RE: Indisputable Evidence of @akarantain Being an Intentional Art Plagiarist and a Poseur.
I probably come a little late on this "debate", not being so active lately ... We were asked on the French channel to give our opinion and I decided to come and share with you my personal opinion which is not necessarily that of the entire French community. So I speak in my own name, but also as a french curator: fr and francostem (french part of steemstem community). So, sorry if my english is not perfect, since this is not my first langage.
I was reviewing the posts published by @akarantain and I took the time to read all the opinions given here to weigh the "pros" and "cons ", especially from other artists.
As steemstem / francostem curator, plagiarism is something that I know well and that usually makes me angry. We do not take this lightly at all, and I think it is important to raise the debate.
When I read a post and I find notions of plagiarism, it is a little "easy" since it is "copy-pasted": the author has made no effort of personal writing, he appropriates falsely the work of someone else.
In another hand, when it comes to art, we are talking about a completely different subject.
Several months ago, we blacklisted an artist because he literally published the productions of other authors as if it was his own. There, it was a real case of plagiarism that the author recognized. He also wrote an article explaining the why of how and also apologized to the community.
There was no original production coming from him, he only posted pictures of other people as if it was his own work.
In the case of @akarantain, she copies images she found on the net, but she publishes her own reproduction of the original work. It details each step, explains the processes it used, etc. It's her own work of reproduction that she present us.
In this, the content can be considered as original and not as plagiarism. Especially since in art, the copy of existing work is considered as a process of learning necessary to the acquisition of techniques of drawings.
This type of "copy" can not be considered, in my opinion, as plagiarism.
If you really want to stay in the norms that have been enacted, it would be good to simply ask the author to quote his source of inspiration. Yet, it may cause some problems to all artists since many of their creation can come from… everything!
So, in my opinion, she doesn’t only take the creation of somebody else : she is doing her own production from it. As I said, maybe it would be better to give a link to the original picture, but there… I am not in the art community and I think they must be the ones who put their own rules about that…
I would've taken the reports more weight if the accusations were done recent posts of the accused. I don't see Jaguar commenting on recent posts of akarantain. Either the user now posts novel art or Jaguar has yet to find evidence. It's one thing to comment on the actual post that is believe to have created plagiarism, it's another thing to make a blog post separate for the purpose of publishing how effective they are at both investigating facts that can subsequently shame people out. Given that these efforts are backed by people with high SP, no doubt that their point of view regarding the issue would be more prominent.
As I have said quite a few times since January 5, 2019 I began to place the reference images if I use them because I see no problem in doing so in 1 year of being in the community I was never informed of that rule until I wrote in a veryspider comment that I should place the reference images when using but I did not know that veryspider after that day she next to the jaguar.force that this one in turn supported by people of weight of the platform of steemit and to use some of my post to destroy my reputation I have thought that it did it because some time I commented to him in discord that it is difficult for me to express myself because I have panic to the people and turned me into an easy target. Veryspider told me to continue and that from now on I would place the reference images, that's why I had not placed the reference images to my old post, then I correct it and also attack me, so they wanted me. That's the question I ask myself every day? I suffer from nerves this has done me a great physical and emotional damage and my panic towards people is now greater.
The short version of the story is that you made the corrections to put the reference images after you were told. But during that time, Jaguar didn't really care about the current posting behaviors and went out on posts where you still didn't know what you're doing was wrong and unable to correct those mistakes. That's unfortunate. Like I said before, I would've taken Jaguar's reports more weight if your recent posts were proven plagiarized but those case samples happened months ago. That really ignores what kind of artist you've become now and that's were partialism comes in during the investigation.
I'm expecting Jaguar would make a generic response with a have a good day or thank you for your opinion on their subsequent replies if they ever make one. It should've stop you from posting if you know it's your art.
As for veryspider's involvement, I wouldn't take that much into account. Veryspider is just doing what any responsible curator would do. It's Jaguar's approach in handling plagiarism that needs improvement.