Animation Source Forums

Yes...the site was better before...and even now, they made is less save as they got rid of Cat as a mod -_- I had my characters copied so many times I can't count and it's mainly by one person. That's why I don't post that much art right now, because whatever I say, write, draw, make, it is took and made up by that person, and the worse part is that I can't do anything cuz people here (meaning mainly mods (but not all of them)) will think that's ridiculous. The only person who wouldn't is Cat. I won't tell who it is, but I won't post that much art either (if any) I did think of leaving as well, but for now, I'm not yet that annoyed...

I've already given a great solution to this whole problem. Copyright your character!


It's not hard to do, my roommate has 2 copyrights in his name right now. Contact a lawyer and figure something out.

Because I'll tell you exactly what won't fix anything. Coming in here and getting everyone to bandy around the flag of originality and say, "Gee whiz, people shouldn't copy!". Well, no kidding. But, some people are jerks and some people are unoriginal and if they like your character they are just going to steal it from you because you can do absolutely nothing to stop them.

And yes, I know that some of you are poor and some of your are like 10 years old and maybe talking to a lawyer isn't easy for you to do. But believe me, if you have 35 bucks, you can copyright the thing yourself using a search engine and typing in "copyright". It will take you to the US Copyright Office page and you can do it from there.

Because lets face it folks, this discussion comes up all the time on here, but until one of you goes out and actually does something constructive to stop it, it's not going to get any better. We can all yell and complain and scream until we're blue in the face, but that's really not going to do anything. Take some constructive action, take your stuff down off the internet and horde it to yourself, stop drawing altogether if that's what pleases you. But ranting and complaining all the time isn't going to make the copyright thieves just give up and go away. Little Johnny Art Theft isn't going to come in here, read a rant, and think, "My goodness! I never knew my theft hurt people like that! I'll stop right away!" The only thing these people understand is a lawsuit. Why don't one of you give them one?

Copyrighted dosen't do anything I put the copyrights in my picture description and they can draw a character like it and leave the copyrights out

Have you actually filed for a United States copyright? One recognized by the government? If you have one, you can sue people who infringe on it. They can't leave it out, they can't copy it, they can't ignore it.

That's the perfect way to stop people copying your work, I'm gonna do that when I find the time. You can also add watermarks on your pictures, it does'nt help stop people tracing or copying the style but it'll stop people taking the actual picture and calling it their own, many theives can't trace the picture to look any good and just steal the original, although Steet adding the thingy to stop people doing 'right click-save as' has stopped people taking your pics straight from BS.
Drew has copyrighted her chars for the B4 trailer project, very clever.

That's a good idea but people can still copy your character! What I mean is they draw a character likes yours but claim it theirs

Lost Legacy, what is it exactly that you don't understand about a copyright? If you have one, a real one, from the US government, it wouldn't matter if Bill Gates claimed to have invented your character. You would sue him and he would lose, because you have the copyright and he does not. That's how a copyright works. And if it is too much like yours, its still an infringement. Like I can't come up with a comic strip involving a guy named Superguy who fights for "veracity, righteousness, and the United States of America way". That's infringement.

Anyone who would normally vote for: "I do it all the time so NO!" without our prying eyes:
A message to people who HAVE unrightfull and KNOWINGLY (The keyword, here):

Well then... maybe we should all just "Borrow" your character, and name it ours? I'm sure everyone would love to see another soul person who is drawing a character and saying "Oooh, yes this mine, and it's name is this, and..." blah blah blah. And when YOU go to draw your character, you may eventually hear, "That's so-and-so's character!!!!" Which, in reality, it is not, and now you have three people hating each other just because one "Borrowed" another's character.

I agree with Deni on the fact that you don't know if you're copying another person's design or not. I have a character who looks a lot like Deni's fursona, but I didn't even see her artwork before I made him! I just quickly designed a wolf with head 'hair' and random markings and colored him two shades of brown! Does that make me bad? I hope not. Like Deni said, you can't search the whole internet for a design that you 'made'. Chances are, someone else has thought of your character's design aswell.

I am not that worried about it because I can put my username on it and they'll know that it's not theirs.

Well yes and no,
There are loads of people on the site many will have the same coulerd fur and eye colour. But it's unlikly for the same markings. Yes some people may steal chars.

It's VERY wrong.

Actually, if it's a very simple marking, then it is likely that someone elses wolf has it aswell.

It's just getting very annoying! I've changed my name several times so people would know that a Character was mine