MUSIC Or is it? Plagiarism is defined as the act of stealing another person's idea or intellect or property. This is not limited to literature like research papers or literary work. Copying art be it a painting, sculpture, digital art, building or any other visual media are also subject to plagiarism. Although unlike literary plagiarism, things get kinda iffy with digital art. You can easily spot a copied sentence or phrase but not a pair of anime-ass shakes or which pair of 2D kiddies were copied from another. Today I will explain the legal rulings regarding art theft. All facts I will state are based on legal references. This is not an opinion video. If you hit the dislike button, make sure it's because of my face or the video quality. Not the bitter fact that spoiler warning. Tracing is kinda not illegal. Don't shoot the messenger, that's a war crime. We already established the meaning of plagiarism earlier. Copying ideas for mothers. In digital visual arts there are 2 main types of plagiarism. Art theft and tracing. Art theft is straight up copying and sealing the works and publishing it as your own. This is not limited to copying and pasting an image. Flipping, adding filters and outguring the image still counts as art theft. Now the hot topic. Tracing. Is tracing art theft? Depends on the extent. Alright, let's play a game. Find the criminal tracer. Exhibit 1. Hiloïkawa Raki Sensei. Author of Jojo's bizarre adventures. Are these traced? Tracing cream images to 2D drawings could still be subject to plagiarism. But no way, Raki Sensei simply uses this as a reference for his race and that is not to develop at all. It's even almost impressive how his ingenuity led him to developing a unique art style. Second suspect. No game, no life illustrator, you come here. Take a look at this. See how the arms and legs are in the exact same place when superimposed. But sorry to tell you that this straight art is probably going to be ruled as not illegal. Seeing how almost everything else is different. Number 3. Random deviant art artist. Look at this. Guess I can safely input my opinion here and say that this is Borderline illegal. Did they get the resist for it though? Probably not. It was harmless to being out of the companies. They probably didn't like the rest on fire for tracing out to hunters. Well, what does it take for someone to get in criminally for tracing art? Here are the main points on when someone is getting punished for tracing art. Number 1. Tracing art is not illegal as long as the original artist doesn't mind. This is what most racers use as an excuse, but this is still kind of wrong if you did not inform the artist. I'm not knowing it's not equal to them not objecting to your tracing. Number 2. Tracing is not illegal as long as it is not an exact copy. Take a look at you, Kamiya's art again. This is one of the main points that proves his innocence. Hell, even though to fan could use this as an excuse. And third, mostly the biggest reason why people get away with tracing is that people do not mind as long as it does not cause financial damages to the original artist. Small facers usually do not really affect the business of other artists with their traced art. Targeting art tracers, although possibly winning against them, usually isn't worth the time and money in criminating them. Costs for court fees and attorney fees are usually way, way more expensive than the compensation you will receive from winning a case. Using a tracing case only really pays off if say you have a mouse character than someone copies it and makes a business out of it and because of that your own business loses money because of the competition. These are the cases that are worth sending someone to jail for. Sometimes just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean that it's... Example, getting an enemy soldier in worries legal, but most belief systems and most people agree that killing is immoral. Euthanasia is legal in some countries, but some people will say that it's immoral. Looking at it from a different side, euthanasia is illegal in some countries, but is keeping someone an agony moral? No hate on tracers here, tracing is a great way to learn art. Hell, I have traced art in pencil and paper before when I was just starting, but don't cheat yourself. Limiting yourself to tracing art will only slow your progress on becoming a great artist. You are ultimately cheating yourself and limiting your own growth as a person.