Stealing Designs

[Austria]

- Alright, none of us wants our designs stolen, right? But what if someone did steal one of your designs and claim it as theirs? How would you react?

- Let's say another person steals a piece of your design...say, a dress. And that dress looks VERY MUCH LIKE YOURS COUGH. Would you confront them even though you have no solid proof it was stolen? What would you do?


I myself will just politely inquire them about it. If they stole my design, then I'll just ask them to take it down and recant what they said etc.
Opinions?

 

[Angel]

I would look at my design and see if it was 'unique' enough to even think about saying
'OMG MY DESIGN'

Like if it was a plain frilly dress and if someone had one on their UTAU, I wouldn't think that they stole it. But if they ripped off my UTAUs clothes and stuck it on their with some recolours

I'd ask who inspired their design.

If they say 'Completely 100% me' I'd confront them about the similarities. It just depends.

 

[IrisFlower]

Well it depends? I guess kinda what Angel said. The aspects of Iris's design on their own aren't too unique in the first place so I really couldn't say anything about stuff such as the top, skirt, or boots. Maybe the sash thingy...but that's a humongo maybe.

However, if I saw an UTAU with Iris's flower tacked onto the design everywhere I'd probably speak up. That flower is basically Iris's defining trait lol like that makes her her. I mean I'm not talking about flowers in general. I mean the exact same green, six-petaled, asterisk shaped flower ;; If someone were to take that and place it on their UTAUs headband, pin it to their top, have it on the side of their boots...I might get a little annoyed.

That being said how many people would purposefully steal from a design, happily admit it, and then revamp theirs unless a shitstorm was created ;; I mean if they honestly didn't mean any harm I can see them fixing it...like they thought your UTAUs dress was cute and didn't think you'd get upset...but a lot of the time thieves, and I mean "I stole this and am proud of it" thieves aren't so quick to remedy their wrongdoings, ya know?

 

[Ant]

Anyway, if it was a whole design (blatant copy, the up entire thing), I'd definitely PM them. If they tell me to screw off then I'd probably announce it publicly on places like dA and here or VO, and get them publicly humiliated until they take it down~~ If it /still/ persists, I'd probably contact the owners of whichever sites they hosted the image on and tell them the situation (if it was dA or something).

If its just a piece, that's a bit more tricky. I'd at least ask about it. Like others said, "where did you get the inspiration for it?" But after that I'm not quite sure.

Also, this reminds me of that shark dog that looked like KJ from that one time. X3 Still though it's probably a coincidence in my situation, I'm more likely to believe that they based it off sollux from home stuck... :/

 

[MystSaphyr]

Aiko's pretty generic, so I really can't bring myself to say much even if things seem suspicious. Though there is one other person who gave their UTAU dual hairclips with the pause and play buttons in the same style as Aiko's, which made me a bit sad, since that's a design element my good friend Mooncrafter (Ariella's voicer) came up with for her.

There is this one dollmaker thing that someone found once that had Makune Hachi's outfit in it, along with a few Vocaloids and anime characters. I wonder if they've ripped off anyone else :c

 

[Lorreine Geralde]

Right now, I don't know if there is anyone who stole Kaizern's outfit design, especially her black -hooded cloak since it is fully inspired by one of my novel characters. However, if I found a design whose one of their outfit elements almost resembles her, I will investigate about it and confront them carefully.

 

[Adlez]

Mita Souzou's outfit is a plain school uniform, so if some other UTAU had the same clothes I would sort of be interested? But I would definitely ask them about it and have them credit me for the original idea. But still suspicious, I never fully explained AB27 anywhere.

But anyway, a lot of stuff I write is supposed to be open to readers and interactive. Self inserts completely welcome, really. I just ask for credit.

 

[Leo]

Well, honest to god I've had my designs ripped quite a few times.
And voicebanks stolen, but thats a whole different scenario (kinda)

Honestly, I try to be as nice as possible and vaguely hint at the similarities between my UTAU and theirs. If someone has a similar design, as long as it's not an outright copy or recolour, I'm 100% okay with it. I think it's kindof flattering for someone to base their design off of yours, cause it kinda means they look up to you in a design-fashion sense.

But if it's very blatant, I don't think its ever a good idea to outright state "hey this is mine you're stealing it" in a particularly blunt manner, because that has hardly ever solved any issue for me. Casual hinting at similarities, and suggesting to help someone change their design is stuff I've found to work really well, and it's something i've done in the past to get over some of these design similarities.

I really like character design and stuff, so I really have no qualms with helping people haha.

And, on the plain frilly dress thing, if your UTAU is fairly well known, to where that frilly plain dress is a sort of iconic symbol to the character, plain enough but with certain aspects that distinguish it, and you find someone else's character with it, I don't think it matters that it's a frilly dress. If it's an iconic symbol, it can be a loaf of bread and still be 'stolen', or influenced.

Kindof like how Teto's drill hair, while it's a common hairstyle in anime and things, it becomes taboo for an UTAU to have drill hair because it's coined to Teto.

If something is 'inspired by' and not 100% completely stolen, I don't think anyone should explicitly be upset by that, because every single one of our UTAU's designs were inspired by something. ((The 'Every Idea Has Already Been Thought Of' Theory)) If you inspired someone else's design, not enough to make it a copy, but inspired them to create something original with elements of your own, I'd take that as a compliment.

But that's just me ; o

 

[Austria]

Ah...I see o: If someone took elements from my designs, I guess I would be a little happy but if it was blatant ripping off I would probably be distressed;;; but my designs don't really have any 'iconic' parts anyway so idk

on another note
Lun, I'm interested in the stolen voicebank situation, could you elaborate? (gomen i like details wwww;;

 

[Mrs.Peach]

I think I would be offeneded and flattered at the same time. Offended because the design was ripped but flattered because they thought my design was good enough to rip.

I try not to overreact but if someone happened to take UO-tans headgear I think I would be pretty upset and angry.

 

[Ono]

Like Peach said, I'd be flattered and offended at the same time. I still don't see why people have the audacity to steal other people's works that they work so hard on. Do they even consider the original artists feelings and such? And do they really think they'll be able to pull off stealing other people's stuff for long? People are going to find out eventually. How hard is it to make your own design? It doesn't have to be super fancy. You don't have to be a great artist. Just create something. And if you lack the creativity to make one, request someone to make one for you. Seems like a reasonable thing to do, right?

 

[AlphaUtau]

It's hard to say if someone steals your design or not. My sister showed me once a new utau with similiar clothes and the same color sheme as mine. I never said something to that girl since I had no solid proof she stole something, my designs aren't superoriginal, so it could be coincidence.

 

[Yokeijimi]

My designs tend to be rather plain, but still have that touch of uniqueness that make them special. So i'd probably not reacted if they have had for instas, same model on shoes as Kurai, since they are rather common, but if they rip everything, i would point it out i guess? Saying something like "Hey, your design looks a little bit too much like mine! I don't want my designs stolen, and i bet you doesn't too! So for the sake of both you and me, please, change your design and make it unique and it will be more apealing!"

but eh, idk.

 

[Olivia]

Um I would mostly just be surprised O: My UTAU isn't very well known so mostly I would just be thinking.... "Where did they even FIND a picture of her design to steal?" xDD

And honestly I think I would be too afraid to speak up much about it. If it was like THE WHOLE PACKAGE though, with the exact same panda hat and shirt and stuff I might suggest a different design to that person. I'd try to bring it up as casually as possible ouo;;

If it's just similar, then I would be absolutely fine with it, and in fact, I would be flattered.
Honestly even with the stealing design thing I would be a bit flattered that somebody liked her design so much that they wanted to actually use it for their UTAU. ;u;
Even if it would make me a bit upset.

Idk i'm sorry i ramble a lot jkasdjsakldj

 

[DrShota]

Eh, PB's design isn't really /super/ special but it's not exactly plain either, it does have some defining characteristics. I think if someone just took elements and inspiration from her design then I'd be super flattered, but if they have the EXACT same object, particularly Piss's leg speakers or her jacket thingy maybe, or it was just a carbon copy of the whole design then I might ask about it in a respectful manner. If they're a complete jerk about it though, then well hhaha ovo'

 

[Aqua]

Id actually be really annoyed because to be honest, making an UTAU and designing it is just part and parcel of the fun. Most of the time I like to base the design on the real person that the VB came from.

Of course I'd also be weirdly flattered because theres so many UTAU's out there, but really? Its so fun to design your own utau, even if you dont have much of an imagination you can take a few little ideas from other UTAU's, but dont completely rip the design off.

A lot of UTAU's are based on the Vocaloid's looks anyway (the belts, Miku's top, Rin and Len's stocking thingymabobs). So its really nice and fresh when I see an UTAU's design that int 'Vocaloidy'.