I do it, you do it, everybody does it, whenever it's conscious or not. Every "original" idea is built on the foundation of previous experiences, and I "steal" the design of somebody's OC the nanosecond the photons from the monitor reach my retinas. Sadly, you cannot "unsee" things, or guarantee that they won't influence your own designs later on. But I guess you were talking about plagiarism? No, that's whole different issue, and yes, I absolutely do not support it in any way either, plagiarists are scumbags.
And people who steal OCs for personal use, I don't think they would care that they're shunned by the art communities forever, since they were'nt a part of it from the beginning. Somebody needs an avatar for their private roleplaying game session, so they go on the google and grab the first picture that strikes their fancy. Ethics is nice but sadly not everybody operates on the same rule set. There's even some "what do you mean you won't draw for free?" people. There's a couple of my artworks that found themselves on somebody' RP forums in user profiles. I could've raise huge stink about it and begin demanding that they tore it down and apologise and everything... But what's the point?
Uh, this is exactly my point about the commissions? you commision the artist to make a design for you, and just provide your input. You know, like they work in the industry with concept artists?
In my eye adoptable - in this specific situation, I don't talk about people who like collect them or specifically search for randomness - is akin to going instead to shutterstock and buying some clipart to serve as your design. It wasn't made for your project, so it won't fit in there seamlessly. Especially since I saw that quite a few adopts have licenses attached to them that explicitly forbid you from modifying the image or the concept in any way.
Yeah the problem is that I cannot not feel anything towards a bunch of pixels. That's why I watch films and become emotionally invested in stories and stuff.
Okay, how about "sell a piece of your own soul" then, instead? Any artwork is an act of self-expression, and therefore it cannot not have a piece of the author's very essence in it.
No? Nothing stops you from granting the, as the lawyerfolk say, "irrrevocable license" to use your ideas to your customers? Functionally it would be the exactly same thing, only that they wouldn't be able to claim that they come up with that idea since they have all rights to it.
I'm not. That's why I commissioned a few artist to make several concepts to me.
Again, I'll repeat myself, or clarify, I do not think that adopts are evil or wrong.