D&D General Plagiarised D&D art

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Could someone explain to me what the actual issue is here?

 

[jgsugden]

Could someone explain to me what the actual issue is here?

The actual one?

Someone creates art. The idea is that anyone that uses that creation needs to have the permission of the person that created it to use it. If they flat out reuse it, or modify it while using the core of it then it is wrong to use it without that permission.

However, there are some uses that are perfectly acceptable without permission. They generally (in the US) include criticism, commentary, reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

One problem with this set of rules is the ambiguity. Let's say I see a drawing and I study it. Then I try to reproduce it several times for my own use in order to master the skills that went into how it was drawn in the first place. All of this is fine. And I become really good - good enough to be paid to make art.

Then someone hires me to make art and something I make looks similar to the original drawing from which I learned. Maybe I did it in homage, but considered it different enough that I thought it was not a rip off. Maybe I just did it without thinking of it. Maybe I was following guidance from the person that hired me and it is happenstance that it is similar. Should my artwork not be allowed to be used because I'm taking the work of another and using it myself? It is really hard to draw a clear line between what is a rip off and what is a new unique work that has similarities.

If we draw the line too far in favor of protecting the original audience we get into problems. This problem becomes more compounded as time goes by and more artwork is created. How many commercial pieces of artwork have been drawn that depict a dragon. Millions. From novels, to kids books, to video games, to board games, to CCGs, to RPGs, to paintings ... If each depicition of a dragon had to be substantially different from all others we'd be hard pressed to create dragon artwork now that wasn't substantially like something that has come before. If you realized that putting dragon artwork in your new book meant that someone might claim it ripped off their prior work and was going to sue you for royalties ... on top of what you paid the artist to create it for your book ... it gets to a point where you don't want to include dragons in your book anymore.

If we go the other direction and say that trivial changes allow it to be used without compensation to the original artist - why hire artists at all anymore? Grab old artwork, slap it into a program, change the color a bit, add in something minor or remove some stuff ... you get great art and didn't have to pay for it!

As AI has come out, we run into the problems that AI may be seen as using the artwork for research, or learning from it the same way an artist learns from looking at the work of others. We're headed to a decade of legal challenges over the original use of artworks as education for AI - and whether AI can ever 'create' artwork. That will end either in: 1.) If artwork is included in the repository from which the AI learned, the AI owner needs to pay ... and if they don't get a flat fee for inclusion but royalties from the use of the art, then it is meaningless as considering the amount of artwork necessary for these repositiories, the split of the royalties between so many artists would render it insignificant for each use of the artwork and the administrative cost of tracking the royalties would exceed the revenue from royalties;or 2.) AI will be allowed to learn from the artwork for free, but will need to be able to generate artwork that is substantially dissimilar from the art from which it learned - it can't merge images, it must apply techniques and be 'creative'. We're not there yet ... but we're closer than many people realize.

And once AI can get to a point where it can generate essentially new art without infringing upon the work of others and the art can be used either "as is", or with easy modification ... the majority of commercial artists are out of a job. We're going to get there one way or another ... the same as we're going to get to a point where AI eliminates white collar jobs the same way that automation eliminated blue collar jobs in the 70s and 80s. Artists and accountants will both be unable to provide move value than a combination of machines ... so companies that value profits over long term societal benefit (see destruction of the environment, price gouging, etc...) will eliminate the costs of work forces as quickly as they can ... leaving us with an ever increasing amount of society that can't be put to productive work because what they offer a machine can do better and cheaper - and eventually to a point where what benefits the world most are things that only machines can understand. That'll lead to the people that can't contribute being trodden upon, civil uprisings, a nuclear apocalypse, and the world descending into either 1980s Gamma World, 2019s Gamma World, or Paranoia inspired society. In theory we could go the Star Trek route and all share in the bounties of the advanced technology ... but people suck.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, don't go looking at the Marvel ... ahem, OD&D art from the 1974 books.

(And ignore the references to hobbits, ents....)

 

[Deset Gled]

The actual one?

I was hoping for an explicit statement of who (publication, author, artist, publisher, date) copied from who (same info).

 

[bedir than]

I'm still unclear as to who has plagiarized from who.

 

[ECMO3]

The actual one?

Someone creates art. The idea is that anyone that uses that creation needs to have the permission of the person that created it to use it. If they flat out reuse it, or modify it while using the core of it then it is wrong to use it without that permission.

However, there are some uses that are perfectly acceptable without permission. They generally (in the US) include criticism, commentary, reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

One problem with this set of rules is the ambiguity. Let's say I see a drawing and I study it. Then I try to reproduce it several times for my own use in order to master the skills that went into how it was drawn in the first place. All of this is fine. And I become really good - good enough to be paid to make art.

Then someone hires me to make art and something I make looks similar to the original drawing from which I learned. Maybe I did it in homage, but considered it different enough that I thought it was not a rip off. Maybe I just did it without thinking of it. Maybe I was following guidance from the person that hired me and it is happenstance that it is similar. Should my artwork not be allowed to be used because I'm taking the work of another and using it myself? It is really hard to draw a clear line between what is a rip off and what is a new unique work that has similarities.

If we draw the line too far in favor of protecting the original audience we get into problems. This problem becomes more compounded as time goes by and more artwork is created. How many commercial pieces of artwork have been drawn that depict a dragon. Millions. From novels, to kids books, to video games, to board games, to CCGs, to RPGs, to paintings ... If each depicition of a dragon had to be substantially different from all others we'd be hard pressed to create dragon artwork now that wasn't substantially like something that has come before. If you realized that putting dragon artwork in your new book meant that someone might claim it ripped off their prior work and was going to sue you for royalties ... on top of what you paid the artist to create it for your book ... it gets to a point where you don't want to include dragons in your book anymore.

If we go the other direction and say that trivial changes allow it to be used without compensation to the original artist - why hire artists at all anymore? Grab old artwork, slap it into a program, change the color a bit, add in something minor or remove some stuff ... you get great art and didn't have to pay for it!

As AI has come out, we run into the problems that AI may be seen as using the artwork for research, or learning from it the same way an artist learns from looking at the work of others. We're headed to a decade of legal challenges over the original use of artworks as education for AI - and whether AI can ever 'create' artwork. That will end either in: 1.) If artwork is included in the repository from which the AI learned, the AI owner needs to pay ... and if they don't get a flat fee for inclusion but royalties from the use of the art, then it is meaningless as considering the amount of artwork necessary for these repositiories, the split of the royalties between so many artists would render it insignificant for each use of the artwork and the administrative cost of tracking the royalties would exceed the revenue from royalties;or 2.) AI will be allowed to learn from the artwork for free, but will need to be able to generate artwork that is substantially dissimilar from the art from which it learned - it can't merge images, it must apply techniques and be 'creative'. We're not there yet ... but we're closer than many people realize.

And once AI can get to a point where it can generate essentially new art without infringing upon the work of others and the art can be used either "as is", or with easy modification ... the majority of commercial artists are out of a job. We're going to get there one way or another ... the same as we're going to get to a point where AI eliminates white collar jobs the same way that automation eliminated blue collar jobs in the 70s and 80s. Artists and accountants will both be unable to provide move value than a combination of machines ... so companies that value profits over long term societal benefit (see destruction of the environment, price gouging, etc...) will eliminate the costs of work forces as quickly as they can ... leaving us with an ever increasing amount of society that can't be put to productive work because what they offer a machine can do better and cheaper - and eventually to a point where what benefits the world most are things that only machines can understand. That'll lead to the people that can't contribute being trodden upon, civil uprisings, a nuclear apocalypse, and the world descending into either 1980s Gamma World, 2019s Gamma World, or Paranoia inspired society. In theory we could go the Star Trek route and all share in the bounties of the advanced technology ... but people suck.

I don't really see the societal benefit in employing artists or accountants for things that computers can do better. TBH I think society as a whole would be better off if those people moved on to something in higher demand that machines and computers can't do .... perhaps making/programming the machines.

Setting up a system to promote inefficient and ineffective processes helps no one, it merely leads to inferior, expensive products. I am not saying we are there yet with AI, but I do agree that is the direction we are heading and I think it will benefit society if we embrace it instead of fighting it.

You compare it to automation eliminating labor jobs in the 70s. I think that is a fair comparison, but if you look at the outcome there, it ushered in an era of prosperity for the countries where that manual labor was phased out. Unemployment is lower and the standard of living is higher today in those 1st world industrialized nations than it was before this happened.

 

[LordEntrails]

Or why not give the details to the copyright holder and let them decide what to do about it?

 

[ValamirCleaver]

If you think that's bad, you should read up on the early days of TSR's D&D art and the comic books they plagiarized from.

The Mighty Marvel Method

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Comics in D&D|Goodman Games

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I was hoping for an explicit statement of who (publication, author, artist, publisher, date) copied from who (same info).

I'm still unclear as to who has plagiarized from who.

The Sam Wood art of the green dragon that appeared in the 3rd edition Monster Manual was published in 2000. The "Veles" dragon that appeared in DK's Myths and Legends was published in 2009.

Myths and Legends

Explore global mythology with this comprehensive visual guideDiscover the world's greatest myths and legends - from Greek mythology to Norse mythology - in this comprehensive guide.What did Japanese mythology say about the beginning of the Universe? How did Oedipus become the classic tragic hero...

www.dk.com

 

[Mistwell]

I don't really see the societal benefit in employing artists or accountants for things that computers can do better.

AI can't do art better than artists, that's why it's copying from artists. Without the artists, AI doesn't work for art. It's not creating truly original anything - it's purely using actual art made by actual artists and altering it based on prompts. You don't see a societal benefit to actual artists making art? That stagnates art to whatever it is right now. It never really evolves from this point. Because all "new" art will be purely old art changed based on other old art. It ends the creative evolution of art in society. And art is an extremely important aspect of an evolving civilization.

And spare me the "all art is derivative" because that's not what people meant by art being derivative prior to AI. They didn't mean literally the other art, they meant that figuratively as in inspired.

 

[Blue Orange]

AI can't do art better than artists, that's why it's copying from artists. Without the artists, AI doesn't work for art. It's not creating truly original anything - it's purely using actual art made by actual artists and altering it based on prompts. You don't see a societal benefit to actual artists making art? That stagnates art to whatever it is right now. It never really evolves from this point. Because all "new" art ill be purely old art changed based on other old art.

And spare me the "all art is derivative" because that's not what people meant by art being derivative prior to AI. They didn't mean literally the other art, they meant that figuratively as in inspired.

You get into stuff like collage and Dadaist cut-ups. From what I remember the difference is the change has to be 'transformative'.

This does look like plagiarism, I agree, although they could claim it was just inspiration; it's hardly surprising a fantasy artist would have read a D&D monster manual.