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# 1 29-11-2012 , 03:44 PM
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What would one consider as plagiarism of work?

What would one consider as plagiarism of another person's work or design, if one uses another's work as visual reference?

# 2 29-11-2012 , 04:03 PM
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I'd say it depends on the work being used as reference. I use other people's car models all the time to make blueprints, for example. Which is fine, as long as the edge flow doesn't match. But I think if you were to use someone's abstract/organic/whatever work as reference, and copy the creative design, it may be plagiarism

# 3 29-11-2012 , 05:24 PM
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I think if you need to stop yourself, and ask if you're copying, you probably are.


Imagination is more important than knowledge.
# 4 29-11-2012 , 07:07 PM
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"if one uses another's work as visual reference"

That is kind of vague wording in an already grey area. Like looking at the edge flow of a cartoon style girl for ideas of how to approach modeling a totally different cartoon girl that you're working on probably won't raise any eyebrows but if it turns out you're basically recreating that character and calling it your own work well...that's another deal altogether. Whether confirmed or not, no one wants their name caught up in that.

In the end, I have to agree with NextDesign.


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# 5 30-11-2012 , 12:33 AM
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Im with ND too. This article probably doesnt explain to well but its an example. This is for the written word but the basics apply. If you alter geo and change it slightly then you will probably be ok. Technically though, if we use blueprints and photo refs, as ND said, we are in effect copying, thats a hard one really.

https://science.widener.edu/svb/essay/plagiar.html

I think if you ref the original author/artist and cite your study refs it would be fine.

cheers bullet


bullet1968

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# 6 30-11-2012 , 12:40 AM
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As a personal example, I am (still not finished) doing a model of a structure which is a concept 2D drawing by Feng Zhu. I have acknowledged this in my thread and have personally tried to contact him or a rep to ask permission to model it. I have not yet heard from them and will again try to contact them. I hope to soon have gained enough knowledge in lighting and get the thing finished. I have scaled etc the model from my observations etc from the 2D concept. I feel obliged to ask him for 2 reasons, its his concept and I would like to show off my work with his blessing...maybe even impress. As I am doing it purely for fun I probably dont have to do the above, for me it comes down to respect, without his concept, I wouldnt have a reference user added image

cheers bullet


bullet1968

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# 7 19-12-2012 , 10:22 AM
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How did I miss this.

this subject rattles on and on.

I think if you are copying someones work like for like then yeah its blatant plagiarism.

With regard to copying a model but not copying edgeflow I think thats a lame excuse, why not just download the blueprints in the first place.

On the subject of downloading reference material, our boss at work doesnt like us downloading ref material off google as he claims its copyright, which it is in some respects, but we are only using those images to build a model or replicate a surface material for textures and so on, as long as the image itself isnt replicated then its not copyright...so you can see a fine line there.

Also for our latest show I sent out a link around the company of tons of NASA images because of the Space reference and vehicles etc, I was told not not to send it around because it was copyright of the images. But I did point out that NASA doesnt claim any copyright for useage of the images providing they are not replicated in any way. So it works both ways and is always worth finding out to see where you stand.

Although I still figure you need to be careful as to whether you mention the artist or not too as Bullet has said. Theres still nothing to stop the originator of the image suing your ass off regardless of a mention -Such is the world today. But I do feel it would be overlooked as long as it wasnt used for personal gain.

Jay

# 8 08-01-2013 , 05:29 PM
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This reminds me of when Wall-E was in cinemas.
First thing that people thought when they saw the little robot: it looks like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.
There were a lot of debates over the internet about it. In some sources, it is said that the creator of Wall-E has seen SC but that he didn't intend to make a copy of the robot, and in some sources it says that it might have been due to a subconscious idea of his.
The way Wall-E's voice sounds, and the bug being around him also seem to be similar to Johnny 5's voice, and the butterfly scene respectively.
But is it plagiarism? Or coincidence?
I liked both movies though.

Another related thing to this:
There is a contest going on on a website (Deviant Art).
Some people resorted to stealing photos of real scenery and applying filters to them, making them look like watercolor paintings, and claiming as their own entries for the contest. The guy even removed the comments of some people who suspected foul play, instead of defending himself.

Another copied someone else's work, stated that their work inspires them, but in reality the picture that was entered wasn't much different, it was a woman with the same face, almost same hairstyle only "cut" shorter, but the same cigarette in her mouth, and instead of a rose on her chest, the person drew some kind of flowers that didn't even look realistic.
Now inspiration I'd think it means to probably follow someone's style but not make outright blatant copies of their work (like copying Mona Lisa but changing her clothing and the background, and calling the painting by another name). Unless it is a parody (like making a painting in which Mona Lisa is wearing glasses and smoking a cigar while there's a nuke mushroom cloud in the background...)


Last edited by SilverFeather; 08-01-2013 at 05:49 PM.
# 9 08-01-2013 , 06:49 PM
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....

Another related thing to this:
There is a contest going on on a website (Deviant Art).
Some people resorted to stealing photos of real scenery and applying filters to them, making them look like watercolor paintings, and claiming as their own entries for the contest. The guy even removed the comments of some people who suspected foul play, instead of defending himself.

Another copied someone else's work, stated that their work inspires them, but in reality the picture that was entered wasn't much different, it was a woman with the same face, almost same hairstyle only "cut" shorter, but the same cigarette in her mouth, and instead of a rose on her chest, the person drew some kind of flowers that didn't even look realistic.
Now inspiration I'd think it means to probably follow someone's style but not make outright blatant copies of their work (like copying Mona Lisa but changing her clothing and the background, and calling the painting by another name). Unless it is a parody (like making a painting in which Mona Lisa is wearing glasses and smoking a cigar while there's a nuke mushroom cloud in the background...)

Well the good thing about that is usually it's obvious when people do stuff like because they usually rip off material above their skill level and just end up making themselves look foolish when they try to add their edits.


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# 10 08-01-2013 , 07:45 PM
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Well the good thing about that is usually it's obvious when people do stuff like because they usually rip off material above their skill level and just end up making themselves look foolish when they try to add their edits.

The funny thing was that the judges, who are supposed to be "the world-renowned artists who teach as TAD faculty" (quoted from Deviant Art, not sure if I am allowed to post a link to the contest here), have selected those works to be in the semifinalists list, and then the community shouted foul play when they noticed that, thus the contest supervisors removed one of the rip offs, but not the other.
I've entered under the 3D section of the contest, probably wasn't good enough though as I didn't make it to the semifinals, but I'm still following the contest, as I can learn some more about art, but just by entering, it motivated me to learn more about 3D modeling / rendering as I needed to search for stuff such as how to render mesh with wireframe.

There still are plenty of people that didn't follow the rules (such as entering fan art even though the contest rules state that no fan art is allowed except for Illustration section) and yet they made it to semifinals.

But here's one interesting thing worthy of a Philosoraptor quote:
"If copying other people's work is plagiarism, then isn't copying parts of the world around us plagiarism since God created the world?"
And I'm an agnostic... but that's just a thought. Lol. As it seems like us humans can never pull something out of nothing, we get inspired by events and things from the world around us.
As examples:
Dragonfly - Helicopter
Whale / Fish - Submarine
Bird - Airplane
Bird courtship - Dancing
Bird Song - Music (not to mention that nowadays the only way you can make something original is by using beats that most likely were done already, unless it's totally random but that's rare and may not sound right)

Not to mention that movies / stories are inspired by people's day to day lives and sometimes by stuff from the media.


Last edited by SilverFeather; 08-01-2013 at 07:48 PM.
# 11 10-01-2013 , 12:02 PM
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The funny thing was that the judges, who are supposed to be "the world-renowned artists who teach as TAD faculty" (quoted from Deviant Art, not sure if I am allowed to post a link to the contest here), have selected those works to be in the semifinalists list, and then the community shouted foul play when they noticed that, thus the contest supervisors removed one of the rip offs, but not the other.

Link away no worries, sounds like an interesting challenge.

# 12 10-01-2013 , 12:51 PM
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100% like for like is copying , how ever if you have made 20% of changes to the theme you can now copy write your new work .


...

You know you have been working too long in cg when your out side and you look up at the trees and say

"Wow that's spectacular resolution ."
# 13 10-01-2013 , 09:43 PM
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Link away no worries, sounds like an interesting challenge.

https://ayame-kenoshi.deviantart.com/...ists-343702716
They said no fan art allowed. Note the Tron fan art, chosen twice by the judges. Lol. Sure, it might be a character that the entrant created, but it's still very much based on tron... kind of borderline fan art, even though it looks awesome.
I'm not entirely sure on Mike Tyson being represented as a caricature as being fan art, but a lot of the people there said it is.
They have disqualified the person that had the trees and shack photo-edited entry, because he stole someone else's picture.
This entry made it to the semi-finals (in spite of the rules saying the work needs to be original).
https://chukgert.deviantart.com/art/w...tyle-338144645
Here is the real thing:
https://brianmviveros.com/paintings/s...-with-the-bull

But anyway, since I am here, I have questions regarding a novel I'm working on.
I understood that it's ok if you state where you get some quotes from or if you make a reference to / parody of something, you must give credit to it. And I've done that for anything that has been parodied.

Is it considered an infringement if a character states that they like or don't like:
- a certain brand of product? (like, say... Coca Cola, Fish Fingers, etc)
- a movie? (i.e character states he has been watching "2012", "Terminator", etc)
- an artist? (i.e character states he likes <insert list of rappers here>)
Or if for example, a character is ranting against a website (without outright stating so but giving hints as to what it is, in example... Wikipedia's sometimes unreliable information that anyone can edit, like one time when someone edited the T-shirt article and stated that they can fit seagulls).
Or if a character builds a wooden boat and calls it Titanic, and the boat doesn't sink, but instead is thrown onto the beach by a tsunami?

And, what worries me the most:
I thought I had done my research well enough before I started writing. I've googled for the word Tarsa before naming a planet and its people the same way. The stuff I've found showed that there was a place in India called that, and a few companies. Now, the reason I needed that name mainly for the inhabitants of that planet has something to do with the Tarsier animal. It all seemed ok back then.
But one year later (started this in 2011) I thought about re-checking, out of interest for astronomy, if there is any planet named Tarsa out there. And I came across an information that states that there is a Star Wars book that contains a fictional planet called Tarsa as well.
The differences are:
In my novel, Tarsa is located around Alpha Centauri. It is a red desert planet with crystal formations and no liquid water. It is inhabited by humanoid Tarsa aliens and some small underground-dwelling arthropods.
In the Star Wars book, according to this source, Tarsa is a forested planet in the Tarsa system and it's inhabited by moths.
Should I change the planet name in my novel, along with its inhabitants' species name to something else?


Last edited by SilverFeather; 10-01-2013 at 10:16 PM.
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