When we host a competition on the Forums, we expect the work that you submit to be your own.
While we do understand that tracing can originally be a great way to improve, it is property theft to pass off a traced piece of art as your own.
Every time you do this and it slips past our radar, you are hurting the image of the Forums, as many people will blame us for any issues that come up.
I really don’t want to start punishing people for tracing or copying art, but it is against the law to plagiarise and I need to protect the Forums.
So from now on, we will no longer be giving people the benefit of the doubt. If your piece is too similar to something that we find, we will be disqualifying you from that competition. If it happens too many times, we will no longer accept your art in any competition going forward.
We don’t want to have to do this, but we will have to take action because this is getting absolutely ridiculous. As always, we will try not to make a big deal out of it, but I really genuinely think people think we’re stupid now. While it’s understandable for us to not know that it’s traced if we haven’t seen the art in the first place, it’s kinda insulting to deny it when we present the evidence right in front of you.
It is fine to take inspiration from other pieces of art and try to recreate a pose or two, but your work needs to be your own.
I am currently considering getting together a team of people to check for plagiarism in every single competition. They will be separate from the judges to prevent favouritism.
I seriously never thought it would get this bad and I am absolutely ashamed. I don’t want to have to get rid of all art contests entirely, so don’t spoil this for everyone else on the Forums.
If anyone has reason to suspect that someone has traced art, please come directly to one of the moderators.
Thank you.
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