Tracing = Art theft?
 

Recently there was an incident on tumblr where someone had 'traced' another person's image to draw their own character. Now it's a huge deal and stuff so it got me thinking. How many of you people actually consider tracing to be art theft?

Personally in my opinion as an artist, I'd hate it if someone took credit for something I worked hard on. But I feel like if you're tracing to improve like your eyes or poses I think that's fine. So long as you ADMIT the art is not yours. AND you link to the original piece to the original artist. I see nothing wrong with referencing others work, but when you start posting them claiming that you did this on your own, then we have a problem.

So what do you guys think? IS tracing art theft to you? If so why? And are there limitations to what you consider art theft and not art theft? Or it's just plain unacceptable?

There is nothing wrong with tracing.


As long as it is presented as such. It is dishonest and wrong to trace something and then say you did it all yourself. But there's no real issue (to me) if someone traces something and then says, "I traced this thing," link, "and then tried out changing the clothes" (or whatever modification).

It's just one way to help get a handle on how the lines come together.

Hmm...
Well, I'd say it would depend in part on the intent of the art, the intent of the tracing, etc.

Examples I would not consider theft:
1) Sketches trying to learn from "the masters" (Leonardo, Salvador Dali, etc.)
2) Art that is meant for tracing/practice drawing. (How-to's)
3) Using multiple drawings as research/reference for your drawing.

What is theft.
1) Using references that request citation without citing.
2) Tracing/copying another's art without citation/consent.

And...that's about it for me.

Okay so what if someone, traces a piece of the drawing? Like say they traced nose and the ears because of whatever reason.

Depends. I have used tracing other drawings to practice before I draw my own thing, but direct tracing of different parts from different drawings...
This is gray area to me.

Well the person I am talking has been caught before. And the image they drew had some of the face traced and some shoulder placement. But as far as I know, they've been caught before and was reprimanded by the people they stole from.

So why do you think people think it's okay to trace something and post it as their own? And why do they insist on doing it after they've been caught?

Well, it goes back to a lack of patience, and people often want instant gratification.

A similar thing I see in many places nowadays (with politics, with projects, etc)

Well I wish they would try themselves, credit people, and stop the stealing of art. Anyone have similar experiences? Thankfully no one wants to steal my crummy art xD

Or maybe they just do stuff like that to receive praise or whatever since they don't get much in their life and want to be proud of something in their own eyes? XD I don't know, only thing I can think of...

Well some people do do that. They'll outright steal someones work and just put their name on it. But i'm talking about small sneaky stuff. Like tracing a portion of a drawing but since you drew the rest it seems you did it yourself. But that's still stealing art work. Unless they credit the parts they used.

Hm. If it's tracing some parts and drawing the rest in themselves, there may even be some people who don't see it as stealing at all. Their mind may not even just be in stealing.
They may say 'Oh, hey! That person is an amazing artist, I should see if I can learn a thing or two from their style!
And that's all where their mind may be. Not anywhere in 'Oh, if I did that it might be stealing.'

Because honestly, if I try to think about myself doing that, stealing would be the last thing on my mind if I draw something , and it turns out well, and I want to hear praise and critique. XD I dunno.
Everyones different. :3 And we all make mistakes. x3

But for those that are doing it with 'I'm stealing this' actually on their mind, then yeah, they are pretty much to blame. They're doing it intentionally.

Yeah I guess but what if their reaction is hostile. Like "NO I DID'T STEAL IT ASDFGHJKL rather than. "Oh I did trace a little I'm sorry and I'll take down the work." Now then you know someone doesn't think they're stealing at all.

I'd actually chalk that up to defensiveness. If they don't think they stole it, than a "Hey! You !@#$ing stole my work!" would automatically have the human defensive reaction of "No I $%^&ing didn't."

Now if it was said "Umm, I can tell that you traced part of my work. Please either cite my work or take yours down." and they responded similarly, they are a kingly jerkass.

There was one person who stated that they were receiving lies from people that something was their work (When he knew it was someone else), and as such apologized, but he would not cite something when he was not sure whose it was. (This is another socket wrench here. The kings of jerks try to tell anyone willing to cite that a work is theirs/from theirs when it is not, for incitement and attention)

Yeah I've never seen any lie about having stolen work that's not there. If they wanted to make sure it belongs to them using that google image findy thing gives you a list of site where the actual picture is posted. it might be useful.

Oh, the last part I was talking about was theft, however, I was stating that the theft (especially online/on tumblr) would not be resolved through anger/bluntness.

When a person gets angry at another person, the latter almost always gets angry in return, and two angry people, unless they have some talent for working under anger, never get a job done.

So uh, I personally dislike referencing art for anything, so I never trace. (Except the few times I was required to do that in art class.) But back when I was learning anatomy, I did try to eyeball it and copy some poses, positions, whatnot. I think that's fine. Any more than that, and I usually ask the original artist if it's okay to post said stuff. (I know that most artists are fine with people just /referencing/ their art for learning purposes.)

But I feel like asking first is always common courtesy, and if permission has not been given, then tracing (or even copying, really) can be considered theft.

Yes, I consider it theft, unless the person who traced it made it very clear that they traced the whole thing or even parts of it and not only gave credit to the original, but linked to the persons page (if it was from an online artist). Furthermore, if you did trace something, i don't think it should be posted anywhere anyway. Tracing can be a helpful tool, but it should only be used for practice, it should never ever be used in a finished piece, in my opinion.

Because what happens when someone posts a piece with traced bits is that people will skim over the part where they said it was traced (if they even say that) and will immediately give praise to someone who does not deserve it. Or, if on tumblr, 9 times out of 10 the description gets erased anyway so the original artist is not getting credit for their hard work.

So in short. Tracing is okay to learn, but in my opinion, shouldn't be posted online. Use what you've learned from tracing to make new original works and then post that instead.

EDIT: also if you're going to trace ANYTHING and post it online, you better make damn sure you get permission first.

/rant

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Okay there have been cases in the professional world where people have literally traced an image, vectored it and instead of paying the original artist they just used it on the products. Again I think its like Lawton said intention to me is what makes it thievery.

But considering as a child I would not draw fanart because I thought it was stealing I am not sure where to stand. It has been years and I have been to art school I know that not every one has a friend they can turn to and say 'hay can you pose for me?'. I was always taught that as long as you made it your own its your own creation. And that is where the lines blurr a bit. I have seen a guy loose a full ride to a university because his collage was not altered enough from the original source material, and I have also seen a guy get an entire children's book publish and yet one of his water color paintings was found as an exact copy from a national geographic image.

Honestly, I was very much the "not draw fan art" thing as a kid. As such, I never learned to draw cartoons. (And, after ~14, due to art instructor, I stopped art until about a year ago.)

That actually brings up a point for fanart - Is it a good or bad thing that people try to use another's characters?
Which, is a nice place to point out the similarity between this and stealing another's writing, or coding.

Also *points to Art Discussion* I asked a question of my own.

Lawtan sumed that up really well. : 0

Fanart is totally fine, unless the original creator of that character has specifically asked for people to not draw their characters.

I've had someone trace my art before and I was really angry. Honestly I would not have been mad if they had just traced the pose and made it their own characters. What made me mad was that they didn't even change my characters! They only changes the colors of the clothes and hair and claimed the art as their own. I politely asked them to take down the picture and they went crazy on me. They even went as far as saying that the characters in the picture were male even though the person who traced it didn't even bother to remove the creases on the shirts for the breasts of the females that I originally drew. Their account on deviantArt eventually got shut down because a bunch of my webcomic fans reported the person.

(It was a picture of 2 characters from my webcomic that other people recognized as well.)

In my view, tracing isn't stealing art AS LONG AS you credited the original artist. if you traced a piece of art and claimed it to be all your doing and originality then it's stealing.

I actually traced original arts from sailor moon back in 2005, and that's how I improved my art skills. however I never posted them on the internet and claiming that I did all the work. if somebody asked I would say that I traced it from this pic from a certain artist.

What echo said on top! Unless you are given a cease and desist by the creator of said art, it's okay to trace. But if you take a character and made that character in your own design it in your own style it is your art but with a different alteration to that character. (Meaning if you made a new awesome looking spider-man which is stylize and designed as an original look or appearance that art style and version of spider-man you made is yours even though Marvel owns the character and all rights to TV shows and all of that chiz.)

But tracing very opened in big media because a lot of big corporations love it when you trace their characters because odds are you will actually learn how to draw their characters by tracing, hence you most likely will create a ton of fan-art or even in the future work for them doing art for them. (Which is the story for a lot of people who work at Marvel, or even the person making that new Sonic Boom game.)
Tracing is just a technique in art to practice learning how to draw in general in my opinion, but it can easily be used selfishly for personal gain.

I feel like tracing AND crediting the original artist, then posting that somewhere, is only okay if you get actual permission from the original artist.

....I guess I'm still not a fan of tracing, if only because if you're learning from other people's art, the most effective way to teach yourself is probably not to strictly trace, but also to figure out the composition of the piece...

This tumblr user, did they just post their version for storage reasons?

Be cause if I did something like that and posted it, one: might not know the original artist because other people steal (if there's no watermark) and post it two: might not think of tagging the artist due to the fact that part of it could be original....but mainly due to just not thinking about it.

This makes me think of the people who do parodies/whatever including like a Dali painting or something. We don't say well, that part doesn't belong to the artist, they shouldn't make money/a career off of it.

Of course, I don't know how much tracing or anything this user did. If it's more of a photoshop type thing where they just changed the colors, well, they should still be able to post it, but they shouldn't be like LOOK WHAT I DID! (unless they note they mean the color, not the actual thing). But plenty of people will trace a base and I don't think that that alone should be held against a person, but tracing too much? Of course. (If I traced, I might not credit either due to it slipping my mind or something, but if someone asked me to draw something for them, I'd be like, I traced the base...of course I don't draw because I suck at it, so no worries on me doing that)

it depends on the tracing. if the person got permission from the original creator or the image is free-to-use(that is the image does not belong to anyone such as classical works) and did say that they traced then it is no big deal, if they used a source without permission, even if it is credited, they stole it and that is wrong

In my opinion it just depends on the situation.
It is all about their intent and also I feel sorta the age and maturity of a person also takes part in it.

I do feel if someone traces that it isn't completely their art and that it isn't good enough for a portfolio.
Art based off a copyright also isn't for a portfolio either.
However, I do feel tracing can help with their development and control over a medium, like pencil, pen, charcoal, paint, etc.

Sometimes while working with kids they sometimes start with tracing but then they tend to move away from that, at least the ones I worked with... and you can sometimes see improvement
which also depends on how much time they put aside to draw

As long as it isn't a crutch for them and they don't claim they did it all themselves

It's hard to comment to some of my friends about art... because they just color other people's pictures... at first I was surprised and wasn't to happy because they tried to pass it off as their own... ... so it can be disappointing as well

Tracing can be a good way to learn, but traced artwork should never be claimed to be the tracer's original artwork. I admit, I have traced in the past, and sometimes, if there's a specific pose that I want to study, I'll trace the pose. But those tracings go into my references folder, and I never post them online or in a portfolio.

It is art theft. You cannot improve on your own work unless you do it yourself. Take for instant if you are tracing someone else's work and they have made a mistake and since you've only been tracing you don't see that mistake. That person is only hindering their self and basically learning a mistake from tracing. :P Kind of lame to trace if you ask me when there is so many resources out there like tutorials to teach you how to draw.

So even if you're just tracing a pose, not with the intention of posting, but with the intention of building a reference folder to better understand things like foreshortening, balancing a pose so it's not unstable, or tracing part of an outfit so you can better understand how to shade certain fabric folds, you're automatically an art thief? I think that's a bit harsh, to be honest.

I think that's fine if you're tracing to learn. But what I find unacceptable is if you post that traced art and you claim it as your own. If you're tracing to practice, there isn't really a need to post it unless you want to show others that you're improving but even then you should credit the artist that you traced from so people can see their art and that you're not ripping off the artist because some people make money like this and it's not fair to them.

Tracing is ABSOLUTELY art theft unless the original artist specifically says it's okay, or if you ask and get permission. Even then, you should still give credit because it's not your own work. You might think it is because you physically drew it, but coming up with poses and getting proportions right takes a lot of time for some people and they deserve respect for their work. I'm against anyone referencing my work without crediting me.