Regarding a comment about an art theft incident somewhere

Hey guys.

So recently, I've stumbled across something particularly interesting (and disgusting) on another forum.

Here's a quick rundown (I will be excluding all the names and stuff just so bias can't get in the way):

Person A has created a piece of digital fanart to a video game. Another company takes and traces the art (with some slight changes), and uses the traced art for commercial purposes, all without contacting Person A or the people behind the aforementioned video game. Person A discovers this, and posts the incident online.

Person B sees the incident, and says that Person A should be "pleased that the company used his fanart as a basis for their own promotional stuff over other pieces of fanart". (Exact wording: "If anything, you should be pleased they likely used your fanart as a reference for their own promotional fanart, over official images.")

Now that you know the gist of things, please discuss:

Is Person B's response extremely insensitive? Or is it completely reasonable? Is it insulting, or is it (as he had put it) "realistic"? How did you guys feel about that comment? Is there anything you'd like to add?

(I am not talking about whether the company involved was right or wrong (one way or another, it is not okay to steal art). I am talking about the morals of Person B's response; that's the topic of this thread.)

I have also included a poll here for those of you that don't wish to comment: http://strawpoll.me/5781099

Personal opinion: That comment was downright insensitive and insulting. Nothing pisses me off more than people who would undermine and downright ignore the effort that an artist puts into their own work.

(Please note that I will be compiling all of your responses for research purposes. If you wouldn't like to say anything, there's still the poll.)

The companies involved (request by SilentGamer64):

B's right that they should be pleased they got their work used. B is wrong that that is an excuse for the company to not reference and cite their sources. Company is in the wrong too, obviously. At least, morally.

So if I had to choose reasonable or insensitive, I'd go with insensitive.

As you have already said, anyone that supports a corporation (with people paid to be creative to promote their work) stealing from their community is a moron. These are the kinds of people who want to get *** fucked by the producers of the product they are buying. The kind of people who don't pay to play online on PS3 then go to PS4 and defend paying for online like Sony is some sort of small startup. The kind of person who is nothing but an untalented hack while thinking they are some sort of critic of justice who commands talented people at large simply because they can. The only thing looser than their mouth is their asshole. A pushover! In other words people not worth conversing to as they could never understand what it is like to have your work stolen with no credit given and used to make money when you put in the effort. As far as I understand in order to understand such things you actually have to make worthwhile things.

You should not be pleased that they choose your work even without your permission. They think so little of you that they see you as a resource to make more money. Not as an individual who wants to share the love you have of a product. What happiness is their to be found in that? The finished product you made was noticed but not your name and effort.

And yes, I am sort of biased because this happened to me before but on a smaller scale.

It is insensitive, although they do have a point. Someone drawing their interpretation or fanart of some character or thing and having it be selected by the makers and passed off as their own? I mean, that's just dirty, but still it must have been pretty good to be stolen by the og creators. (Assuming the og creators are some 1337 artists.) Personally I'd be ticked, but at least at some level flattered.

I suppose that if that's all there is to the comment, it's rather insensitive but it does have a point. If there's a "man that sucks dude" above it then nah I think it's ok. Of course if the guy put a "yeah well they have a right to do that" above it then no it's not ok, it's both insulting and insensitive. And if it's all that's there, well, it just kind of depends on the person's intended tone and mood.

Creating Fan art is one thing, especially when you're not doing it for money and just for fun. Having the actual company trace it and then use it with monetization is despicable and depending on usage can violate creative commons law (from what I recall, I could be slightly wrong about that). While you can say "You should be grateful they used your art" or what have you, that's one of the worst statements you can say imo. To an extent its like a dude falling for a girl, somebody who knows he likes her goes and hooks up with her, and nine months later hands the original dude the baby she had with guy B, saying that guy A should be grateful.

Put into perspective, that's basically the brunt of it. Its the work that was made by someone, regardless of if it was fan art or original work. General pretty much hit it on the head with this:

General_101 wrote:You should not be pleased that they choose your work even without your permission. They think so little of you that they see you as a resource to make more money. Not as an individual who wants to share the love you have of a product. What happiness is their to be found in that? The finished product you made was noticed but not your name and effort.

That kind of attitude is disgusting, and quite frankly I hate people like that

Would be hilarious if you were to apply and you'd show that stolen piece of art in your portfolio lol.

Would you be willing to put the game company's name in a spoiler at the end of the first post? That way people can read what happened first and form an opinion before seeing what company did this. I would really like to be informed on what company was behind this, because for all I know it could be a company who's games I play :/

IMO, any art that is used in a product that is sold for profit should be accounted and paid for. Whether it is a dev on the official art team, or a fan, artists deserve credit AND compensation for their work. On the other hand, I'm not exactly sure how video game licensing/rights works, because if that fan created something pertaining to the video game, that idea is still owned by that company (if I'm not mistaken).

SilentGamer64 wrote:Would you be willing to put the game company's name in a spoiler at the end of the first post? That way people can read what happened first and form an opinion before seeing what company did this. I would really like to be informed on what company was behind this, because for all I know it could be a company who's games I play :/

Done.
Please note that the video game company and the company that stole the art are not involved with each other.

Oh its warframe. The warframe community is full of elitist and backhanded shits as it is. Tis why I only play with friends

R93_Sniper wrote:Oh its warframe. The warframe community is full of elitist and backhanded shits as it is. Tis why I only play with friends

How can you be an elitist about running on walls with a katana

Sure enough, I've played that game before. It's actually been a while, I never really got back into it. That's still terrible though. Thanks for posting that, Hatchet.

You would be surprised

R93_Sniper wrote:You would be surprised

I second that.

Can you post pictures of the two? I'm just interested to see.

I think I saw the thing it was on in person at Comic-Con. They were selling game and tv show foods (I ended up getting that fun-dip type thing from Gravity falls because they were out of Mana potions ._.)

>Sees art that was stolen

areyoufuckingkiddingme.jpg