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Forum - View topicINTEREST: Manga Creator Hisashi Eguchi Apologizes for Tracing Photos
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Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
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skafreak51
 Posts: 219 |
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Manga and comics in general has always used tracing of real photographs so this feels like it shouldn't be an issue.
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Juno016
 Posts: 2589 |
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I have two thoughts on this:
For context, this isn't actually about tracing itself. It is about tracing as a form of plagiarism. Tracing itself is not bad if 1) it is an art study for your own use only, 2) if the source is already your own work, or 3) you have permission to trace the source. Plagiarism is a serious offense in art. Plagiarism involves taking shortcuts by stealing other peoples' work (or direct likeness, in this case), which can apply, as it does here, to tracing. What Eguchi did here is objectively bad and I think he deserves to take accountability, whether he understand it was bad or not before being caught. On the flip side, if his word is to be trusted, then I appreciate his response, reflection, motivation to take accountability, and attitude going forward. I think people should be careful with his work for a good while and hold him to his word, but ultimately, I've never been an essentialist for punishment. An honest person who makes a human mistake, ideally, will earn trust back by simply knowing better and doing better. Repeated mistakes will tank trust in them. "Forgive, but don't forget", as the motto goes. Btw, I did say plagiarism is a serious offense (and it is), but it isn't a crime by itself. Both in Japan and in the US, it is more civil law jurisdiction, so you won't go to jail for it, but you can reasonably be sued, be reasonably fired, and/or be reasonably criticized by critics and have your reputation hurt or destroyed. It can also escalate into copyright/IP infringement (which is a crime) depending on the case. In the end, it's about respecting other peoples' boundaries. Very few people like their own hard work, vision, or likeness being used without their permissionーwe consider it a form of theft. It can also upset the balance of "fairness" in the marketplace (an issue we're seeing with AI, which can out-compete artists in content to an inhuman degree and overwhelms art platforms quickly). |
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Viren21
Posts: 97 |
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Im still curious of how artists would prevent plagiarism. Is referencing enough to say that the work is used as an inspiration?
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KutovoiAnton
 Posts: 991 Location: Vladimir, Russia |
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Meanwhile, somewhere in US Greg Land is probably feeling quite good, because his feeling of shame does not exist.
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groovysunbeam
 Posts: 82 Location: Belgium |
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I don't know what examples you're thinking of but every instance of a mangaka caught tracing has been taken pretty seriously. Except for Slam Dunk which seems to have gotten away with it and no one cares. This example is more of an issue since it involved promotional artwork with other companies like Denny's so they got roped into this too compared to a mangaka just being caught tracing in his own series.
Referencing and being influenced by things is perfectly fine. Outright tracing or copying is not. Things like the Akira bike slide or Yamcha death pose pop up quite often in media with no issue if they don't outright trace/rotoscope the original frame or animation. |
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Juno016
Posts: 2589 |
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There is a lot of grey area and sometimes a lot of confusion around the specifics, but the general consensus is that poses, motifs, and anything that can't really be considered "owned" by a single person is generally okay on their own, but tracing someone else's work or photos you don't own (without permission) is not. For instance, if you see a fancy outfit you like in a fashion magazine, you can draw something similar on your own characters using the original outfit's shape language, color scheme, fabric texture, or general likeness, but if you just copy the fashion model completelyーpose, exact clothing brands, colors, texture, etc. all at the same time, that can lead to questions of integrity. For a commercial product like Eguchi's work here (or, say, GoHands' plagiarized promo material for Tokyo Babylon), you want to avoid most of the grey area. Since parodies were mentioned here, it's probably good to mention that homages and parodies in anime are often a very risky endeavor. The point is often to be recognizable, meaning no deception is involved, and I think people relax more when it's clear that you're not claiming ownership over the sourceーin fact, it's generally understood that you're paying homage to it, or that you're evoking the source to critique it or say something unique or important that requires knowledge of the source to understand. In some cases (WcDonalds), a brand is so big and well-known that the point of the parody is to make the world feel close to home. However, even then, if you're not careful, you are still wading into risky territory and the owner of the source work can still reasonably go after you for it. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 8241 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Unless Eguchi-san is pulling a Nick Simmons (son of rock band KISS's singer, Gene Simmons) back in 2010 as in deliberately plagiarizing the artwork from Bleach in that same manner, then he's not in trouble. I mean he's not facing any lawsuits or any criminal referrals regarding copyrights, then he's in the clear. He said this in the article:
I mean isn't tracing very normal procedure in every artwork including comic book/graphic novel/manga artists do. I mean if Eguchi is facing that scandal involving tracing, does that mean Alex Ross should face the same scrutiny because his artworks looks too similar to Norman Rockwell. |
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Doubleclouder
 Posts: 168 |
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"Fairness" should not be a factor at all when it comes to art. That's how creativity dies: holding back the top bracket to appease the bottom in the name of "fairness" which would ironically be unfair to those held back. I get AI art is sweeping both online and offline spaces with it's success but it's much better for everyone for those who feel inadequate to adapt to it rather than cry foul and demand others be held back. A simple question I pose is why are they not doing it too then? The man who has a vacuum can clean more houses than one with just a broom, naturally. I don't know why Eguchi traced so many stuff or how long he's been doing it looking at all the examples. I hesitate to speculate on such affairs but given his status as being a pretty legendary artis wonder if it was a crutch due to his age and feeling the need to keep up with his past output. Then there's certainly better ways to compensate like the aforementioned AI or other programs and tools to do that than resort to tracing though. Yoshimi Kurata has spoken on relying on such programs and technology in his 70s due to his declining health affecting his ability to draw. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 315 |
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If you're reading this Hisashi, please don't use ai. I'd rather see traced art than slop. |
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That Little Rapscallion
Posts: 151 |
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I guess the concerns of consent and stealing only matter if it's a machine doing it. Humans get a pass it seems. |
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AsleepBySunset
Posts: 315 |
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Humans make mistakes. Why should machines have that privilege. Regular algorithms like a calculator are deterministic; if they make a mistake we can debug the code and fix the problem. I don't see how society needs ai/llms. |
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Juno016
Posts: 2589 |
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1) AI currently steals human art without artists' permission to train on. All of your skills, time, and effort spent as an artist can be stolen and reproduced by a someone who can then theoretically outcompete you with your own honed style. This is not akin to taking inspiration from another artist. It is simply plagiarism, but worse. 2) AI has no intent. It can approximate intent, but has none itself. This removes a major component of art, which is expression. 3) Artists do not usually make art specifically to compete in the marketplace, but they often need to compete in the marketplace to sustain a life where they can make art. Being outcompeted by machines and bots that can output so much more than any human is capable of means that fewer artists will be able to compete in the marketplace to sustain themselves. AI may have a comfortable place in art someday, taking on roles that ease some of the most tedious aspects of making art and allowing artists to express themselves with deliberate intent more efficiently. The current state of AI is not there yet, and it relies on art theft to get anything done. Until this specific issue is fixed, it'll be hard to convince many people with a deep appreciation of art that AI deserves its overwhelming status in the marketplace. |
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Minos_Kurumada
Posts: 1445 |
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If you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research - Wilson Mizner |
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