Let’s say I took a bunch of different characters from various media; a head, 2 arms, 2 legs and a torso, glued them together and then traced over to create a more homogenized image… Is that a new thing? A remix? Or ripping other’s work off?
I’ve just had this idea for a while (wanna try making my fursona from photos of a dog for the head and my own body for the body) and got curious if this proposed technique was done using others’ material would be a violation or if it would be more like a remix.
It’s transformative. You are creating something new that did not exist before. At the very least this will fall under fair use, but your intent will dictate what it ends up being.
Ie: is I take Bugs Bunny’s head and out it on Daffy Duck’s body - I may be doing it as a commentary on WB cartoons, or pop culture in general. That’s ok.
If I try to launch my own Looney Toons cartoon with this new hybrid character - that’s stealing and WB lawyers will be all over any money I may make.
It’s important to note that copyright violation is never stealing or theft. That’s a poetic term copyright maximalists use to morally equate two disparate concepts. Stealing and theft involves taking something that is finite and rivalrous and thus depriving the owner of it.
That “finite and rivalrous” is a definition that sprung up quite recently and I don’t know if I agree with it. How would one “steal a kiss” if it was a finite resource. Also while stealing is not always “punishable by law”, it can still be classified as wrongdoing. As an artist I find all forms of plagiarism to equate to stealing and while they won’t land you behind bars, they may get you a status of persona non grata with other creatives.
Stealing a kiss is another poetic use of the term.
Depends on the context.
As an artist, I don’t. Plagiarism is about failure to cite sources and copying content while claiming it’s yours. That’s not even usually a legal issue. It’s an academic issue. And it’s not necessarily immoral either. You can be accused of plagiarizing yourself by not citing that you had previously written some of the content in a previous work. That’s not even close to stealing, technically, legally, or morally.
Plagiarism is also very different from copyright violation.
And it might get you fame and fortune and acclaim from others. Depends on the context.
I’m just curious, but what makes you think it’s a definition that “sprung up recently”?
From what I have gathered of the Lemmy zeitgeist, intellectual property doesn’t exist except if AI uses it.