Lemma Soft Forums

I've been pulling landscape pictures and such off the internet so I can, I guess, "redraw" them as backgrounds. And I've been digging around for a while now, but it's really hard to credit the original photographer when you're getting it from a site that took it without crediting their source in the first place. Then there's the many that are stock photographs that require a paid subscription. Redrawing those really make me feel like I'm toeing the "copyright infringement" line. I'm sure it's not an issue since, as of now, I've published a whole zero projects. But, ethically, it bugs me.

If I were you, I'd look into getting your reference images off of Royalty Free images sites. Personally I like using Pixabay for my stock images. It's got a lot of good quality stuff and it's all free to use.

dueceladouce wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:20 pm Redrawing those really make me feel like I'm toeing the "copyright infringement" line. I'm sure it's not an issue since, as of now, I've published a whole zero projects. But, ethically, it bugs me.

You probably shouldn't worry too much, but yes this is definitely something to keep an eye on. Even though you are completely redrawing the image, what you have made is called a 'derivative work' and under many copyright laws, is not much different to stealing the original image.

The above suggestion to search royalty free sites is a good suggestion, but I'd go a step further to suggest you use a verified royalty free image source. I couldn't tell you how many "royalty free (insert media type here)" websites I've come across that blatantly share copyrighted works or derivatives or simply don't supply licensing information, many of them let users upload their own images, which is almost a guarantee that somebody who doesn't understand copyright law has uploaded whatever they want with no regards to the actual license of the image. I wouldn't trust such sites, but I also wouldn't be too worried.