Re: Roleplay Character/Art Theft
Posted: March 1st, 2020, 11:41:22 pm
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.
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.