What do you consider "Art Theft" - Sorry if in wrong section >.>

[Diddyknight]

Here are the rules from Deviant Art...

Copyright Infringement (aka "Art Theft" or "Ripping")
Current deviantART policy defines 'Art Theft' to be any situation where a user takes the original art, photography, or writing of another person (a 'third party') and then either misrepresents the original, unaltered work as one of their own creations or includes the work (either altered or unaltered) in a new image.

Generally speaking any submission which is directly built upon the existing work of another artist or photographer can be considered to be a case of art theft. These works may feature screenshots, official artwork or sprites taken from a video game, scans from an art book, artwork found on a website somewhere on the internet or a photograph of a famous person (just to name a few examples), but in every case the 'seed image' is the legal property of another artist. In many cases these 'seed images' are manipulated, colored over, blended with other images, and otherwise digitally worked over but none of this makes the use acceptable or allowed.

These submissions will be removed regardless of whether you have credited or linked back to the original source. Knowing where you ‘found’ the original image or knowing who created it or took the photo is not the same as actually having the legal permission to use it in your submission.

Only valid, legal, stock resources are allowed to be used as part of your deviantART submission. Public Domain imagery and works governed by certain Creative Commons licenses may also be used.


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In any case, you could say that 99% of DA signature/banner section is made out of this and possibly the wallpaper section of it.

What do you consider to be "Art Theft"?

 

[Neon Ness]

In any case, you could say that 99% of DA signature/banner section is made out of this and possibly the wallpaper section of it.

Yeah, you could...

I guess it really does depend on the source and whether or not the could-be thief gives credit. Like, I'm pretty sure an image of a Pokemon or something is alright to use freely, I've often seen disclaimers beneath the image that state that they're free for public use. So in that case even though the thing belongs to GameFreak/Nintendo, I don't think it's necessary to give them specific credit.

BUT. If you want to use someone's dA submission for a render in a sig or something, and don't credit them, then yeah, theft, plain and simple. That's mostly why I only use video game/my own images for renders in sigs... I'd rather stay away from any kind of copyright infringement trouble. At the same time, though, if you're just using something for a simple sig for a forum and not making any financial profit from another person's work, technically I guess no harm is done, but... still, I would think it best to give credit where it's due or, better yet, refrain from using others' work altogether, unless it's from the Stock/Resources section and it's explicitly stated that it's free to use.

But you also gotta take responsibility when you choose to submit something you created onto the internet. I would think it very difficult to track down and punish someone who stole art, and in some cases difficult to prove who the original creator was. You have to realize the risks that come with submitting something that so many people have access to, and could easily take, regardless of copyright warnings and such.

But I'm no lawyer. It's a complicated thing, I guess.