Of late there were heated debates on Steemit about plagiarism

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Of late there were heated debates on Steemit about plagiarism, copyright and such, and artists are being pilloried for drawing their inspiration from sources they did not name. Now if you need a list of my sources, I would have to append a encyclopedia of listings of my sources, compiled over my 50+ years activity in art. And yes, many of my works contain in some details images from other sources - as a representational artist, this is common and quite normal. The only ones that may escape the trap are perhaps abstract artists splattering paint aimlessly all over the place and by sheer accident and gravity are even hitting the intended target, their canvas. But I digress. The only thing exempt from criticism is a virginally empty canvas. Period. And even that might be considered plagiarism:
Blank canvas: London gallery unveils 'invisible' art exhibition

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On the subject of Public Domain, you will find more information in my text below - here however is a example of Public Domain:

^{Image from page 69 of
"Publications relating to the wedding of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor,
and Margarita Teresa, Infanta of Spain" (1666)}

But lets get to the meat of the subject - and I simply copy parts of one of my comments to What is Art Plagiarism - if interested, check out all the comments on it, some of it quite revealing with whom and what we are dealing with here.

From a purely educational point of view, this comment below should clarify a lot of the issues facing artists today:

@ryivhnn - If it is stock, then they have implied permission to use it, depending on a number of things (most stock is sold as a license to use). Some stock is creative commons (and it would depend on the license), but most stock you have to pay for, so it is yours to use without any restrictions, except if your license specifies a specific use only (you basically get what you pay for, and unrestricted licenses are costly).
As a artist, you would have access to a lot of stock here Stockfree Images if you join the site. There are other services available, like Megapixl - all you have to do is google for free stock.

If you use stuff that is in the public domain, then you can do with it what you want without any restrictions. Usually, copyright expires after 80 years or 100 years (depending on country) after the death of the author. Extensions are sometimes granted to heirs of the artist if they apply for it.

Here is a link for Public Domain Images on the Internet Archives Flickr Blog , the best source is the Internet Archives Website (you find the link on this page The Public Domain Review).

And here is another interesting exemption to copyright, and it is called Freedom of Panorama - otherwise you would not be allowed to publish photos of your holidays in Paris, for example. Please note: this exemption includes images of art in public spaces! So feel free to copy David in Florence, it is 1) in a public space and 2) it is in the public domain!
But what you create from it, is indeed copyright - like this old drawing of mine from 1975 that includes a image of David:

Now to the part of your comment ".....cobbling together mattes by photobashing .....":
In the instance that an image has been altered adequately, one may be protected under a “de minimis” defense. This implies that the amount of the source that has been copied is small enough to be justified by court.

^{I have studied copyright issues for decades and have posted many times about it in my blogs and on my websites and networks.}
Of course this Jaguar pretender troll has no clue about any of this.

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Note: I have it from one of the curators of @ntopaz who said this to me, quote:

otto, he does not work for ntopaz, in fact, he has been banned from ntopaz

Lets hope @artzone follows suite.
We need to return to a level of sanity here on Steemit! Too many self-appointed experts with a Napoleon Complex around.

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The bottom line to all this:

Dear Artist Friends: don't be intimidated by bullies and trolls, fight back! Flag what you feel is vindictive and abusive action. Don't give a bully an inch of space, and if we stand together, then hopefully this scourge will be history

^{photoshop work by myself from a (unpublished)photo of me by my friend Leo Toetsch}