With regards to the Yunomi incident…

Before you guys start to wonder why V-ism hasn’t blogged about this yet, we are withholding expressing our opinions until all the facts have been cleared up. No doubt that this is a shocking development, but it still needs more time to settle down, otherwise we would just be adding more fuel to the fire.

There’s always the V-ism forum if you want to join in the discussion and put your two cents in. Just take note, though, that what we say in the forum does not reflect the opinion of the entire V-ism community. Again, thank you for your patience and cooperation.

About: Holocauxt


25 thoughts on “With regards to the Yunomi incident…”

  1. Oh gee. Bunch of losers with nothing better to do think they’re onto something big. The artist is clearly skilled tracing or not. Could these peoples create something as good if they traced..? And what difference does it make where the artist draws inspiration from?

    Internet people can be so lame sometimes.

  2. Tracing stock photos of iPods and balloons = probably not a big deal
    Tracing the art from that Gundam album = definitely a big deal

  3. Some of it I could see, but some of it was kinda like, "So she used reference photos and stock photos. So what?" All artists use reference photos, and most artists who do digital work will end up using stock photos, brushes, patterns, etc.

      1. Stock brushes and patterns are okay but for photos you can't just trace over a stock photo. It'll be different thing if they photographed it themselves.

        And +1 to Nana ↓

  4. Those stock photos cost money to use. “Royalty free” doesn’t mean “completely free”, it means pay a one time fee (not for access to the site or a monthly subscription fee, for the individual photo) to use the photo as many times as possible.

    http://www26.atwiki.jp/yunomip/?cmd=upload&act=open&page=Just%20Be%20Friends&file=yunomip18.jpg
    guitar and girl (notice the lighting on the guitar)
    the original on imagenavi.jp: http://imagenavi.jp/search/detail-i.asp?id=20215802
    Price tag: 9450 yen or $109 dollars
    This is actually one of the slightly cheaper ones.

    Considering the amount of stock images she used, a PV like JBF would have been very expensive to make… if she paid. She has not provided proof that she paid for the images (If I’m reading the nicopedia article about this scandal correctly, there are currently people engaged in talks with imagenavi.jp, others are currently contacting amana.jp and konami).
    Furthermore, some sites have a “no modifications” (or in other words: cutting out the images and copy pasting them onto to drawings is a no-no) clause. If she has not paid, then those images are definitely not supposed to be used for commercial purposes (such as selling artbooks with the stock images or using stock images in commissions for CD covers).

    A couple of overlays:
    http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm11617468

    I’m a big fan of Yunomi but this is just disappointing. Someone of her skill and fame should have known better than to do something like this.

  5. I haven't been following this too much, and I don't know about JBF or Magnet very much, but did Miss Yunomi get paid to make the PVs? I mean, I understand the artbook and stuff, but unless she got paid to make the Magnet picture or the JBF PV, I don't see a lot wrong with using references.

    1. She got paid for doing things like the the JBF illustrations (sold in a bundled with the JBF Remix album), CD covers, cd insert images, and so forth. She also had another artbook out called findHer although yesterday Fullkawa-P said on his tumblr that the findHer books have stopped printing and he is offering refunds.

      Yes the PVs are free. However, if she did not pay for the stock images, it means that she CANNOT use them. Because the legality of those images are in question, Dixie and minato had to set their vids to private (read their statements here: http://yeheyuanstudio.com/?p=531, http://tolie618.blog63.fc2.com/blog-entry-74.html). To reiterate (because so many people in the forums do not appear to get this), 2ch did not set them to private, the composers did. The composers did not set them to private because 2ch threatened them. The composers set them to private because the legality of those images are in question.
      Frankly, what would you guys prefer? For this issue to be out now so the Vocaloid-Ps can set them to private and have a chance to discuss with the companies OR for the companies to find out by themselves and force the Vocaloid-Ps to delete the videos? Because the truth would have been discovered eventually.

      Her actions have placed them in very unfortunate positions. minato said on his blog that he is discussing with his labels about what to do with the profits he made from the magnet CDs. There are some people bugging Dixie about getting a refund for their JBF illustration and remix CDs.
      If imagenavi, amana, etc., etc., decide that “yeah, we would like to be compensated for your use of our images”, magnet and JBF as we know them are unlikely to return. minato and Dixie will need to either somehow get enough money to compensate those companies or find brand new artists to make the new title image/PV for their songs. And if they get new PVs, the future of all the current JBF/magnet covers with Yunomi’s image/PV will not be very bright.
      She also had some images for Akuno-P’s OF Evil series book. The legality of those images have also been called into questioning. He’s currently discussing this matter with various people. (http://mothy.blog39.fc2.com/blog-entry-186.html)

      1. We know that Minato and Dixie set their vids to private due to legal issues. We know Yunomi traced, and she’s facing the consequences. But what really pisses me off is the overreaction coming from the community, especially in 2ch where they insist that EVERYTHING that Yunomi has drawn must have been traced/plagiarized somehow, even the little insignificant details.

    2. I'm thinking she probably wasn't paid for her PV's, but he's done commissions for CDs and art. I'm really disappointed, I love her work, but even though I want to not care and believe in her, there's still a bitter taste when looking at her artwork… *looks at her JBF PSP dust cloth*

      She's a talented artist regardless, and I hope this will be resolved nicely…

  6. I think most people are biased against the fact that yunomi just may be in the wrong. They often don't take into account the Japanese copyright laws and the rules of the stock image sites. It's pretty shocking to find out that such a famous artist could be in the wrong, but to call the people that find these "evidences" as mere idiots or jealous people is… well, idiotic, to be quite frank.

    Some images she definitely referenced, but some images she definitely traced. (There is a major difference between referencing and tracing. Yes, many artists do use stock photos, but they don't base all of their illustrations in the stock photo – as in their illustrations don't look just like the stock photo with some change in colors and characters. They may use a pose or two, but often times they end up taking pictures by themselves rather than use stock photos.

  7. She confessed to it on her blog. http://i28.tinypic.com/68wlyx.png http://i31.tinypic.com/2n1yjxe.png (only the guy) http://i28.tinypic.com/2vn0744.png http://i30.tinypic.com/r05teg.png http://i26.tinypic.com/zuh2.png http://i32.tinypic.com/2m33di0.png (only the guy) http://i32.tinypic.com/15psqoz.png http://i28.tinypic.com/15czy4x.png http://i26.tinypic.com/5ag9eb.png
    NOPE THAT YUNOMI SURE DIDN'T TRACE NUH-UH

    I am kind of doubting the credibility of this site now. (did I ever stop?)
    It is completely impossible to eyball a drawing and line up THAT perfectly. Re-arranging angles doesn't change this.

    1. “Just take note, though, that what we say in the forum does not reflect the opinion of the entire V-ism community.”

      HOORAY FOR IGNORANCE!

    2. It is completely impossible to eyeball a drawing and line up THAT perfectly.

      That may be true, or that may not, I don’t know, but it sounds to my ears like you don’t appreciate the amount of editing done during the drawing process.

      So Yunomi traced. Fine, shame on her, bad form. But what does that make her: a plagiarist or just a lazy artist? Is reference tracing (same size, different subject) better or worse than unlicensed fanart (size subject, different size)? Does the vitriolic outcry hurt the perception of Vocaloids and their fandom, how much of it were people who actually cared (hence the ignorance going both ways) and how much worse would it have been if they were wrong?

      1. Uhh, it makes her a plagiarist because she traced then passed it off as her own without acknowledging references, and then SOLD it for profit. I really hope I just lost your point because you’re reacting emotionally to someone else saying something bad about this site but dude. YEAH, totally a plagiarist. That comparison to fanart is really insulting too. Fanartists hardly ever make profit from their art and they make sure they disclaim any ownership on the characters, situations, and sources that they draw, which isn’t at all what happened in this case.

        Is the outcry overwhelming? Possibly. I’m not following it closely enough so I can’t say. But there is no question that she plagiarized. Being a lazy artist would be Kubo Tite making spreads of nothing but negative space and a little debris. Or Togashi Yoshihiro not even paying attention to the quality of his characters and panels because he’s sick (or maybe he’s just tired of being a mangaka). But tracing reference materials (especially images from paid stock sites) is not lazy drawing. It’s common for practice, that’s true, but yunomi isn’t practicing here and more importantly, she made no references at all on the sources she used. Serious breech of etiquette there, for one, and then it’s compounded by that whole profiting-from-traced-drawings deal.

        Tracing alone would have already landed her in hot water once it was found out. The fact that she released an artbook is just really bad thinking on her part. JBF is so popular, and she herself is already popular from her many artworks. There was no way this thing wouldn’t have been exposed and blown up on her face.

      2. As Nana said above, most of the stock images found cost a lot of money, so it's highly unlikely yunomi paid for the stock images. Some stock images are not allowed to be cut & pasted into commercial artworks, which yunomi did. She reference-traced some images that were not allowed to be traced, not to mention that she never credited the stock images.

        Now, this might not have been as such a big issue had yunomi not made money off of her traced illustrations, but she did. Some fanartists do sell their illustrations in conventions and what-not, but they don't sell it in such a massive scale as yunomi did. Her illustrations are used in CD covers, and artbooks, which some were a part of the Project Diva game package. She was COMMISSIONED to draw some of the illustrations that were found to be plagiarized.

        Also, if yunomi didn't trace and we were all wrong, she would have said so in her blog when she apologized. I don't know why Vocaloidism won't cover this issue, because now it's pretty much set: Yunomi plagiarized, she's in trouble, and so she apologized to all.

  8. wait even though she cofessed she had traced…
    maybe she used the images for just doing the poses….
    i've done that b4….
    but idk cause idk wat happened to yunomi soooo… yea…. -_-

    ~just another random person commenting…~

  9. God, who cares? Srsly, the most artists copy poses and other stuff. This is only natural. It doesn’t change that she’s talented and my favourite artist.

Leave a Reply to Tsuki Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *