Hypothetical ethics question

[Eri]

Say there is a local art contest nearby. I desire to win this contest, but alas have no artistic ability. I commission an artist online (that the locals wouldn't know of obviously). Said artist draws me the art piece I want and gets paid.

Now. If I was to enter the art, most would probably say that is unethical because while I might own that piece, I am not the original artist. And by entering the contest, I am basically saying I created that artwork.

But, here is where it gets interesting to me. Say the artist gave me full permission to enter his art claiming it as my own as long as he is paid for the works I ask for. Is it still unethical?

 

[Able Seacat]

If the contest is looking for someone who made their own work and not just looking for someone's favourite work then it stills cheating as you're misleading the judges.

 

[Heronblade]

Yes

Legal perhaps, and the contest rules may or may not cover that situation, but it is not ethical.

Why might be a bit more clear if I change the context a bit.

Last year, I was involved in a competition in which groups of college students had to build a remote operated drone to complete a number of tasks. Now, imagine that one of the groups had commissioned a professional robotics company to build a drone custom made for the competition in question. This group would have a huge advantage over the rest of us, who are throwing together components from whatever sources we can find on our limited budgets. I even saw one submission that had critical components duct taped together.

If such a group came along and won the competition, the rest of us would be justifiably outraged. The rest of us put our own effort, thought and time into our submissions. To lose because someone else came up with a better design, or even simply because of poor luck, is understandable and almost inevitable. To lose because someone was lazy enough to take a shortcut that none of us could match without doing the same...

 

[Vegosiux]

Well, I am pretty certain that entering such a contest has a clause that whatever you're entering with, must be your creation.

If not, then you've technically not violated any rules, so it's not officially "cheating", but it is very cheap, sleazy and underhanded so you really shouldn't do it.

 

[HardkorSB]

Everyone has artistic ability. What you might lack are the skills that come from practicing.
You can do whatever you want but to me, people who use money to fuck over other people are assholes and one of the major problems of humanity.
I won't ask you to think of the other contestants who will put actual effort into their entries because you probably don't care but why do you want to win?
For the prize? You can buy yourself the prize if you really want it that much.
For the trophy? So you can look at it and say "Yeah, I paid or that"? Doesn't make much sense.
To brag to other people about your fake skills? What if someone asks you to draw something else?
To get praise and recognition without doing anything? That makes the most sense but if that's the case, I feel sorry for you.

 

[Barbas]

Ultimately, like "right" and "wrong", it is up to your perspective. You have the final say on whether something is ethical or not. Regardless of whether you decide it is or isn't, entering it as your own work may result in unrealistic expectations of future art from those you show it to. You may find this complicates your life to an unwanted degree. If you cannot decide whether a course of action is ethical or not, consider instead what its likely consequences will be.

 

[Eri]

Everyone has artistic ability. What you might lack are the skills that come from practicing.
You can do whatever you want but to me, people who use money to fuck over other people are assholes and one of the major problems of humanity.
I won't ask you to think of the other contestants who will put actual effort into their entries because you probably don't care but why do you want to win?
For the prize? You can buy yourself the prize if you really want it that much.
For the trophy? So you can look at it and say "Yeah, I paid or that"? Doesn't make much sense.
To brag to other people about your fake skills? What if someone asks you to draw something else?
To get praise and recognition without doing anything? That makes the most sense but if that's the case, I feel sorry for you.

It's just a conversation I was having with a friend. There is no contest.

 

[TheIceQueen]

Of course it's unethical. It's not your work, first off, and as a commission whore myself, you have to understand the difference between a commission and a work for hire. Even if the artist gives you the rights to use the commissioned work as you see fit, a commission's copyright still belongs to the artist in question. A work for hire, which generally costs more, is where you, the commissioner, get the copyrights to the image.

Even in either case, passing off the work as yours is highly unethical as, copyright or not, it's still not yours. To claim otherwise is just wrong, even if the artist is alright with it.

I'm a commission whore and I find the idea of claiming someone's artwork as your own to be a morally and ethically reprehensible idea.

 

[Eri]

Of course it's unethical. It's not your work, first off, and as a commission whore myself, you have to understand the difference between a commission and a work for hire. Even if the artist gives you the rights to use the commissioned work as you see fit, a commission's copyright still belongs to the artist in question. A work for hire, which generally costs more, is where you, the commissioner, get the copyrights to the image.

Even in either case, passing off the work as yours is highly unethical as, copyright or not, it's still not yours. To claim otherwise is just wrong, even if the artist is alright with it.

I'm a commission whore and I find the idea of claiming someone's artwork as your own to be a morally and ethically reprehensible idea.

But you're basically saying that the artist cannot give me permission, which means you believe the artist doesn't hold ownership of his own work? If the artist owns his work, then he can do whatever he sees fit, including letting someone claim ownership.

 

[tippy2k2]

Yes, very.

You're cheating the other contestants, you're cheating the judges, you're cheating the creator (even if they give you their blessing) and you're cheating yourself.

But the most important part of that is that you're cheating the other contestants. It's a very very very shitty thing to do.

 

[shootthebandit]

It all depends on how much you win from this competition. If its a couple of million ethics go out the window. Id happily fuck my neighbours cat (in front of them) for a lambourghini aventador

 

[TheIceQueen]

Of course it's unethical. It's not your work, first off, and as a commission whore myself, you have to understand the difference between a commission and a work for hire. Even if the artist gives you the rights to use the commissioned work as you see fit, a commission's copyright still belongs to the artist in question. A work for hire, which generally costs more, is where you, the commissioner, get the copyrights to the image.

Even in either case, passing off the work as yours is highly unethical as, copyright or not, it's still not yours. To claim otherwise is just wrong, even if the artist is alright with it.

I'm a commission whore and I find the idea of claiming someone's artwork as your own to be a morally and ethically reprehensible idea.

But you're basically saying that the artist cannot give me permission, which means you believe the artist doesn't hold ownership of his own work? If the artist owns his work, then he can do whatever he sees fit, including letting someone claim ownership.

I don't know any artist who'd be stupid enough to let you claim is as yours, and I've commissioned roughly thirty of them. If you find an artist who is that dumb, then more power to you because you found an artist who truly doesn't care about their art. Should you find any of these people, inform me so that I never commission them.

Regardless, it's still morally repugnant to pass someone else's work off as your own no matter if they gave you permission to do so or not. The difference in this is that I'm using the term of ownership, where as you are not. As a commissioner, I can claim ownership over my characters and I can even purchase the copyrights to the image to do with as I see fit, such as monetizing it via prints. Thus, I have ownership over the image. You, however, merely talk about the concept of claiming an artwork as your own. That has nothing to do with ownership. That's just not giving proper credit, which you need to do even in cases of Work For Hire.

 

[Vegosiux]

An interesting question popped up in my mind.

Cheating at exams, then? It's basically the same principle.

 

[TWRule]

I don't think this is an ethical question at all; you're just asking about what is socially permissible. But if it is permitted (by both the artist and the rules of the contest) what grounds would one have for judging it unethical (not to say there can't be any)?

The answer will depend on what ethical framework or perspective you choose to adopt. Debating arbitrary answers one way or the other won't get you anywhere.

Personally, I don't subscribe to any ethical perspective that would make this kind of question ethically relevant. All that matters in this case is what the rules are and whether necessary consent was secured.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Say there is a local art contest nearby. I desire to win this contest, but alas have no artistic ability. I commission an artist online (that the locals wouldn't know of obviously). Said artist draws me the art piece I want and gets paid.

Now. If I was to enter the art, most would probably say that is unethical because while I might own that piece, I am not the original artist. And by entering the contest, I am basically saying I created that artwork.

But, here is where it gets interesting to me. Say the artist gave me full permission to enter his art claiming it as my own as long as he is paid for the works I ask for. Is it still unethical?

Yes, it's still unethical. You don't just need the artist's permission - the contest is assuming the art is yours as in a product of your talent, not yours as in legally owned by you, and you know full well that's the assumption (you may even be required to attest to the fact it is in entering) and it is not, thus you are lying to them, thus it is unethical. Furthermore, the other artists, against whom you would be putting this work into competition, are also being deceived by similar process.

Aside from that, getting permission to do something wrong doesn't actually make it not wrong ethically. Ethics aren't about permissions really. Ethics are about should vs. should not rather than can vs. can not.

Legal ownership has a clear set of rules (as you seem to be aware) that have less to do with ethics than with drawing clearly defined lines to regulate the flow of monies and value should that come into a situation.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Say there is a local art contest nearby. I desire to win this contest, but alas have no artistic ability. I commission an artist online (that the locals wouldn't know of obviously). Said artist draws me the art piece I want and gets paid.

Now. If I was to enter the art, most would probably say that is unethical because while I might own that piece, I am not the original artist. And by entering the contest, I am basically saying I created that artwork.

But, here is where it gets interesting to me. Say the artist gave me full permission to enter his art claiming it as my own as long as he is paid for the works I ask for. Is it still unethical?

Yes, it's highly unethical.

This isn't any different than getting someone else to write papers for you in college, or paying someone to take an exam for you.

In fact, it might actually be even worse, because if you pay someone to write a paper for you, and you get an A on the paper, other people in the class who had A papers will still get As as they deserve (and no one really gets screwed, not unless everyone is being graded on a curve and you break that curve for everyone), whereas in your situation, when you pay someone to make the art for you not only are you cheating you're also screwing over everyone else.

 

[Olas]

It's definitely unethical. It's like entering a pie baking contest and then submitting a pie you bought from the grocery store.

Maybe if you established before submitting it that it was made by someone else it would be acceptable, but then it's still not your item and you still can't claim victory if it comes in first place. You're nothing more than the middleman for someone else's work.

 

[game-lover]

I'd say it's particularly so if you win.

If you lost, perhaps that's not a big of a deal.

You win though and yeah, big unethical. Not in regards to the artist who let you use their work.

But for all the people who probably used their own stuff and worked really hard and you just took the lazy, deceitful way out.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Of course it's unethical. It's not your work, first off, and as a commission whore myself, you have to understand the difference between a commission and a work for hire. Even if the artist gives you the rights to use the commissioned work as you see fit, a commission's copyright still belongs to the artist in question. A work for hire, which generally costs more, is where you, the commissioner, get the copyrights to the image.

Even in either case, passing off the work as yours is highly unethical as, copyright or not, it's still not yours. To claim otherwise is just wrong, even if the artist is alright with it.

I'm a commission whore and I find the idea of claiming someone's artwork as your own to be a morally and ethically reprehensible idea.

But you're basically saying that the artist cannot give me permission, which means you believe the artist doesn't hold ownership of his own work? If the artist owns his work, then he can do whatever he sees fit, including letting someone claim ownership.

Ownership of a piece and authoring (authorship? is that a term?) a piece is not the same thing. And let me tell you, as an artist who has had his work stolen and passed off as someone else's effort, there is no argument to be had. It's shitty, unethical, and amoral under any circumstance. Add all the cutsey euphemisms and caveats you like, it's bold facedly lying, misrepresentation, and for lack of a better term, just plain wrong. By any stretch of the imagination it would be wrong.

Even if you found some artist who was so desperate as to say this was OK, it is still wrong and the person doing it is an asshole. I realize this is a hypothetical, but how could it even be in question? Claiming another person's work as your own is pretty much "unethical 101".

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I'll agree with most people that it is unethical. The competition would most likely have a rule that your entry must be produced by yourself and you'd be breaking the rules and lying by entering someone else's work.

HOWEVER

While you can't use their work on its own, if you took a picture of someone else's work you can consider that picture your own work. You can alter it slightly, but really you don't even need to do that to be able to claim copyright over the image.

Think I'm joking? Guess again