About one of the new loading screen

[xAgehax]

I have tried to raise this issue on reddit (though by now I assume no one read things there), reach the community team via the official twitter (no answer whatsoever) and after I wrote an email to support they tell me to post it on the forum, so here I am, with a question direct to the community team, and I hope to receive a clear answer. 

 

(I'm just gonna quote my email here)

 

Quote

Hello,

I have tried multiple times to reach whoever in charge of the loading screen via your official twitter, but since my inquiries got ignored, I have no choice but to write this email. If support cannot answer my question, please refer me to the person in charge of this issue.

I have noticed that you recently put the loading screens from the recent loading screen contest in game, and while most of them are wonderful and provide a nice change to the game, there's an entry from "Shirogahara" which was accused of art thief, and as far as I know, the artist has not been able to provide any proper proof to prove that this is their original artwork and was not copied from any third party.

I'm including in this email link to the comparison to prove that this accusation is valid

Shirogahara entry and the original artwork
https://imgur.com/gallery/G7uMI
Detail analysis
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/243550907919237130/426045534311284746/unknown.png
Tracing evidence gif
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/243550907919237130/426051369389260800/ezgif-3-ccf4e76f49.gif

Not to mention Shirogahara was also accused (and admitted to) art thief during the costume design contest last year. Detail can be seen here
https://www.reddit.com/r/bladeandsoul/comments/6qtbxe/the_golden_flower_design_may_have_copied_some/

I, as well as a lot of other members of the Blade and Soul community, especially the artists, believe that this is an unacceptable behavior and should not be tolerate to keep a fair and clear community where everyone feel safe and can enjoy the game. Not to mention that tolerating this kind of intellectual copyright violation also risk the business of NCSoft. Therefore I'm writing this email to ask you to look into this case and give us a proper answer.

Thank you for reading this.

 

[898005_1452550635]

Wait so they asked you to post in forum so people can discuss about it. Instead of immediately looking into it and have the player forum and game account banned if found guilty + removing that login art. What a way to handle this Intellectual Property-theft. 

[QRob]

the same thing was going on more than a year ago when some1 won the costume contest with alice wonderland costume, which was suspected of plagiarism, at least many thought so. (for example: the male mask of that costume set was undoubtedly a complete copy-paste, and everyone knew that, and people were raging). there was a thread about it with tens of pages on these forums, yet the costume still made it into the game, and if I recall it, ncsoft didn't even give a response to that.
so if that could happen, this is defenitely happening.
(I'm not accusing anyone with anything, I just told what was going on back then)

[Garlend]

Looks like the only thing they copied was the pose and face. The rest looks to be mostly redone to be original.

 

I have no problem with this imo.

[xAgehax]

2 hours ago, Garlend said:

Looks like the only thing they copied was the pose and face. The rest looks to be mostly redone to be original.

 

I have no problem with this imo.

"The only thing they copied" are face, pose, whole concept, which basically means the entire artwork already. And it's not just "copied", it's tracing, and tracing is considered art thief. It's not about whether or not you have problem with this, this is wrong, especially when it's an entry to a contest where monetary prize (or similar to monetary) is involved.

[Fieryfly]

It looks like the artist Frankenstein'ed the two pictures.. while they did add to it.. the mesh of the two sets of eyes.. cant believe it was submitted with approval. 

What NCSoft does..  or doesn't do.. is not for me to say.. their legal team will direct them.

[Thrameos]

Other than the general reference points that were used to align the pose, the overall features even at the closest level of detail show it not to be a direct trace.  The forehead, chin shape and eye angle are all different.  Those features are all in the same spot thus the base skeleton of the pose was likely copied, but all the material added to the skeleton was clearly the new artists work.   When I did amateur art work I could have lifted the reference circles and base lines and then have replicated such a work.  But then I worked in oil paints and copying the skeleton of a work to get the general proportions right as an amateur was not discouraged.  What constitutes tracing in this digital age may have a different standard. 

 

It may still be a derived work because it is clear that the other work was used to take the overall pose and the location of the major features of the pose.   But that is a distinction best made by someone more experienced.  I just don't see evidence than an actual line was copied from the original to the finished work.  This is just my independent opinion.

[Bread]

I wouldn't call this art theft. There are general similarities between the two artworks, but none so glaring that they fall within the definition of copying. Imagine that both artists used the same stock reference picture for the pose. That's entirely possible. You wouldn't call it art theft if that were the case. The depicted characters are way different.

[Souba]

10 minutes ago, Bread said:

I wouldn't call this art theft. There are general similarities between the two artworks, but none so glaring that they fall within the definition of copying. Imagine that both artists used the same stock reference picture for the pose. That's entirely possible. You wouldn't call it art theft if that were the case. The depicted characters are way different.

This is absolutely right, especially given that the piece that came "first" is using a pose and aesthetic INCREDIBLY common to this genre. I've seen this same pose used before, it is by far not original to GUWEIZ. The artist who entered the contest clearly put a considerable amount of work into the design in spite of the fact that they may have referenced the pose. It's honestly quite beautiful.

 

I also have to say, I never agreed with the accusations of "art theft" the first time this artist was accused. It isn't wrong to borrow an aesthetic or draw something with a similar style.

[sonatine]

This isn't art theft. Art theft would mean they replicated the look of the original, which...let's be honest, isn't even remotely the same as Guweiz's. The pose is not unique to Guweiz's piece, and if anything was really the only thing they used of the original. This wouldn't even be in question if say they used a photograph instead for a pose reference.