Is DA still an art site?But in that news article regarding tracing, copying and stuff [link] I think DA has now completely lost any shred of credibility it has as an 'art' site. It's now basically turning into photobucket (which, unlike the real photobucket, allows porn) with comments.
I think it's bad enough that they overcomplicate the categories and favourite systems, rendering it to close to useless when it comes to browsing, and now they're basically saying that tracing is a valid form of art. Not referencing, not even copying, but tracing. It says all form of copying, which justifies tracing as it is a form of copying. I think tracing is fine for practice, which is how they justify it. But who on earth uploads every single one of their practice drawing? If you have time to upload your '
ractice' works, you're not practicing enough. And I think there's a huge difference between pose referencing (one of the basis of art), copying (fine if it's referencing, but direct copying should be for practice only), and the main point of people's complaint, tracing. The fact that they lump everything together speaks volume about their attitude.But browsing through the comments and replies, the fact that the mod him/herself said the following (and cut and pasted the same comment a couple of times):
"To be honest a large percentage of copied artwork involves one fandom or another and in general the very nature of fan art means that it is unoriginal and copied from another source we didn't see any real reason to place any restrictions on the Fan Art galleries
After all, whether you've copied an Inuyasha screenshot or just free handed a drawing of the character Inuyasha you've still essentially copied something that someone else did first."
Makes me lose any kind of hope that DA actually gives a crap. Using that same argument if I draw a human being then I'm merely an unoriginal, copying hack because human beings exist before I draw them. By that definition the only art that are original are those weird, drug induced abstract impressionist art that no one actually understands. The whole point of fanarts for me is to reinterpret a character I like in the way I want them to be. If I think the original artist's style is perfect, I'd try doing it in that style. Otherwise I'd change things based on my personal taste, which is why a lot of my fanart have different hair colour etc to the original. How is drawing a proper fanart of anime characters different from drawing a portrait of a real life person? If I draw a portrait of Jessica Alba, then it's a fanart of Jessica Alba.
I always consider DA as a "not-so-serious" art site, more for the fun, resources, and social aspect of it rather than for actually learning art because other places like cgsociety.org or ImagineFX forums are much better for serious learning. But with that kind of policy it's hard to even consider it an 'art site' to begin with.
So what do you think, and where do you stand on this issue?
Here's what I reckon we should do: go to the mod's galleries, trace or copy every single one of their work and see how quickly they get removed. I reckon if everyone does the same and flood DA with traced works from the mod's gallery they might finally get some common sense when they're the one getting the short end of the stick.
And if someone is already doing this, let me know and I'll fave everything you copy/trace from the mods' galleries.
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Comission prices (All prices are in Australian Dollar)
Lineart/black and white : $15-50 depending on complexity
Coloured : $ 50-150 depending on complexity
Sample pricing:
Lineart [link] - $20 [link] - $30
Coloured [link] - $60 [link] - $70 [link] - $100
Tutorials that I've made:
Drawing Wings: [link]
BG-painting: Stars [link]
BG-painting:Moon [link]
BG-painting: Clouds: [link]
Painting Scales: [link]
Painting Fire and Feathers: [link]
Lineart preparation for colouring (photoshop): [link]
Basic CG Colouring Part 1: [link]
Basic CG Colouring Part 2: [link]
Basic CG colouring Part 3: [link]
Basic CG colouring Part 4 (End): [link]
Drawing anime faces: [link]
Painting grass and trees: [link]
Cel shading: [link]
My print store: [link]
Devious Comments
*shrugs* I don't care that much. It's not worth the trouble, as going through and forcing people to stop posting it takes a lot of work.
I do agree that actually ADVOCATING it is silly... But that doesn't make dA not an art site.
Also, there is something entirely different about tracing or drawing fan-art and drawing your own character. Your own characters are much different than just random people.
I do agree, that fan art and tracing are not at all the same either, and as long as someone TELLS me it is a trace, and they have PERMISSION from the original author, it's perfectly ok.
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*TheWritersMeow
A birthday is just a day, you say.
But it's a special day.
It's the day you first changed the world.
This has made me want to leave DA...
--
||//愛すべきもののため//愛をくれるもののため//できること||
Note also that one of the point is
The reproduction exactly duplicates an original work AND the owner of the original work files a complaint
When something exactly duplicates an original work why does the owner even have to complain? The second part of that sentence is completely unneccessary, it should be obvious once someone, anyone, points it out. If it's an EXACT duplicate, it's theft.
As an art site, it is very irresponsible (imagine a phys.ed. teacher advocating obesity) - and once their definitions and standards slides down eventually what will be the difference between DA and flickr or photobucket?
What should be taken off are the submissions of screenshots from games and anime/cartoons that have no effort put into them. Because who ever had worked on those things had done a hard job and seeing others submitting something that someone painstakingly did is just plain wrong.
But yes, I also agree that if you are going to copy a picture then it should be for reference not just so someone can submit it and make it look like it was hard. I use refernence all the time, but I have never tried to copy something exactly. I just use them so I can get anatomy or certain body movements right.
So all and all, reference should stay as refernce and not used as work. If you are doing a fan thing then do something that actually has your touch to it and takes time; not just changing colors around, tracing, or doing little modifications to something that was already done.
But if you must go through my work to find something on me, then do as you wish and I'll do my best to defend with or against what I did. I know that my things are at the least done in my way and I'm glad that I enjoy what makes me happy.
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"Everything that ever was shall never be..."
And well said with the referencing bit, that's pretty much how I think it sould be. Although they are both arguably a form of copying, referencing is different from tracing. At least in my case, if I trace a picture of a real person and put an anime head on it he/she will definitely look too fat, too broad, and with short legs.
Besides, there is no gratification in a traced art work, because you didn't put the time in effort into it that most artists do with any of their art work. To a tracer, all art is is just lines and colors on a canvas/paper. But a true artist sees a master peice and sees part of themself in their art, even if it is just fan art.
And despite what any mods say, tracing a person's art and then claiming it as your own with out giving credit to the original artist is what the law defines as FORGERY which is infact ILLEGAL in all fifty United States, and is considered a CRIME if the artwork has been copyrighted, which is what all of this art work on this site is. It doesn't matter how unknown the artist is- if a person traces another deviants or any other artists work and posts it with out giving the original artist credit and asking them for their explicit permission, they have just stolen their art, and are what we fondly call art theives.
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Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service of only the story itself.
Which is why I find the wordings in that article rather offensive, especially in the situations regarding what is tolerated and what is not.
Besides, why do they have 'usually' and 'normally' tolerated to begin with?
That said, a lot of people on DA are here for pageviews and favourites, and they also brings money to DA so I guess it will have to come down into some anime company suing this place before they clamp down on tracing.
Yes, if you trace something, and don't have permission to post it, it's just like creating a derivative work
If we TAKE their work and make new ART from it, we don't have permission to post THAT so why should we be able to post a TRACE which is essentially the SAME, if not MORE so?
--
*TheWritersMeow
A birthday is just a day, you say.
But it's a special day.
It's the day you first changed the world.
DA is a business and while I love browsing amazing art galleries and getting ideas and inspiration from the phenominal artists here, DA thrives, like anything else, on making money. Perhaps their avarice shall get the best of them. There are many people who come to this site everyday. The odds that there is some artist that is fed up with their artwork being stolen and posted here that would be willing to press charges is quite likly. It happened in the music industry when Kazaa and Limewire as well as all the other downloading sites came about. Musicians got tired of being short changed (although some are very rich), and while at first they sued the download sites, they eventually began to press charges of theft against civilians. I, like you, can see this debacle coming to that if policies aren't changed soon.
--
Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service of only the story itself.
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