Although I think Dobson is a total butthole based on his flimsy logic, emotional outbursts, and general shitty public attitude…I think people throwing stones at him for tracing big ben is dumb. It’s part of a collage, he traced a photo, and it’s not a person/character. Tracing a photo for say a background for part of a piece of work just isn’t comparable to tracing another piece of art, it’s a difference between sampling [collage] (which is allowable in copyright due to “De Minimis” ), remixing [fanart] (derivative works ) and theft [fully traced artwork] (full infringement).
People are just eager to jump all over this because either they don’t like Dobson, or they want to stick their noses in the air and go “well i may be shitty but at least I’m no TRACER” but neither are doing us any favors in addressing the complexities of copyright.
I’m not really trying to defend Dobson so much as explain that “tracing” is a tool, not just a dirty word, the issue isn’t that simple.
