causes a lot of fights online.
There is also nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other artists as long as you make the inspiration your own instead of directly copying their take, for example if you want to make a swan phoenix after seeing someone else's look up swans and see if there is a different type or use a different take on phoenix designs.
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Re: Roleplay Character/Art Theft

Post by Howltrail »

I remember when I was a kid, I would do both things simply because I was an autistic child that knew no better. At the time it was fun to swipe characters from google to roleplay with other young child friends online, and I was not good at art yet so I thought using other people's to trace over was a valid way to practice and uploading that on Deviantart was a fine thing to do now that it was "mine"

I got a bad taste of reality when I was called an art thief on said website, and people began sending me countless threats and cursing for it. I had been posted to a tumblr blog by some guy apparently who had a huge following meanwhile I was barely a teen, with undiagnosed autism, and no idea how the real world was. People sent me things that were completely inappropriate to send a child. Including "Go f--- yourself because you'll never get any" and worse. When my mother stood up to them to tell them I was just a kid, they said she was not real and that I had made it myself. They either assumed I was an adult putting on a show, or simply did not care that I was possibly a child. Several times I was young and dumb on said site, I asked to mail friends letters and their parents thought I was a creep online for it and to be fair I would never blame someone online for something like that as a 22 year old now, but it felt really scary as a child because I did not understand.

I guess my point of this story is, as a child you don't know better. Even if you think you know a lot? You probably don't. And that's okay. Please listen to adults when you're corrected on things like this. And adults? Please consider who's on the other side of the screen. Those words still hurt me to this day, and I promise you the child on the other end of the internet will never forget what you said to them. Yes, it is art theft, but it's still just a child in those situations and you should always be careful.
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