Am I the only one who doesn't really have a problem with tracing? Even things that would truly be considered tracing? I mean it's a bit of a douche move if you don't credit but unless it's commercial content I'm not going to complain very much.

One of my biggest arguments is that even if you're an expert at tracing (which anyone can become), if you haven't got the necessary artistic skills then even a masterpiece is gonna end up either looking mediocre, or frankly speaking, like crap in comparison.

When I look at art I tend to look beyond the paint or pixels or whatever media you got (even porn, 'cause this is porn, my brain doesn't take some time off and leave my penis in charge, pleasure comes from the brain not your genitals/etc). There's so much much more to it than just a pose and some outlines.

If you got a masterpiece, even a second master artist trying to copy it might come out with a completely different feel just because of small differences, many which come from facial expressions, shading and lighting, which can be hard to successfully copy (probably a lot easier to draw from scratch than try to copy).

It's just that every time someone yells "Traced!" I go into defensive mode. People are going to copy other people, it's been done in pretty much every area humans have touched. If you should blame anyone blame human curiosity and strive for improving, only very rarely is there any malice involved.

Instead, as a consumer, you should be happy you got two versions of the same thing, as an artist, you should feel inspired/"honored"/glad that someone likes your stuff enough to actually put time and work into copying it. It's the only way forward as you can't really fight it, well you can, but you won't win, maybe they won't win either, so in the end everyone loses.