Prepping for InkTober and a rant about users who trace copyrighted images

InkTober is upon us. A few years ago I bought $100 CCC to curate the event.

The value of my CCC has since fallen to $7.77. It is embarrassing to admit that I am still taking curation serious.

For this year, I decided to delegate other coins to the event. The delegation includes 54K POB.

My POB lost half of its value this last week. POB is in free fall.

The table shows my total delegation. The delegation is worth about $35.

Symbol	Tokens	USD
CCC	35785	$2.36
FUN	8550	$0.99
MEME	105223	$1.82
PAL	43526	$0.12
POB	54174	$7.56
VYB	151715	$8.60
WAIV	1235	$14.13
Total	400208	$35.57

You can see the total delegations in my HIVE Engine wallet.

Although my curation rewards are not worth the effort. I hope that artists use HIVE for their #inktober efforts. In the last several years, other accounts with more resources than mine have curated inktober. Artists often get several dollars worth of HIVE for the event.

I will try drawing pictures. I don't know how many I will complete.

Now For My Pet Peeve

I've noticed that several HIVE accounts have taken to tracing images from Pinterest and using the #creativecoin tag coin implying that they are the artists who created the art.

The first thing I need to point out is that the artists on Pinterest retain their copyright.

Tracing an image from Pinterest is a copyright violation. Pinterest has been known to aggressively enforce copyrights.

Plagiarizing copyright materials is a legal issue. Platforms like YouTube, Pinterest, HIVE are forced by the legal community to have mechanisms to prevent copyright violations.

The Downvote button was created to prevent plagiarism.

What happens on HIVE is that people who engage in repeated copyright violations get put on a downvote list.

It is not a difficult concept to understand.

Do not use copyrighted images as the reference image for drawings.

Do Not Use Trademarked Images

Users should also avoid trademarked images. Some companies aggressively enforce trademarks.

You may love Disney Princesses. Disney aggressively defends its trademarks.

Most popular cartoons have copyrights and trademarks. There are a few fairuse exceptions to copyright rules.

Whenever a copyrighted image is the primary focus of a drawing, then account has engaged in a problematic activity.

I will not upvote posts that use a copyrighted images as references.

I support #hive-watchers when it downvotes copyright violations.

Finding Reference Images

I understand the need to have reference images. If you want to draw the image of a famous or historical figure; then you have to use a reference.

Fortunately there are some platforms that use the creative commons license. I like to use the Wikicommons pictures on Wikipedia. Most of these images are public domain.

Using AI Images

AI has advanced dramatically in the last few years. One can generate mindblowing images with simple prompts.

AI poses a serious problem for professional graphic artists. To highlight this point, I've been generating images on nightcafe.

AI-Images are in a nebulous space. AI can't really scrub the copyright for an image. Were to get an AI to generate a Disney Princess, I might still get in trouble with Disney.

Using AI images for references helps distance the user from copyright violations.

For example, if I wanted a picture of a dolphin for a collage, I could ask AI to generate a dolphin image. This would give me a base image that is not directly violating the copyright of an underwater photographer who invested the resources to take a photo.

It is a grey area ... using AI is a step above tracing a copyrighted image.

The Picture for the Post

The inktober52 prompt a week ago was "dice." I decided to generate an image on NightCafe. I then traced the image.

I made a huge mistake. I tried shading in the image while watching a TV show and totally messed up the palm of the hand.

Anyway my drawing at the top of this post is a tracing of an image generated by AI.

The place where I feel this is really helpful is for artists who want to include complex elements in pictures. So, if I wanted to create a picture of Trump parting the Red Sea, I might generate the image of Trump holding a staff on AI and to draw the red sea from my imagination.

I might create a coloring sheet with ai to show this process with a different platform.

Conclusion

I am looking forward to curating #inktober drawings this year. I've delegated HE coins to @idoodle. I have about $100 worth of coins.

I understand the need to use reference images. For those people who are tracing copyrighted images from Pinterest:

Please Stop!

generating the reference images with ai is an interesting alternative. I really didn't do a good job tracing my ai image. I prefer the original.