Is tracing artwork, and then claiming it as your own work illegal on FurAffinity?

Not trying to be the Cyber-Police or anything, just noticed this guy doing it...

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/marshallfox/

Proof:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5199841/

http://e621.net/post/show/114816/balls-black_and_white-blank_background-canine-male

It's generally illegal as a whole if you're tracing for the sake of publicizing it as your own, but in private practice it's not. It's looked down upon either way, though (despite the fact that it's a great way to start getting warmed up to prepare for a career or hobby in art).

Percy101 said:
It's generally illegal as a whole if you're tracing for the sake of publicizing it as your own, but in private practice it's not. It's looked down upon either way, though (despite the fact that it's a great way to start getting warmed up to prepare for a career or hobby in art).

Well, in the example image, he wrote "a nuther wolf i tryed to draw" which is implying that he drew it himself. So, to me, I would say he's trying to claim it as his own artworks...

Stealing is bad.

Tracing is like masterbation:
Its all fine and great if you keep it to yourself for the learning experience - but like masterbation you generally shouldn't announce how good of a masterbator you are - its kind of a low brow personality trait and nobody will want to shake your hand.

But if you absolutely must show off your 'mad tracing skills'; its good practice to note that on the work of 'art' that you made that it is traced. This even includes visual tracing and even "from memory" tracing.

Percy101 said:
It's looked down upon either way, though (despite the fact that it's a great way to start getting warmed up to prepare for a career or hobby in art).

Tracing is actually a very bad thing to do if you want to learn how to draw. Eyeballing is better, but if you really want to get anywhere then you need to draw what's in your head or focus on studying realism.

Shatari said:
Tracing is actually a very bad thing to do if you want to learn how to draw. Eyeballing is better, but if you really want to get anywhere then you need to draw what's in your head or focus on studying realism.

"Eyeballing" is still a form of tracing, and is what I thought everybody was talking about here. I fully agree that putting a drawing underneath another and then literally tracing the shadows of the linework is in no way productive.

I'm going to disagree with most people. Tracing is neither stealing nor bad for your drawing skills.

Many people including famous artists like Picasso and Van Gogh used tracing for their works. It builds up line confidence and will help you develop.

As for stealing, legally in the USA if you reproduce the work accurately enough and then distribute it you are liable for copyright infringement. A characters pose or a particular style is uncopyrightable (longest word in the English dictionary not using the same letter twice).

Reproducing whole seances or situations can land you it hot water though.

As for morality if you ask the artist of you keep the drawing to yourself, then go right ahead.

erica_wolf said:
I'm going to disagree with most people. Tracing is neither stealing nor bad for your drawing skills.

Many people including famous artists like Picasso and Van Gogh used tracing for their works. It builds up line confidence and will help you develop.

As for stealing, legally in the USA if you reproduce the work accurately enough and then distribute it you are liable for copyright infringement. A characters pose or a particular style is uncopyrightable (longest word in the English dictionary not using the same letter twice).

Reproducing whole seances or situations can land you it hot water though.

As for morality if you ask the artist of you keep the drawing to yourself, then go right ahead.

tracing is horrible for drawing skills.. it's alright if your trying to learn how to ink. tracing is a shortcut, it teaches one to avoid the setup process, and such never learn to do what comes to mind.

It's fine as long as you don't keep it to yourself for learning purposes and don't go "HOLY SHIT GUYS LOOK I'M SO PRO AT TRACING"