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[RANT]Why you shouldn't RP with other people's Characters...
8 years ago
Honestly, there's a million reasons why you shouldn't find a "Random character form google" and use it for RP.
But in my opinion, THE BIGGEST reason?
Identity theft.
Whether it's your intent or not, people WILL know of the character you're using. And unless they know otherwise, they'll assume YOU are the artist or character owner.
Anything you say, or do, whilst using someone else's "Identity" in that way, is a reflection of them.
I'm sure most people don't intend for that sort of thing to happen, but it does!
I've had people think I'm a completely different person to who I actually am, because they've met someone using my character on an RP site, or elsewhere.
I've seen this happen to COUNTLESS friends, the most prolific for it - actually ended up retiring their character for a long while because they got to sick of people thinking they knew her, only to find out, they didn't. It was some rando RPer.
And it's not just the owners/artists who you're hurting here.
Let's say you make friends with someone, or get intimate online with someone whilst using the mask of someone elses character.
One day the person you've connected with finds the original artist or owner, thinks it's you, tries to message them, and gets met with confusion, frustration, and in some cases anger.
What you've essentially done there, is lied to this person you claimed to be close with. You gave them a false notion of who you are.
And it's entirely possible that they won't trust you after that, they may even not want to speak to you anymore, because allll this time, they thought they were talking to person A - and they find out they've been talking to person Z.
You'd feel conned.
Or at least I know I would..
And just... Art is people's business and livelihood.
From a personal stand point, my personal OC/Character is essentially my business mascot.
I don't find it acceptable to have people taking my character, and running about with her doing god knows what - That REFLECTS on me, and my business.
then have to actively remind everyone that I don't do that stuff, I'm not involved in that stuff. and that message doesn't get to everyone!
Hell, for all I know - Some people may have had a bad experience with someone RPing with my character, and blocked ME because of it, despite having no idea about any of this going on.
In the long run ,that loses people business.
And in a worst case scenario, you're slowly chipping away at someone's livelihood.
Let's say hypothetically something goes wrong, and an RPer goes APE, being ridiculously offensive, obnoxious, etc etc.
Fully ruining an artists reputation despite zero involvement.
You've just killed that person's income.
They may not be able to pay rent now, or buy food.
They may end up homeless and starving on the streets...
All because you wanted to have a bit of fun online with something that wasn't yours.
I know that probably sounds extreme, but honestly - It's a reality. It CAN happen.
And I just don't think people are aware of how much character theft etc can effect someone's business/livelihood.
But in my opinion, THE BIGGEST reason?
Identity theft.
Whether it's your intent or not, people WILL know of the character you're using. And unless they know otherwise, they'll assume YOU are the artist or character owner.
Anything you say, or do, whilst using someone else's "Identity" in that way, is a reflection of them.
I'm sure most people don't intend for that sort of thing to happen, but it does!
I've had people think I'm a completely different person to who I actually am, because they've met someone using my character on an RP site, or elsewhere.
I've seen this happen to COUNTLESS friends, the most prolific for it - actually ended up retiring their character for a long while because they got to sick of people thinking they knew her, only to find out, they didn't. It was some rando RPer.
And it's not just the owners/artists who you're hurting here.
Let's say you make friends with someone, or get intimate online with someone whilst using the mask of someone elses character.
One day the person you've connected with finds the original artist or owner, thinks it's you, tries to message them, and gets met with confusion, frustration, and in some cases anger.
What you've essentially done there, is lied to this person you claimed to be close with. You gave them a false notion of who you are.
And it's entirely possible that they won't trust you after that, they may even not want to speak to you anymore, because allll this time, they thought they were talking to person A - and they find out they've been talking to person Z.
You'd feel conned.
Or at least I know I would..
And just... Art is people's business and livelihood.
From a personal stand point, my personal OC/Character is essentially my business mascot.
I don't find it acceptable to have people taking my character, and running about with her doing god knows what - That REFLECTS on me, and my business.
then have to actively remind everyone that I don't do that stuff, I'm not involved in that stuff. and that message doesn't get to everyone!
Hell, for all I know - Some people may have had a bad experience with someone RPing with my character, and blocked ME because of it, despite having no idea about any of this going on.
In the long run ,that loses people business.
And in a worst case scenario, you're slowly chipping away at someone's livelihood.
Let's say hypothetically something goes wrong, and an RPer goes APE, being ridiculously offensive, obnoxious, etc etc.
Fully ruining an artists reputation despite zero involvement.
You've just killed that person's income.
They may not be able to pay rent now, or buy food.
They may end up homeless and starving on the streets...
All because you wanted to have a bit of fun online with something that wasn't yours.
I know that probably sounds extreme, but honestly - It's a reality. It CAN happen.
And I just don't think people are aware of how much character theft etc can effect someone's business/livelihood.
I literally don't see the point :/
I later found out that someone on another RP site that I don't use anymore decided to use my character. I..was livid. Someone was claiming the bunny was theirs and that they had commissioned this artist and...yeah. I got into a heated argument with them and some site owners. :/
Even if people are harmlessly using the character..I mean they can at least ask if they can use/borrow it and credit the artist or something. I..don't like it when people use others art. It does ruin business sometimes.
Putting a huge watermark on it will stop people. I agree with Sugar.
It's a huge problem... and I know well-known artists and characters have it a lot worse, but it can happen to anyone. It'd be nice if there was a way to properly tag things in a way that would alert you if someone snagged it, or took the art from your page... instead of having to go through sites a few times to check. x.x
I don't understand what makes people think it's okay to steal other people's characters and abuse them in this way. People who do this do not value art for what it is or understand the creative process behind it. They're more often than not the same kind of people I ran into while I used to roleplay, by which I mean they won't care about anything related to the character or their roleplays except how they're getting their privates dripping, not even how their actions can hurt the original owner's reputation or business. Some of them don't even care about the other people they're roleplaying with.
This is one of two main reasons why I tell every artist I commission that I want them to watermark my work if I see that they don't do so with every image they make, and it's also why I place watermarks on anything I make (the other reason being that I see a watermark as a sign of one's own pride in their work). With watermarks and your identification present on any image you're involved in, it'll always be traceable back to you and will serve as a discouragement to anyone who wants to try stealing it, especially if you take measures to make it impossible to completely remove it, as Sugarsweet above me detailed.
All that aside, is it really so hard to create a character and save up enough money to commission an artist to bring them to life?
anybody would recognize if somebody else was using them.
It's mainly why I created a journal about sites I'm active (or not active) on so that people can see where I am, and I link to my profiles on those sites if they aren't for personal use only so that people can easily identify me/my
profiles. I'm sorry this happened to you! I wish it wouldn't happen to anybody.
It's such a shit thing to do. I try to explain to people why doing it is wrong (as I RP on a game where TONS of people just grab the nearest e621 pic and roll with it) and have actually stopped a handful from doing it by kindly
informing them of why it's wrong, but others have blocked me because they feel that they're entitled somebody else's art all because they put it on the internet so it's 'free for them to use' and it's just like wtF that is NOT how
that works, dude. People can be so fucking stupid...
Hell, I’ve had some random furry take my character, use my name and artwork, to use on their shitty LPs on YouTube. The guy sounded “slow” to put it in kind words. Then they try to get RP friends with using my character.
I found it once and asked if it could be removed and it got removed but im still wondering if people stole my oc even tho i only have 41 watchers you never know what people are looking at your account this is also 1 of my reasons I dont want NSFW art that more likely to be stole by people online
But yes art theft/oc theft is bad i worked 6 hours designing on paper and 9 hours of coloring is the longest i have spend on a oc of mine