WARNING - What happened to originality?!

Friends,

Time and again this issue has cropped up (pardon the pun!) in the A&S section - we've had debates, arguments, fights, lost friendships, and people have quit sig-making or even IF over this issue...and yet, the problem never seems to go away.

You all must be wondering what I'm talking about, but if you take a close look at the forum, you'll understand immediately what I mean to say. This section used to be a haven of originality and uniqueness, and yet now, everywhere I go I see nothing but copycats, nothing but disrespect for each other's hard work.

Ananya, Khushi and I are being sent PMs by members complaining that other people are copying their work and even (this is BY FAR the worse of the two offences) cutting down their sigs to use as their own, or to make brushes out of!!!

Is this the kind of forum this has become? Where people steal each other's creations, cut them and rip them apart and then shamelessly use them as their own? Anu and I have PROOF of instances where people have cut out another member's sig, cropped it and placed it in their own sig as some sort of....what, even I don't know😕. And you don't need to go far within the section to see how MANY people there are ripping off each other's ideas and using them as their own, without acknowledging the source or giving credit. It's come to the point where members are adamant not to let other people know about or share their resources because the receivers do not have the COURTESY to acknowledge or give credit!!

Guys, nothing in this world is original - as Plato has said, 'art imitates the objects and events of ordinary life', and that even what we see with our own eyes is a copy of a copy. We are all given the same basic resources to do with what we please - HOWEVER, this does not mean that we are allowed to blatantly RIP OFF each other and pass off someone else's work as our own!! If you copy-and-pasted an article from the internet into your high school/college essay, it would be classed as PLAGARISM, which is a crime. This is no different. Taking and using someone else's work/ideas/resources as your own without permission or full credit to the original is PLAGARISM and is not allowed here on IF!

So here is a reminder (yet again) of what we expect from you in terms of this issue:

You MUST NOT:

1. Copy someone's style brush-stroke by brush-stroke and pass it off as your own;

2. Take someone else's sig/avi/brushes (if they have made it), remove their copyright and credit it as your own;

3. CUT OUT any part of anyone's sig/avi and use it a) as a base, b) in your sigs/avis or c) as a standalone creation;

4. Take/use someone else's self-made resources (brushes, imagepacks, textures, patterns etc) without giving the creator DUE CREDIT

Guys, this is pretty standard ettiquette - it shouldn't be this hard for you to follow it. PLEASE RESPECT EACH OTHER AND EACH OTHER'S HARD WORK!

As of now, any member found breaking any of these rules will NOT have a warning PM sent to them, but their Warning Level (WL) will be raised immediately! Consider this your first and final warning on this issue - from now on, I and the other MODs will take a zero-tolerance approach to this issue!

If any member feels that their work has been copied/stolen or used in a way that they find uncomfortable, please do not hesitate to contact myself, Ananya_A or Tumhari_Khushi with proof/examples so that we can take action.

Remember, everyone: originality rocks!

Thanks,

Thanks for this Vasu Di 🤗... I havent seen anything like that happening but you guys arent wrong. I am not the best observer, Can other members who the siggy doesnt belong to complain to you guys if we see someone copying? 😕 😃

Thanx dee..!
We needed this here!
I hope everyone will follow this!
Sorry if I did Anything!

mwahz
Prii

Thankss a lot vasu di🤗

This was very much needed 😳

Thanku so much.. 😊 But truly saying..I havent come across anything like dat...but I really hope every things goes 2 normal..cutting , cropping & pasting is jus pathetic!

aww...thats sad! ...dont know many...but i think momogrl(one of the best sig-makers of I-F) left this forum for copying reason!
this was definitely needed!!!...i think u guys(mods) should have mentioned the names ov those who broke the rules!
n m reallly sorry if i did something wrong!

Thanks Vasu and Anu, indeed, a very much needed post. 👍🏼

-Sam

thanks for the warning
the same thing happened in the DMG forum where someone stole the creations and told everyone that they made it 😡
thanks again for the warning

Very Needed topic! Hope this stops!

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Thank u so much for this topic 😊 this was very much needed 👏 ..although i have never faced such thing or seen someone copying someone..but u r absolutely right..with so much hard-work we make siggies..how we will feel if someone steals it

i have a question..sometimes it happens that bcoz of the same source(like deviantart) two persons have the same brushes..will that be also called copying?? 😕

agree with u..originality rocks 👏 😊