Is it true that every time you copy someone else’s work, God kills a kitten?
There’s a bit of storm on the internet at the moment, about digital artist “Mijn Schatje”, who is making some money selling digital traces of other people’s photos of Ball Jointed Dolls.
You can catch up on Radiotrash.org and see all the examples. The image on the right is only a taste. Mijn Schatje copies the faces of these dolls and uses them as the basis and centrepiece of her illustrations. (Image source: Radiotrash)
To me, this is pretty clear cut. Mijn Schatje is ripping off the photographers and arguably, she’s also ripping off the artists who designed, created, and painted the dolls (and that may be several people for any one doll). Doll painters, photographers and designers are, understandably, not happy about this.
At the moment, Mijn Schatje doesn’t seem to get it. She says she uses the dolls as reference, but denies she traces photographs, and does not seem to think there’s anything wrong with what she’s doing.
The point I really want to make is not so much about Mijn Schatje, but about the confusion that exists, and not just in her mind, about referencing and copying. Some of the discussion about Mijn Schatje misses the point in my opinion.
It’s not about tracing or not tracing. It’s about inspiration versus wholesale appropriation.
Tracing photographs can be a perfectly valid way to create artwork. Some portraitists work this way. However, and this is the key, they trace photographs they made themselves. Photography is an art. Choosing the right framing, lighting, angle, etc. are creative decisions, and if you copy someone else’s photo, you’re stealing their ideas.
I’ve also seen cases where an artist, after getting into trouble for plagiarism, says: “but I didn’t trace it so I thought it was OK.” No, it’s not OK, because it’s not about whether you trace or not, it’s about whether you steal.
Referencing is where you take, for instance, a pose, or a particular panel composition, or turn of phrase, or clothing style, and use it in a new situation. However, if you use the pose, clothing, AND panel composition of your source, you’re taking most of what they created and calling it yours. You can’t do that.
That’s why Mijn Schatje is out of line. She uses images that are identical not just in features, but in angle, lighting and make-up to the original photographs. As Becky Head (Kallisti) says
As [the Dolls'] luminous faces are the central theme to 99% of her gallery work, it seems a bit disingenuous to claim them as products of her own imagination.
The art is all about the face, and she didn’t create the face. And that’s why she’s in trouble.
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