#plagerism

Two months ago I bought a crate of flowers to plant. After setting the plant to rest, I had a vivid recollection of Nana; my Mother’s mother.Nana was a petite woman, with long graying hair she pinned into a perfect French twist, a cute Irish nose, and a giggling smile. When I was growing up she lived with her second husband, we called Poppop, in a spacious California ranch house in Sherman Oaks,…

~~~

Fingers gliding, against marble steps,

Skin so pale, dancing like legs.

Moving to the melody inside their soul,

Music seizing the opportunity whole.

Dousing their feelings through meaningful carols,

Hums vibrating as a bird’s hymn in empty hallows

Songs incanted like melancholic verses,

Their words echoing similar to gentle curses.

Beneath the instrument is a core brimmed with ardor,

Remaining in the abyss, stilling in the mist,

The soft chant softly uttered, but then the feelings getting farther,

Voice getting stiff, essence losing shift,

The hand on the ivory motioned to her chest to feel the center.

Ripping the paper, spilling ink, on the floor that used to be clean,

The composition, supposed to be to your exact taste,

Your frustration boiling up, your blood rising to your spleen,

You’re shouting: “What a haste…”, “This ugly performance, to show is such a waste!”

A drug you’re tied to, what’s it called? Jea-lou-sy.

When you see people write better than you,

Then it rises like an aphrodisiac suc-cess-ful-ly.

So what do you do? You awaken up at midnight,

A comparison to an owl ready to take flight.

You hiss as you take advantage of this vulnerable moment of the day.

Where everyone’ asleep, albeit their instincts dismay.

They sprinted, gathering the other’s works of time and skill,

Steal, steal, steal.

“Plagerism, plagerism!”

“Against it!” The crowd cries out.

Although your hand and gaze sweeps with envy,

Whatever they say, you spout out.

“This is mine”, “You lie!” Accusations spread like a flame,

You steal artworks, and now fingers are pointed at the wrong fae!

“Curse on you!” “My goodness, you loo!” Insults and mockery,

And guilt pours over your soul each day rapidly.

~~~

Correct me if I’m wrong, if you wanted to be an artist, example, dear,

What would they do?

Would they steal and steal to become loved, no that is not what they do!

My dear, if you take what is not yours, furthermore in the future you’ll get hated,

They’ll fight and fight you, demanding that whom you stole from?

And then you’ll realize that you’d regret, and what you did is wrong!

My dear, is this what your idol would do?

Grasp an idea from another idol? 

My dear, am I right? They’ll get a profile; “Problematic!” of what they do!

My dear, what I say, answer, oh, please do!

If you stole, and the truth came out of the curtains, would you want tomatoes and spouts of anger to be directed at you?

~~~

Stand up, you fool, stand up, go on!

Weren’t you the one who thought that thou being famous was fond?

Unfortunate, people who are opposed to Lady Luck.

Without opportunities given to live their life better as it was.

Some has paralyzed their arm, their leg, their thoughts and their skills hazy,

Yet they work hard for it, for their fate not to be dainty.

Look at your heroes, look up, look up!

Did they plagiarize, they’ve got their pieces from another’s pot?

Fingers, they point at people with dishonesty!

Cowardice filled your soul, stand up for your own!

~~~

♬ˎˊ˗ Author's Note!

Absolutely. The reason I say AI is plagiarism is because it is taking information, in this case visual information: drawing style, color choice, ect., and shoving it all together in an amalgamation of something "new". The defining factor is that a i art creates something that is not actually new. When a human being starts creating art they start with a blank canvas. AI is not starting with a blank canvas It is starting with an art that it grabbed off line and taking pieces of another art and smushing them together. And since we know that things that were fed to the AI were not said with permission of the original artist that would make it plagiarism. In my opinion.

I don't think that there's a problem with using anything for a reference. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing a redraw because that is a reference. In artist communities a redraw is practice. It is declared and therefore not plagiarism. It is especially not plagiarism if the original art is shown and cited alongside my own. That said, it would absolutely be plagiarism for me to do a redraw, not declare that my artwork is a redraw, and try to pass it off as if it was my own original idea.

Having said that I don't think there's a problem with using anything as a reference, I still would not generate something for a reference. I would rather find stock images and manipulate them or use a reference builder and build one from scratch then have AI generate one for me. A part of being an artist and creating art is the time, energy, and dedication put into bettering your craft. AI does not do that. It skips the step of honing its practice and pulls from art created by people who have spent thousands of hours, years or maybe even decades working toward their specific artistic end goal. And then without siting any of those artists turns out a product it calls new.

I think that there's no issue using AI art as a reference if you found it. But I would never, and I would highly discourage anybody else from generating a reference using AI. There is currently no ethical way to use generative AI. Maybe one day if we can make data centers that are not destroying communities and eliminating drinkable water, And if we can have an AI that was trained off of volunteered/purchased work, maybe. And that's a big maybe.

And you're totally right I'm not making money off of my fan art. I don't sell it. I don't sell any of it. It grinds my gears when somebody says that it's morally incorrect to redraw the AI art but they have nothing to say about the redrawing of screen caps or other images I have found. I've done numerous redraws/ych, And nobody had any problems until I redrew the AI art. And to be clear only one person had a problem and it struck me as odd because she is a librarian who openly speaks out against the use of AI.