6ix9ine Controversy: Is Tracing Theft?
A Quick Rundown
Soundcloud artist 6ix9ine got into a tiny bit of trouble last week after Tumblr user Cryptidsp00n accused his album artist of tracing her work for the cover. Artist Matteo Rainini had posted the artwork on his Instagram page back in January, but Cryptidsp00n didn't think much of it at first. Then, of course, the Soundcloud rapper's album came out and started charting high. |
| The original. Only the bottom left corner was traced |
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| Cover of DAY69 |
Cryptidsp00n has recently posted to her Tumblr saying this is not the first time her work has been traced, and expressing her disappointment and anger over the situation. She does not appear to be taking any legal action, and declined an interview from Genius.com. Cryptidsp00n is only 15 years old, which makes this whole thing a little greasier if the artist actually did trace over her work. And it doesn't look to good for Rainini. See, Rainini actually edited his original Instagram posting after the fact and added a link to Cryptidsp00n's image, which is a...weird move to say the least. Also, his whole Instagram page seems to be unavailable at the time of writing this. He seems to be wholeheartedly avoiding this shit-storm, and that's probably a good move, because...
Rainini Totally Traced that Shit.
I mean, look at this shit. It's hard for me to see a scenario in which Rainini didn't trace over this work. Of course there are a lot of differences. 6ix9ine is no Flame Princess (thicc Flame Princess, too), for one. Rainini remembered not to trace the tits, so that's good. The right arm is at a bit of a different angle. But there are so many lazy mistakes, here. Look at the fists: nearly identical. The left hand, too. The most egregious laziness, however, has to be in the total shape of the hair, down to each individual curl. Rainini preeeeetty much just changed the color, here. It's a pretty bold move, really. However, there is an issue here...
Rainini Totally Didn't Even do Anything Illegal.
"With source imagery the reason you are tracing is to make things look realistic. You are tracing a photograph of a monkey because you want your viewer to know they are looking at a monkey. No one can copyright the proportions of a monkey. Proportions are natural and thus fall into the facts category. So we need to keep this in mind when determining how similar the source image and your illustration are."If this is the case, isn't that almost exactly what Rainini was doing? Of course, this drawing of Flame Princess didn't naturally make the curls in it's head move into those positions--but an argument could be made that that doesn't matter. That's how the curls have to look for the art style, or that's just how they best look. Cryptidsp00n's drawing did not invent the fist-pump pose, or the way cartoon curls in an Adventure Time-esque style look. Therefore, despite this begin a lazy as shit tracing in many ways, I feel like it just might be different enough to get him off the hook. And that kind of sucks of Cryptidsp00n, and a lot of other artists who this might happen to.
Vermeer's Painting Technique
This whole thing got me thinking about another interesting case of tracing-as-art, though. Have you heard about Vermeer? You've definitely seen some of his paintings:
Vermeer's paintings are extremely realistic, and it has often been speculated that he used a sort of camera obscura to assist himself in painting them. What Vermeer would do is have his subject pose as he wished behind a sheet, and then, through a pinhole-obscura, their image would project onto a canvas that he would trace over. I can hardly describe it well, but here's an image I found that sort of helps:
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| It's in French because fuck you |
This was long before cameras were discovered, and so, big if true--and also, it seems, pretty likely true. I highly recommend the documentary Tim's Vermeer, where the founder of a large company tries to recreate Vermeer's technique with extremely successful and interesting results. The question that stems from this is similar to the one we started with: is it wrong to trace and call it art? In the case of Vermeer, it's inarguable that his paintings remain amazing even after knowing that he traced them. It doesn't take away any of the value of the work being painted rather than photographed--in a way, it makes it more special. Perhaps these could even be called the first photographs! I don't know if I'd go that far, but I would say that Vermeer did nothing wrong here, and if someone were to do the same thing now in the same way, I'd see no issue with it--especially if they added value to the image through their tracing by significantly editing the source.
Climax
What Rainini did was pretty shitty and lazy as an artist. Tracing in itself is not a problem when learning, or trying to draw something you have little knowledge of how to draw, but using those images on an album cover is another thing. Stealing that image from a 15 year old Tumblr user is also another thing. Deleting your Instagram and hiding from it all... yeah, not so great, either. Although legally I do not think there is anything that can be done here, I also don't know that for sure--and I don't really know if anything should be doable legally. Putting restrictions on art is risky business. It's one of the freest things there is, and if Rainini were found guilty of stealing here for tracing the shape of a body, then lord knows how many others are guilty, and how much future artwork will be torn apart for it. This is a very complicated issue, and I feel like it's going to blow over quickly without much happening. Maybe that's okay--Cryptidsp00n doesn't seem too bothered beyond her Tumblr reaction post, so it's best to let things go along naturally, as they do. But this is a case worth thinking a little bit about, because it probably happens a lot more than you think, and it's quite a lot more complex than it appears at face value.Thanks for reading.
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