At 06:53 PM 9/2/2002 +0000, mjriv1 wrote:
>I just found a fair number of pics on VCL of this character named Jade.
>http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Martin-Gerlach/Jade%20-%20Colour%20drawings/Jade_-_My_First.gif
>Is it just me or does it look an awful lot like someone else we know here?
....
Sooooooo.... let's go off on a bandwagon and rip a furry artist a new
hole, huh? There are a couple of things to consider here before you jump
in with the lynch mob.
1: See:
http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Martin-Gerlach/Notes%20from%20the%20Artist/J._M._Hardiman_problems.txt
You're not the first to notice the similarities.
Even see:
http://vcl.ctrl-c.liu.se/vcl/Artists/Martin-Gerlach/Notes%20from%20the%20Artist/Bio_-_Jade_Lee_Green.txt
Where he admits plainly that he used ideas from Jim's pages for the
creation of that document.
2: Characters cannot, and never have been able to be copyrighted. You
cannot say "So and So is copyright to me." You can only say "This PICTURE
I created of So and So is copyright to me." The only thing that can be
done to a character itself is be trademarked. So, unless our lovely
lizardess by Jim is trademarked, there is no legal foul.
3: Okay, now that we have decided that most likely (Unless Jim has a
trademark), there is nothing illegal going on here, it's a simple matter of
the fact that this is, technically, a different character. I hate to say
it, but no matter how popular, or how unpopular an artist or idea is, no
matter how original something seems, somebody else has probably done it
before, or will do it in the future without ever having seen any other
copies of such a thing.
If somebody can show me that Jim is hurt in some way by these pictures,
then by all means, ask the person nicely to stop. But for gods sake,
people, don't form a lynch mob without reason! Parallel ideas happen. I
have a character who is a winged mostly-fox. Does that mean I should go
out and scream at everybody else who draws anything even remotely similar
to that, under different names, and accuse them of copying me? Um,
No. Doug Winger draws busty vixens. Should we scream at everybody who
draws a busty vixen and accuse them of copying Doug Winger?
What I see at this point is an artist who put a lot of effort into drawing
pictures, was very pleased with them, and then discovered "Ah, gee, some
other artist has a named character who resembles mine." When you can find
BETTER evidence of copying than "His Lizard kinda looks like it could look
like this other lizard."... And I mean: "He traced." or "He plagiarized.",
not "His character looks like this other one."... When you can present
that, I am all for smacking the person with a clue by four.
Until then, there is no legal ground for being upset at him (Unless, again,
Jim has a trademark), and DEFINITELY no moral ground for chasing a furry
artist out of the fandom.
We have lost enough artists due to stupid crap, we have a lot of excellent
artists who will never draw a furry thing again, and a lot of disheartened
artists. And do you know why? It's because some fans do extremely stupid
things. The fans themselves are smart, but they end up doing something not
too brilliant, and chasing away another part of what creates this
fandom. And when you've chased all the artists away, whatchya gonna do?
So lay off. Get better evidence. Show me that Jim has a trademark. Show
me that this guy physically copied. Otherwise, chill.
*Drags his soap box away grumbling... Geeze, this group seriously loves
lynch mobs. Think we could take joy in doing something OTHER than ripping
entrails from people in the misguided name of justice?*
Signing under his REAL name, because he considers this serious,
David Parenteau
Received on Mon Sep 02 2002 - 12:20:29 CDT
