2ch’s Plagiarism Police Quite Amazing
- Categories: Manga, News
- Date: Oct 22, 2010 04:13 JST
- Tags: Comparison, Copyright, Photography, Plagiarism, Yaoi
Manga plagiarism seems to be getting lazier and lazier – the latest example actually succeeds in leaving watermarks on plagiarised photographs on the cover of the book itself.
However, perhaps more noteworthy than the plagiarism itself is the diligence of the people responsible for uncovering it.
The manga in question is 隗ヨリヒトカイヨリ式 / Kaiyorihitokaiyorishiki, by Kazuaki – a relatively obscure BL title.
Some analysis of the manga’s cover finds it to be using copyrighted photography:
Here the watermark from the original image is actually left as part of the book’s cover… Removing the shadows was also apparently too much effort.
The cover in use as signage:
The publisher has already apologised and withdrawn the title – however, with the original publication date being 2007, the damage (such as it is) is done.
As ever, the shamelessness of the plagiarists is matched only by the amazing rigour of 2ch’s plagiarism police – 2ch’s crowning achievement:
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I guess they have to amuse themselves somehow.
more like they have absolutely no life.
I agree with some of the anonymous statements here. Using the copyrighted pictures on the covers directly is plagiarism. But, these "detectives" don't know the difference between plagiarism and reference.
Yea... And what's the freaking problem if they wanna use real scenery as their inspiration? What if they draw awesomely well and can reproduce the places perfectly? Jesus, go sodomize yourselves with the copyright laws and just leave it alone.
Copyright is evil, copyright kills creativity, copyright must die.
Drawing good with no reference is creative. Drawing with reference is creative. Copying images is not creative. You don't understand the meaning of creativity.
In time: I still think it's some epic skillz there, takes a lot of work and observation. Still, copyright must die... LOL
Indeed...This is just referencing background scenarios and backdrops...
Anime, games, movies, and mangas have been doing it for a long time before I was even born...
REFERENCING and PLAGIARISM are not one and the same...
I'm about 90% sure 004 isn't the right one.
I'd venture a guess and say many if not most of the "OMFG PLAGIARISM!" threads on 2ch (that ends up as sancon articles) follow something along the lines of:
1. Someone finds something that's actually plagiarism and posts it.
2. Post get attention and people start trashtalking the author.
3. People start searching for more plagiarism by the same author, gets drawn into the mob mentality and start posting stuff that's in no way plagiarism.
4. More and more people want to "contribute" and quickly it spirals into "OMG PLAGIARMS! I FOUND A PHOTO OF A GIRL SITTING ON A CHAIR IN SCHOOLGIRL UNIFORM! AND THERES A GIRL SITTING ON A CHAIR IN SCHOOLGIRL UNIFORM IN THIS MANGA! TOTAL PLAGIARISM!!!!".
At least that's the conclusion I draw from most of these "2ch finds plagiarism"-articles here, since 90-95% of the "examples" given in those articles usually isn't even close to plagiarism, instead mostly being examples of that there are some poses that are quite common.
@Anonymous above me
*thumbs up and nods in agreement*
This is not plagiarism at all.
Cut from Wiki:
Similarly, in storytelling and literature, it is a practice common to all the major authors, to copy from parts of other works and transpose them in their own world. The value attributed to originality is also culturally contigent; some societies, like the one at the time of Shakespeare, instead used to appreciate more the similarity with an admired classical work, like in the case of Shakespeare's rewriting of Plautus' Menaechmi for The Comedy of Errors.[5] Unlike in the academia world, in which references are expected to be cited explicitly and precisely, in literature they are usually not revealed or kept implicit.
If this is plagiarism might as well put the whole stock and barrel of anime in.
Yeah, I want to say this is some mad detective skills at work but...
Anyone who can figure this stuff out(to this degree) hasn't much of a life at all.
CSI: 2CH
"A man was found hanging naked on an egg farm."
Horatio: Looks like he was a real Hen-Tie.
IT era - when using a model for art becomes a crime.
Oh Ghost Dog. I love the 'so dumb it's funny' puns. + for you.
the artist can trolling all of those fucking detective with saying "i bought the picture, it's not plagiarism you faggots"
end of story
"YEAHHHHHHH!"
If only such interest was directed into more productive ventures...
ya know, I wish they'd just become ACTUAL detectives. They'd be thousands of times better than any of the current force, and really, physical crimes would go down to like 1% of their current levels.
2ch's plagiarist police would make every murder case seem as easy as cake to solve. One look at the crime scene and three hours of web surfing and they'd get the perp.
God damnit, finally the word 'plagiarism' is used correctly at least in the case of the watermarked picture. But the rest of it IS NOT PLAGIARISM! THIS IS REFERENCE! Yes some of them may be tracing, and that's very frowned upon, but for fuck's sake, why are people only NOW giving attention to things artists have done for centuries, up to and including the google image search era. There's nothing new happening now. If nothing else, 2ch is slow as fuck in realizing what the business requires and completely misrepresenting it.
Characters are different of course, since those are actually designed for another story, but these are real life structures and creations that are being emulated and imitated in the stories by people who need this reference for accuracy. Some of it's laziness, some of it is time crunch, etc.
The cover in the OP however is inexcusable. At least they could have PURCHASED the picture, since it's apparently a stock photo anyway and that's what they're meant to be used for in the first place.
2ch can spot character cameos smaller than a cm in brief background scenes in their favorite anime. No life doesn't begin to describe.
If you call it detective work, then I'd name it STALKING.
They have way too much free time. I'd love to get some.
Do you realize they most probably using some software that searches the web for pictures and compares them pixel by pixel (or whatever thechnology they use). I'm pretty sure it is not done by hand.
yea, they're probably using google's "similiar image" tool.
Or they use automated tools. There are algorithms that are capable of recognizing and matching similar looking shapes.
Who the hell thumbed you down bro? Must be some stupid lame shmuck
when an hand drawn picture resembles reality it's nothing to get excited about.
"OMG!!! the stairwell looks so much like one in real life!!!!"
go figure. it's when one artist rips off another artist that it is amusing to poke fun at them.
Epic 2ch is epic!
Fail, 2Ch is fail, more like.
Not today.
Isn't plagiarism the theft of copyrighted works?
Copying scenes of nature, buildings in the open, or even other objects commonly seen outside is not plagiarism. If it was, every damn painter in the last couple centuries would have had their paintings confiscated for plagiarism, including all animes made in the last few decades which used real life places as references.
2ch makes absolutely no damn sense accusing them of plagiarism when in fact it's just real life objects they're using in their works.
what the hell? it's already been released so what's the problem?
guess 2ch must be soooo bored right now.
Man! people in 2ch have plenty of time in their hands..!
Wow, so much stupidity wrapped up in a huge waste of time. The majority of these cases of "plagiarism" is just referencing. Is it what we've come to? So paranoid about copying things that we can't use real life references to improve our art? I don't know if you know this 2ch, but people learn to draw things by REFERENCE! It's one thing if you trace another person's drawing and call it your own, but real life references, seriously?! Manga-ka and animators are not creative Gods (well not most of them at least). There's only so much they can do purely from their heads while drawing. They're not architects, they can't always design their own buildings especially considering the time constraint within their jobs. So just try and appreciate their works rather then going "OMG I MUST FIND PLAGIARISM! IT WILL BE THE END OF US!111!11!" You're not a hero for finding these "plagiarism" incidents, you are just wasting good time you could be using more productively, like reading more manga/watching more anime. :3
You DO know the difference right? These aren't referenced images they are talking about in the article. These are taken, manipulated, filtered, altered (probably by photoshop\sai but any paint thing will do) then palced right into the image. Big difference between taking a photo or part of one and altering it to put in your own work and using one for reference.
Plagiarism is when you copy a source without the proper reference to the holder. Sure the mangaka use it without the consent of most of the resource they got the pic from, but its not something that people have to be so fussy about.
It is not plagiarism to use a building as a reference point.
For fucks sake people.
Absolutely Ridiculous.
Referencing is okay, looking at an image and trying to redraw it is okay.
Taking an image, placing it directly onto your work, adding filters adjusting color etc. and selling it for profit is not okay. If she had bought the rights to the image(s), then the situation wouldn't be like this.
The author herself know what she did wrong, too. Which is why she apologized so quickly.
2ch did some good this time, as fans we should believe that the artist will not cheat us.
But where do you draw the line? Many people will say referencing something is wrong too as they say it's just tracing. Even if there is a difference And if that was a free to use image?
"Taking an image, placing it directly onto your work, adding filters adjusting color etc. and selling it for profit is not okay"
That is usually called MATTE painting and they do it in many many different things. Even movies. Lord of the Rings for instance.
Like, who even cares of this shit?
the airplane one was epic!
It's funny how people rage on 2ch because some of its users uncovered cases of plagiarism.
It's rather commendable. Has everyone already forgot about Nick Simmons? That was the English anime communities detective work.
Did anyone rage about those guys and say they have no life when they uncovered his plagiarism? No.
It's actually kinda ironic that some of you say they have no life. Has anyone ever told you that you have no life because you watch anime or play video games? You're becoming hypocrites now people.
That's different, he took pages from existing manga and just basically colored them with different colors to make it seem like his own. He didn't take his own photos from photostock, or public domain photos and use them as a reference. The reason why people noticed is that they didn't have to go do any detective work, they seen it immediately. Not to mention the fact that he didn't use those pictures as references, he basically traced them line for line.
Using a public domain photo for commercial purposes isn't bad as long as it says so in the copyright despite what anyone says.. as long as they obey the copyright they aren't really in the wrong. And all artists use photo pictures for those drawings, if I was them and some of my fans started to complain, I'd just flip them off and tell them to stop buying.
also one has to understand not all things are copyrighted even though people have the right from the start that its made, the thing is for a material to be considered to be copyright it has to go under some paper works that can be protected by the copyright acts if not then its considered either open domain or private use this can be said of the internet as mostly they can be considered as open domain per-se unless you uploaded something that you really bought for it... in which case can't be exactly called as piracy... so 2 things one world
Wow, artists use REFERENCES?! Who would've thought. Considering a lot of manga takes place in real world settings like Japan and whatnot (fantasy aspects aside), wouldn't it only be natural that they base the backgrounds off places that actually exist? Besides, mangakas are not architects. Just because they have some decent artistic ability doesn't mean they can (or want to) create sceneries and buildings from scratch when there's some perfectly nice settings to take inspiration from.
It would only be offensive if the artist just took pictures of landmarks then made them into black and white images and used THAT as the background. Not just cause it's lazy, but because it's rather jarring when you compare the photorealistic backgrounds with simpler character designs. I'm looking at you, Ken Akamatsu.
so many butt hurt american
Yet they're not getting paid for this at all. Pathetic, really.
Neither are fansubbers and scanlators... yet they spend hours of their free time so jackasses like you can complain.