I'm sure many of you have heard about this whole tracing deal, and dA's blatant acceptance of it. This leads me to conclude that dA is not so much a community, as the mods do not seem to A) want to do their jobs (this stems back to crusading against shota and loli) or B) listen to anybody other than themselves. The comments on the mod's journal have been so filled with ass-kissing that I'm sure there will be an epidemic of STIs. Any time somebody expresses disdain with the mods or the action, they are immediately called children and ridiculed by either the mods themselves or what I can only presume to be those that are aspiring to be mods themselves.

So lemme make my own opinion clear. Tracing is, no matter what law does or doesn't say, wrong. If you are neither asking permission from the original artist (when possible) nor crediting them, it is stealing. And regardless of whether or not permission and credit have been given, the trace should not be submitted to your gallery. Because it is not your art, nor is it art at all. Art is expression, and there are many forms of expression. If you cannot do one form, then either practice or find a form of art that you are good at. But do not take what other people have worked to achieve and present it as your own. It's not helping anybody.

Cheers,
Issa