Incoming mailbag post!
Sorry for the lack of replies lately. I know I mentioned that I would post them last night, but I have recently decided to implement a batch system for replying to asks and am also contemplating on choosing a specific day to respond to them. However, I've amassed a sizeable amount over the past few days, so I will be posting these first. (This is my first time making a batch so large! I realize I've put some of these asks out of order, I apologize.) Please understand that I may not publish every single ask, due to many of them saying or asking of the same thing.
I would also like to take this moment to thank everyone following this blog again, and to mention that many of you have been incredibly helpful and encouraging! Now, onto the asks:
brbchurch: We're discussing two very different sites here, but the policy is basically the same. Tumblr is a media sharing space, and she can't get in trouble with the site and its TOS (its users are a different story) anymore than, for example, a fyeah_____ blog.
DeviantART is more of a complicated matter and its policy on tracing (full thing here: http://realitysquared.deviantart.com/journal/CEA-UPDATE-20090130-Issues-Involving-Copying-214186526. But in summary, in the interest of getting as many users as content as possible, and because the risk of getting into legal trouble is very small for them and it isn't worth the trouble to enforce. My favorite gem is "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.") is one of the many reasons why it has been under fire for not being a "legitimate" art site by several corners of the internet for years.
This is complicated even more because while tracing in is already something no one seems to want to agree on because it is such a deep, deep subject, Sei has managed to find the exact line where her work is traced but also not and you could easily make a case both ways. And she toes it knowingly because the discussion itself (see below in critiques) will keep most people from being able to solidly to speak out one way or another. More importantly, it places her work just into the side of "tolerated" for DeviantART (especially by being largely fanart) and unless the artist she stole from approaches DA and expresses that they feel they have been ripped off, they are going to let it slide.
#1: I've recently sent them a message through tumblr, though they have yet to reply. I have also heard that a number of others have also tried to contact her, though I can not say for certain if she has responded to any of them.
#2: Thank you for the tip! I have recently given the site a try, and it has proven helpful already. This may take a bit of getting used to, so if anyone else manages to find something, I encourage you to share!
#3: Sorry about that! There should be links underneath the 'About' section in the sidebar.
If it is not appearing for you still, let me know! I will be sure to try and figure out what is going on.
#1: Thank you for the head's up! It seems that she's locked her entire deviantArt so only members can view it. So if you log in to your account, everything should be accessible! However, it does look like she's put a lot of her pieces into storage, which rings rather suspicious.
#2: I can completely sympathize, Anon. :( When I first heard the news, I couldn't believe it either. But this also proved to be a huge wake-up call for me! After realizing she was profitting from pulling this sort of act, as well as trying to hide the fact that she was doing so, I finally came to understand that this was not admirable behavior. By turning a blind eye for so long, I realized that that wasn't right.
ono-mono-pia: Thank you for the encouragement!!
Since I don't doubt a lot of the followers on this blog were once her fans and/or aspiring artists, I feel this is a good opportunity to point out that I'm not trying to make everyone suddenly disavow ever liking her work. In fact, I am really just trying to apply public pressure to make her make a public apology and right her wrongdoings and start using her gifts (which she clearly possesses) to learn and create the legitimate way. It's a far off dream considering how aggressively she has been sweeping this under the rug, but at least in the meanwhile she will hopefully profit less hugely and scam fewer people with her thievery as word gets out.
The asker, in particular, saw a lot of good come out of their interactions with Sei by finding the inspiration to push past an artblock (something always a huge feat, I know).
In fact, a lot of people saw her work as motivation to keep learning and keep working and even though her decision to "stoop to this level" for lack of a better way to put it was the wrong way to go about her artistic career, everyone should remember to hang onto the inspiration and sparks of imagination the work brought to them. But on the other hand, should definitely not forget the deep cutting sense of betrayal from finding out she was a (so far unrepenting) liar, not so you can hold it against her, but so if you ever feel that you aren't making enough progress for your liking and want to take the easy way out and steal, trace, or take from the intellectual and creative property of others you remember how intrinsically wrong you knew it was (and is).
seedysunflower: Thank you very much! Though I cannot say much about her being self-righteous with confidence, one has to admit her attitude towards being called out is rather revealing...
#4: Thank you for letting us know! I didn't even notice until you mentioned it. It looks like she is very intent on keeping this hidden from her watchers. However, hiding one's gallery (and comments) from the public now will not help keep suspicions anymore at bay, so to speak.
#5: Thanks for the kind words. Hopefully I am able to keep this up for a bit longer; it is actually tough work finding these overlays, haha!
#6: Yes, thank you! I've gotten numerous tips of this as well, and pointed it out in another post. Though, I think having to hide all of your comments from your front page would ring more suspicious than not, in my opinion.
#7: Well, I've never seen someone get away with it for so long either! Hopefully all of this will be resolved one day, now that the art community is all the more aware of her art stealing. But like I said before, judging from how she is reacting, I cannot say for certain where this whole ordeal may actually end up.
oshiawase-ni: Not really, but I didn't really intend on maintaining this blog for an incredibly extended amount of time; I can see how this is all a little ludicrous to some though. But I do think it is for the best that people be made aware of what she has done, and that maybe Sei could own up to her actions one day instead of constantly trying to sweep it under the rug.
I think the better question is, do you think it is alright for someone to be paid for somebody else's hard work? Think of it like this: you have a job where it is your goal to get something done, and you do your job diligently and finish it off! You're proud of what you have made, but then someone else manages to take your end result, puts a bow on it, and then hands it directly to whoever asked you to do your job saying that they did everything. The credit for your work then goes to them, and thus they get the pay you deserved for the work you did. Is that fair?
Then, is it fair for the person who paid, who had no idea what was going on, to be lied to and give their money to someone who didn't actually do any of the work they requested? If you were the first person, how would you feel?
You're right in saying I may have a little too much time on my hands, but I hope I am at least being of help to a few people.
Anon: Ah, well if you want to cite modern interpretations of Mona Lisa as a means to justify art theft, then here goes: the Mona Lisa modernism movement is a form of pop art. There was a similar argument I saw carried out in other posts, but the gist of it is that the technical details of modernist Mona Lisa portraits are not what is being valued, as many of them are parodying the original painting itself. What we, the audience, are supposed to glean from the painting is that fact that the Mona Lisa is so prevalent in pop culture, to the point where the words 'masterpiece', 'fine art' are often greatly associated with it; the Mona Lisa is the pinnacle of Renaissance art.
Furthermore, the difference between tracing in traditional media than digitally is the fact that, digitally, it is a whole lot more convenient to do so. Please keep in mind that many of the artists that did re-interpretations did not have the luxury of taking the Mona Lisa from the walls of the Louvre, slapping another piece of paper on it, and tracing on top of it. The idea of doing so would be ridiculous to even consider! (Plus, the constucts of canvas often prove rather difficult to trace anyways.) Also, please consider the reasons why art theft from museums is often seen as a huge crime...
Whereas through Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop, or any of those other art programs, people can simply open a picture in one layer, lower the opacity, and painlessly trace over the lines. And that's it! You're done!
On top of that, citing Da Vinci is rather funny, considering the man himself did extensive and intense studies on human anatomy, was a known anatomist (as well as dabbling in numerous other fields of study), dissected both human and animal cadavers to understand how parts of the body connected and functioned with each other, and created what is probably considered as the backbone of human anatomy and proportions. And the only examples he could have taken to do all of this were from observation.
A quick and painless Google search for 'DaVinci' could have told you all of this. I hope this explains the reasoning behind this blog a little more.