Gehhh. Deviant art how thee amuseth me.

"We recognise that beginning or amateur artists often copy or recreate existing imagery as a natural part of the learning process. This does not mean that actual art theft is allowed - we do not allow an artist to simply add or remove details from a piece of work created by another artist, nor may they edit, recolor, crop or otherwise simply modify the actual work created by another artist. What we do allow at this point in time is for artists to reproduce works (or copy) through their own effort. It is considered proper etiquette to cite the original artist of the inspiring work and give them credit for being the inspiration of such reproductions, especially if numerous details have been copied or otherwise borrowed.

While we would agree that the simple reproduction of another artists work is not particularly original we have chosen to allow these recreations providing that the reproduction has been created completely through the efforts of the artist in question and does not directly contain any portions of the referance work.

If you believe that a deviation or scrapbook addition is an "edit" of another work rather than a true recreation, or that if you have evidence that it has been directly traced then you should report it as a potential violation. Recreations which have been reported will be judged on a case-by-case basis by the appropriate administrative staff."

While I condone the use of reference work, Hell I use a good pose from a pic every once and a while, The idea that somebody can print an image out an blantantly copy it and repost it as their own hard work is blashemy. I observe, not trace, I leave the image entacted if you understand what I mean. I learned the hard way artist work hard for their work and for the mere host of the art to place policys over it is ridiculous. The server dosen't own The image, the ARTIST does. And no case by case basis nonsense, that shouls be up to the discresion of the creator.

I'm unsure to continue my account on DA, I know my art isn't the most gourgeous pieces in the world but boy do I know how easy it is to steal and the temptation to do it. I rather the policy be changed, but -sigh- it seems all the art hosting sites are corrupting in a sense. I would like to stay on DA, there are many nice and kind people active here but it's just to easy to become a victim of theivery.