Colorings without lineart are NOT allowed on DA.

Attention all manga colorists, I ask that you please read and make sure to spread this news to everyone, because coloring without lineart or traces of the artwork is ILLEGAL.

If you color manga pages without the traces or lineart, you are committing art theft and violating DA's copyright policy located here: help.deviantart.com/8/. Altering official copyrighted material in any way is a form of copy infringement, and that includes coloring. For a greater clarification, read the following section from this article: news.deviantart.com/article/13…

A Type C Thief / (aka. "If I Trace It, Copy It, or Color It, It's Like I Made It!"):

• A FOREWARNING: As a word for the wise, it is NOT against DA policy to submit traces of artwork, and so therefore Type C "thieves" are a very gray-lined area. It seems that the community has established an unwritten rule of thumb:

** It is OKAY to trace and/or reference copy OFFICIAL PUBLISHED AND LICENSED artwork without permission** and, ** It is NOT OKAY to trace and/or reference FAN artwork without permission**

However counter-intuitive it all seems, that's just how DA community policy works.

• Type C-II Thief / (aka. "The Amazing Colorist!"):

- I feel like I'm stating the obvious here. There are users who love to color official manga pages/panels. However, that's against DA policy. So this is where we meet another SUPER GRAY LINE. This is like, the super mega ridiculous gray line of all of DA that could swallow all other gray lines into a giant vortex. Here's the deal: You ARE NOT ALLOWED to color OFFICIAL manga panels, but you ARE ALLOWED to color the TRACES of the official manga panels. So, this is where the giant vortex of thievery comes in. People HAVE TO trace the panel in order to color it. An unnecessary first step, for what purpose?! In the end, it looks like a colored manga panel! But NO, if it's a regular colored manga panel, then it's AGAINST DA policy. That makes you an ART THIEF. Only if you trace the lines, can the image be considered your own. Figure that one out. My advice is, have pity on the poor souls who don't realize this extra little DA "step" they have to take in order to be within legal limits of deviation submission. It's VERY common for people on forums sites to color official manga panels, so it's a bit difficult for them to understand that even though they MEAN WELL by submitting colored manga panels here, it's against policy unless they find a vector artist willing to help them out. Nevertheless, it's against DA policy. Manga colorings are an example of art theft. But it's totally okay if they're colored traces.

We have been recieving questions about whether or not this group accepts illegal manga coloring. The answer is no. This group does not accept manga colorings that bare art not traced or linearted over. We apologize for not making this matter clear since DA's policies are rather ambiguous.

I will be searching around DA nonstop and sending info to those coloring official artwork without the traces. I understand many weren't aware that they were committing art theft, so the news will be disseminated by yours truly. After you have been informed, I will give you a month to remove, or edit the work until it bares lineart/traces. Refuse to abide with this simple rule and I'll have your work(s) reported to the DA staff, as well with your username to anti-art theft groups.

Thank you to those for peacefully abiding and cooperating with the rules. -Vindictev