Honest Answers please

[inbox_anime]

dahell!!. This is outrageous, this is worst..
What I meant was. Taking his clothing style but posing will be.. Perhaps leaning on a table..

[Teowi]

There was a similar case for the artist of No Game No Life. I think the big deal is that poses count as original content, whether from a photo or drawing. It's illegal to use someone else's as a reference and earn money from your work.

[yozhikisblue]

Huh. I've never heard of this, but I have to say- as someone who doesn't read manga all that extensively, it just seems a little- odd? Looking at these covers I could swear I've seen the poses and composition on them replicated by many different artists. The girl with flowers and young man resting against a smaller woman's lap- both of these seem like very popular choices to me while browsing the shoujo manga section at a local comic shop, much like western superhero comics tend to replicate certain types of poses and angles in their covers. I guess I just wonder where the line is drawn? At what point are the poses considered a copy, given that there are certain poses the human body naturally gravitates towards and look good as a composition? I mean...it's not that I can't see the similarities in the examples you've provided, but at the risk of sounding ignorant- does this kind of thing typically cause a fuss?

[J.Z.Castillo]

I mean artists steal all the time, it becomes a problem when you are trying to pass something you didn't create as your own. But if what you're making is original and completely your own, regardless of what references it may allude to, you are fine, don't worry about it. However, let's say you make an original story and call it Spider-guy and it's about a teenager living in Los Angeles who gets bitten by a spider then that's pushing it A LOT, you know? So if your story/characters are not complete carbon copies of something that already exists you'll be fine.

[J.Z.Castillo]

This is what I mean by carbon copy. You can use other people's works as references but when you can literally trace the images over it becomes a big no no. You can have pictures that are similar but never trace.

[BobbyjoeX]

i have a massive ref on my chapter 2 title card, it refs both the clothes and pose of the original but i didn't out right trace it

[inbox_anime]

Designed this without ref. But someone said he looks like Noctis.. . I do believe real life humans got oblong shaped head too.

[BobbyjoeX]

eh... not enough to worry about it in my opinion

[amortelito]

@yozhikisblue Oh yeah!! Definitely, there are common areas and poses. I mean art is so saturated that someone somewhere must have thought about your idea before. I have dumped to the trash some drawings that I made 8 years ago that now resemble a popular manga covers...I made them first but people will accuse me of stealing from a popular artist. Honestly, I give people the benefit of the doubt when they are accused of stealing because accidental similarities happen.
Also, we can't ignore that trends exist. Like in the 90's posters in which all characters were distributed in a V. Shojo manga has pastels and flowers randomly flying around. Sometimes the line is blurred. This mangaka in the example got caught because she stole covers from the same artists all the time. Clamp is pretty famous but if she had copied from smaller publications people wouldn't have noticed. Also, Clamp published those before the others ..yes we can say they own that composition.

But usually, art thieves get caught because they do it constantly.
.
- Their art is a carbon copy that is impossible to ignore. For example the cover with the girl and the flowers. The image is traced from the original cover. We might find lots of covers that have the same idea. But is incredibly unlikely two people make the exact same.

Exactly @BobbyjoeXforgotensb you clearly made a tribute cover inspired in a music album but I don't think some would ever say is a copy.

[joannekwan]

I think it's because his hair comes into a pointed v bang down the center of his face, and also that he's got a glowy magic hand and sword.

[eochoa92]

At a convention last year, I attended a panel with Kevin Eastman (creator of the Ninja Turtles).
He said this funny story on his first time meeting Stan Lee. When Kevin met Stan, Stan told Kevin that he was pretty darn close to suing Kevin because of the Turtles' similarities to Daredevil;
Daredevil's powers came from a chemical spill. Turtles from an ooze.
Daredevil fights a syndicate known as The Hand. The Turtles fight The Foot.
Daredevil has Stick. Turtles have Splinter.
etc,etc,etc.

[Kamikaze]

You. Watch this NOW. Especially since people are so concerned about the line between copy, tribute and original content. Seriously, this little video changed the way I make my comics.

[caelesc]

Came here to write about the No Game No Life author, like @Teowi mentioned. This case also proves, that even if you trace from non-published artists like on Pixiv or dA you will still get caught at one point.

Just check out the whole article: http://www.otakutale.com/2014/no-game-no-life-artist-yuu-kamiya-allegedly-caught-tracing-other-peoples-work/
Or check out this one http://www.comipress.com/article/2007/07/09/2267

And remember, even if you haven't copied, people will still see similarities. E.g. D.Gray-man author was pulled from Shounen Jump as she got caught in the middle of a plagiarism scandal, but it was later agreed that no plagiarism was involved. Despite that D.Gray-Man now runs in their monthly magazine instead of their weekly magazine.

So, if you really feel stuck with some poses or gestures, I recommend taking a picture of yourself for reference. I doubt it's plagiarism since both mediums belong to you. But I know a number of artist will look down on you if you trace from photos instead of just using them for reference.

[droidmonkey1]

everybody copy some one. it's rare to be 100% original because of mass media.
As long as the "copying" is minor and not so obvious, their won't be a problem.
look at DBZ power ups any battle manga/anime have a version of it.

[yozhikisblue]

Makes sense- especially if she was copying from the same popular artists over and over again. I have to wonder what was going through her head in that case, since it seems inevitable that given the circumstances, readers would notice. It's even a similar genre. :S

[djwaglmuffin]

You can't copyright poses, but what this artist did was step-by-step copied and then expected people not to notice despite her own artistic skill level.

Easily, this artist could have made bigger adjustments to their work but didn't.

This is copy and release in a very distasteful way.

[indigodrawing]

I don't think throwing in references is a problem.

People might get a bit tired of it if you overdo it though.

[amortelito]

Actually, is not only the pose being copyrighted but the whole composition. In graphic design college I learned how can you decide if a drawing or picture is plagiarized ( enough to file a lawsuit). You make a trace and count the lines and curves that are equal. And also compare both of them in a grid. Then you get a percentage (Is so hard to describe in English XD). Nobody is saying you can copyright "pose leaning against a window" in general. But You can copyright YOUR image of someone leaning against a window and THAT specific pose and composition are what other people can't use. What I'm explaining is that the covers and pictures that are copyrighted are protected from any work that is similar enough to be labeled as a copy (determined by the trace study). That's why they are paying for the protection, to own the work. I hope I was able to explain what I meant well enough XD.

[djwaglmuffin]

yeah, I got that.

This is actually a bigger problem then people realize.

Now, you can do "after XX" pieces but this tends to be like... "I am doing a painting in the exact same way with the exact same tools as Bob Ross and calling this piece the same *Pretty mountains, pretty cottage after Bob Ross" what i can't do is claim that the original concept was mine.

That's where the disconnect is for some people, I think. Now, in fairness, the Japanese art side WILL promote copying but only for the sake of learning the process. Mangaka for years still acknowledge it's bad practice to copy word for word/picture for picture/ pose for pose that someone else did.

I don't know if you all remember this but:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/incarnate-the-nick-simmons-plagiarism-scandal

There was this whole debacle that happened a long time ago. And yeah, it's really bad practice.

[Wumbl]

Some people get confused between reference and plagiarism. The definitions are pretty clear but hey, sometimes people don't actually think before making accusations.