Turelus wrote: »

Not really as it's not something which interests me greatly. I have no shame in taking great ideas of others and incorporating them in my own way into a house.

I hear the "no shame incorporaring them in my own way". For some reason I still hesitate.

If I participate in one of @JHartEllis contests.
I don't steal ideas, and if I know that I base my build on what somebody else has done (we are talking inspiration here, not copying) I always ask their permission. Still, I faced people accusing me of stealing somebody else's build, which I haven't even seen before, so I'm not really sure it's worth the bother. There will always be somebody, who thinks that you "copied" something, even if it comes from the darkest darkness of your soul.

Duh' I forgot to mention I watch awesome @StabbityDoom . But I don't really come there to watch the houses :P Eek *flush*

Tigerseye wrote: »

I doubt you steal directly.

I've seen your work - it's too consistent and too representative of a certain mode of thinking (in a good way) to be a product of plagiarism.

Some people do directly steal ideas and/or immitate other people's personal styles, though and they will even do it for a competition, where you are also an entrant.

So, in the case of housing, they will come to your home, take screenshots in front of you (if it's not your primary, so they have no choice) and the next thing you know, they will have done something virtually the same and entered it into the same competition.

That is really not OK.

By the way, I think there is a good chance that whoever accused you of that stole your work (not the other way around!), then attacked you; with the idea of attack being the best form of defence.

The idea is that, if they get the accusation in first, it's then harder for you to accuse them of the same thing.

It happens a lot, sadly.

Honestly it is hard for me to comprehend... why would you copy a whole build and then enter it into a competition?
While I can understand imitating others' personal styles as an exercise in oder to broaden one's spectrum of available "techniques". That's a good thing imho, takes you outside your comfort zone. Though, why would anyone enter a competition with a copied build? If anything, it only reduces their chance in the contest - there is already a build like that.

I agree, that's not OK.

On emotional level, I know I would be pretty sad if I've entered somebody's house and seen a direct copy of my fav houses (or their parts), mostly because I've spent hundreds of hours in each of them: planning, testing, listening (yes), blending my ideas with the "house proper", and polishing the builds.

Inspiration is one thing, blunt copy is another.

Yes, I watch @JHartEllis - I have always done a lot of touring on my own, though. I try VERY hard not to "steal" anything, and when I do get an idea I specifically try to do it differently. For example, @danielder6 did a thanksgiving green bean casserole I was in love with. I could have copied her exactly, but I felt it was respectful to do it differently. So I did it differently. Honestly, her's was better in the end.

I'm not doing it to win. I do it because I love to see what other people make! I love to celebrate their art and make them feel appreciated and acknowledged. There's nothing worse than making art and nobody cares to even look at it. If I get ideas along the way, great, but it's mostly about seeing the art.

Finally, I'll say this - I am using the houses I look at now to teach people how to do things (in EHT or just regularly, like lighting). See something cool, explain how it works, and people can go from there and adapt.

I don't, because so many of them use add-ons. I think it's more of a challenge, and more fun, to furnish them with just ESO supplied items and functionality.

Langdon64 wrote: »

I don't, because so many of them use add-ons. I think it's more of a challenge, and more fun, to furnish them with just ESO supplied items and functionality.

Some things though you simply can't do, such as a house of entirely stars, or an ocean. *shrug* it's kinda apples and oranges. I've tried to do a half/half balance in my stream so people who are only interested in regular builds get to see those too.

Actually, it surprises me that someone with a fine arts background would feel that way — Have not artists always studied and borrowed from one another? In any creative endeavor, I think it beneficial to take in a wide array of ideas and inspiration. IMHO, far from being tainted by taking in such inspiration, your creativity is needlessly deprived without it, and you will end up spending more time solving problems others already have, recreating the wheel, so to speak, when you could be synthesizing and building on all these ideas and inspirations with your own unique viewpoint.

I rarely watch streaming, but I do enjoy viewing images and videos of people’s housing and especially visiting others’ houses through EHT for the pleasure of seeing what others have created and also for ideas and inspiration.

I can understand that if someone artsy wants to be creative and original, they may want to start with a 'clean slate' so to speak, without any other creator's designs impacting their vision.

But I think for most people, looking at other people's homes is a great inspiration and can get us excited for housing (make us see a particular house or a style in a new light, or just remind us why we liked ESO housing in the first place and re-ignite our passion for it). I rarely ever make custom builds, so while I always admire the original custom builds people come up with, my personal style is much more toned down and vanilla-game-like so I never felt that there is anything wrong with housing showcases it or that my houses will be endangered by plagiarism if I do watch them.

Unless people recreate a build directly, I wouldn't consider inspiration to be stealing. You might see an interesting item and wonder 'Oh, I never knew that's what the bottom of that looks like' or see an item for the first time and wonder where they got it, or find a cool colour combination that works unexpectedly well, etc. All of that contributes to an inspirational, insightful and creative community imo.

bayushi2005 wrote: »

Still, I faced people accusing me of stealing somebody else's build, which I haven't even seen before, so I'm not really sure it's worth the bother. There will always be somebody, who thinks that you "copied" something, even if it comes from the darkest darkness of your soul.

I think it's pretty hard to establish 'ownership' of an idea in most cases. Who was the first person to flip a Hay Bed and use its underside for example? Who came up with Orcish platforming? Who first added another level to their Snugpod?

With the limited structural items, the vast majority of us end up using literally the same dozen or so items for most major builds, because some items are just perfect for that job (and it's not like ZOS give us a lot of options). Many ideas such as creating internal divisions in one-single-space homes is also pretty common sense imo, and most houses lend themselves to very obvious customization (like, wow, someone covered the opening in Strident Springs and built something there - well so did hundreds of other people I'm sure).

So unless it was something very specific or clearly personal, I wouldn't put much weight in accusations of 'stealing'.

They're nice to see and they can sometimes offer inspiration for your own designs. I'd hate to straight up copy someone else, but taking inspiration from their work is fine.

I only like to watch them on YT if the following criteria is met:

1. It's edited, and polished. This means the sound/audio is good from the tourer (mic), and that it's not just random feeling.

2. It's highlights if it's a twitch stream. Long content isn't something I sit down on YT for much unless I really want to. 12min is the sweet spot for most YT videos.

3. If its a very detailed build, I'll actually enjoy just going to it myself and see a brief 'this is my crib' style video. 5min

If it's a tour that I'm in a party for and we're all being led around, much like a real life meat-space tour then, well thats a horse of a different color, and I prefer that to be either done in a voice chat/stream, or if it's a text based one, all the lenghty text to be pre-typed out to keep the tour moving at a reasonable pace.

I watch videos of houses that people post here on the forums to see what they’ve done, and enjoy them. I have limited furnishing plans and mats at this point and am limited in what I can do, plus I’m not terribly gifted when it comes to creativity. I don’t see any problem with taking someone’s idea and using it in my own house, I’ll probably have to make some substitutions based on what I have available. I’m not to the point of entering contests anyway.

Like someone posted above, the streaming tour videos tend to be rather long, I can watch for 5-10 minutes before I’m ready to move on.

I don't watch them. It's the stream format I don't like. There's nothing wrong with the stream format, but I don't have the patience to wait for someone to get to the content, and I don't like it when people talk over the tours. I prefer shorter videos, and they're better if they've been cut and polished.

I'm an artist, too, but I'm more of the illustrator mind. The lens I've come to look at things with is that everything is shared (or derivative, if you want to use a word that has a negative connotation to a lot of people). Intellectual honesty comes with crediting your sources, adapting material, and asking permission where it's necessary. I think if you worry too much about stealing things, you'll never allow yourself to be inspired.

In terms of videogames. . . I don't see the problem with borrowing housing ideas at all! I think if you post a showcase with a conspicuous idea that was inspired by someone else's house, it's probably just polite to give credit. Besides that, this is a place where we come to have fun, and we don't own any of it, anyway. Life's too short not to borrow housing ideas.