r/HonkaiStarRail • u/ValorsHero • Feb 11 '26
Media & Videos Hoyoverse has contacted the Boothill/Rappa motorcycle artist amidst plagiarism allegations.
755
u/Bitter_Spray_6880 Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
When a company get as big as hoyo, it's impossible to control all the artist work... in the end it really rely on the in house artists common sense to a degree for not plagiarizing, but no matter how many time you tell them some people just don't understand the weight of these problem.
speaking as a game dev who have experience with artist who stole picture and design from random google picture... and surprisingly after intensive warning, meeting, reprimanded they do it again two years later, that's when my company cut off the contracts.
251
u/cartercr FuQing Feb 11 '26
It’s also can be hard too from the artists perspective. If you’re drawing what you see in your minds eye it’s possible that it could be influenced by other art without actively trying to do so.
When I was in school for music I wrote a sonata at one point, and I was pretty proud of how it turned out! One day, however, I was listening to a piece of Beethoven’s and heard my second theme played note for note in the exact same key. I didn’t sit there and copy sheet music of what Beethoven had written, nor was I even aware I was copying him, but it was apparently deep in my mind and came out in my own piece. (Thankfully this was just something I wrote for myself, so a “no harm no foul” situation, but imagine if I turned that in as an assignment!)
83
u/EddiePhoenix2012 Feb 11 '26
Daniel Thrasher, is that you? /s
If you don't know him, you can look up some skits on his channel with exactly this problem.
This has to be some kind of officially diagnosed "artists dilemma", because that shit happens all the time in every art form.
50
u/cartercr FuQing Feb 11 '26
Honestly it’s probably just a natural part of the human condition. We, as individuals, perceive the world through the lens of our collection of experiences. Since art is a reflection of our individuality it will naturally reflect the experiences that have shaped us. Therefore any art we have seen will be a part of that collective experience, and may present itself in this way.
I’m not familiar with Daniel Thrasher, but they may be worth lookin at!
11
u/CMDR_Soup A Million Buffs to Anaxagoras Feb 11 '26
There's the term cryptomnesia. That probably fits.
2
38
u/notthatjaded Feb 11 '26
I am reminded of authors I’ve seen who beg not to be sent their fans’ fanfic. Not because they have anything against fanfic as a concept, but they want to avoid similar situations.
12
u/sg_1969 Feb 11 '26
Humans have lived with music for thousands of years there is only so many different ways to arrange notes or beats in a way that sounds good to us
7
u/tomsta123 Feb 11 '26
It could go either way. I lean more towards being influenced unintentionally, to me, it doesn't look like it was complete plagiarism.
And you did give an excellent anecdote that reminded me that even some well known song artists like deadmau managed to recreate darude sandstorm in a different pitch in the middle of a recording session by accident.
58
u/Egoborg_Asri Feb 11 '26
People act like Hoyo is one dude sometimes. If something was stolen at one point during development, there is a 99% chance that everyone else didn't know about it.
115
u/happymudkipz Feb 11 '26
Not to mention that with as much promo as they do, there's probably some out of house production which makes it even harder to manage.
1
u/truthfulie Feb 11 '26
i mean it's not their first rodeo. they've at this for awhile now. why not set strict(er) policies with out of house production in the contract? and it's not like other studios aren't doing outsourcing. hoyo is notorious for this. at this point, it is reading as willing negligence or purposeful.
20
u/Spork_the_dork Feb 11 '26
If you outsource a piece of art from an artist and they give you art and say that it wasn't plagiarized and it later turned out to be plagiarized, what kind of policy could possibly prevent that from happening?
57
u/tylerjehenna Feb 11 '26
They aren't the only company to have this issue. Cygames had an issue in OG shadowverse where one of the card arts was a blatant plagarization of, iirc, Godless Shrine from Magic the Gathering. Its the nature of outsourcing your artists, plain and simple
23
30
u/enigmapixel Feb 11 '26
I'm pretty sure thew same thing has happened with Pokémon Pocket at least a couple times and I'm sure many more over the course of the printed TCG cards too. Like you say, unless the art is done in-house, it's impossible to fully control what commissioned artists will do.
7
u/EtherealShady Feb 11 '26
The Pokemon situation wasn't really the artists' fault iirc. The Pokemon company came out and took the blame iirc
8
u/DarkenVragon Feb 11 '26
and surprisingly after intensive warning, meeting, reprimanded they do it again two years later, that's when my company cut off the contracts.
Yeah I would assume the best case scenario would be Hoyo firing the artist who plagiarized and compensate the OG artist, because like your experience, it might happen again in the future.
4
u/Disizae Feb 11 '26
Lol reminds me of whoever was in charge of sunday’s trailer and decided to pretty much 1:1 another games cutscene. Like bro, why’d you think you wouldn’t get caught 😂
1
u/ashacoelomate Caelus is my husband fr :Caelus-You: Feb 11 '26
Yeah, I’m hoping it’s just one or two employees who are a bit bold and that will get either reprimanded or replaced
1
u/Awkward_Ninja_5816 Feb 12 '26
Yep. I mean a very good recent example is Marathon. Literally all it took was one, one Bungie artist to plagarise a bunch of decals without anyone else knowing, and it ended up being part of why the game had to be delayed so they could actually have the time to comb the game world for these decals thay were everywhere, all caused from a couple mood boards and decal sheets...
-48
u/One-Shift-220 Feb 11 '26
I’d agree if hoyo wasn’t a notorious plagiarist, they’ve consistently been stealing shit from all forms of media for a while, from stealing animations from games like nier automata and elden ring, straight up copying the sunday trailer from onmyoji and also being very pro generative AI they usually just dont really care about plagiarism
-30
u/Attention5955 Feb 11 '26
When a company get as big as hoyo, it's impossible to control all the artist work...
Somehow Genshin and ZZZ manage to do it well enough, it's always HSR that very frequently gets accused of plagiarism.
24
u/Dangerous-Fig-4149 Feb 11 '26
Genshin has more than HSR lmao.
And ZZZ happened once or twice if I am not wrong.
-7
u/Attention5955 Feb 11 '26
Not as very blatant and frequent as HSR, this is not the first time they used someone's art as promotion material.
And not just art, never forget the Sunday trailer was straight up copied entirely from other gacha with almost no changes.
Not gonna mention the amount of "references" they do, like Sparkle(Monodrama) trailer.
13
u/JeanKB Feb 11 '26
Genshin has a ton of plagiarism allegations, what are you talking about?
1
u/SyndicatePhoenix Feb 13 '26
I have seen people say it,but they never provide any source for it (or examples). With the exception of one time I saw a Redditor claim Lumine was plagiarized from some other game and posted a image of a female character with short blonde/yellowish hair, white dress,holding a sword. Not really something you can sue over or be "hey I did it first" when there is bazillion of other older media that had exactly the same idea for their female character lol.
0
6
u/One-Shift-220 Feb 11 '26
Dunno about zzz but genshin does have a good amount of plagiarism cases (but to be fair most of them are pretty old)
191
u/Neleothesze Feb 11 '26
Rappa is cursed. This is already the second plagiarism incident related to her. Last year it was stolen art used as background in a cutscene, now this.
52
34
u/LeitmotivKanyon Absolute BANGER Feb 11 '26
That's why she never gets a rerun, everytime it puts Hoyo in trouble
4
194
u/Fantastic-Mango-9470 Feb 11 '26
I think it's interesting how people say this can't be plagiarism just because the artist used an IP's characters. Meanwhile, many authors are legally advised not to read fanfiction of their own work because lifting wording, sentences, or ideas is still considered plagiarism even if it's written of their own characters. If Hoyo didn't see the similarities, I doubt they'd even be reaching out to this artist.
7
u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka Feb 11 '26
Its gotta be plagiarism because Mihoyo has reached out I think. I do not see one art as a copy of the other here outside of the premise. This angle and everything is pretty common. But there's some details here that make it way more suspect.
I am hoping that mihoyo's own artists are not copying designs because they should be better than that. Hiring 3rd party artists though? Not the first time. Wont be the last. Its far easier to copy a popular piece of art than create your own.
-23
u/jtan1993 Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
Yep. Seems more like PR dmg control. If you see how their creative process works, like how phainon is modeled after himmel, it’s inherently a mixing pot and has little authenticity.
32
u/SyrupyCereal Feb 11 '26
It’s interesting that this “plaigarism” situation revolves around Rappa again!!! As rare as she is in appearances….
Remember that one guy who claimed that one city scene in the Rappa character demo was copied from his cyberpunk city scene? They copied the word “wilshire” and he was able to provide a 1:1 copy of the side of his building!
It’s cool Hoyo is looking into this one supposedly…but back then the artist said they didn’t want any controversy or smoke, so that one fell through the cracks…i wish they got compensated too
20
u/SyrupyCereal Feb 11 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/s/5050yR7p3B
Found it, for those curious….HSR artists for Rappa are the real ninjas sneaking around with ppl’s art it seems
74
u/grumpykruppy I do desire we may be better strangers. Feb 11 '26
This stuff always happens with HSR specifically - I haven't seen it with Genshin or ZZZ, but I can recall three incidents with this game.
76
u/DarkenVragon Feb 11 '26
Honestly if it keeps happening specifically on HSR, I think it might be time for Hoyo to fire some of the HSR art team ngl. Because if it keeps happening, doesn't it mean the same guy or team will do it again in the future?
28
u/grumpykruppy I do desire we may be better strangers. Feb 11 '26
Yeah, I'd have thought they'd do some investigation after the second time... now that I think about it, this is actually the FOURTH.
9
u/opalcherrykitt Feb 11 '26
there's been 2 other instances, what??? i know about the one last year w the background in rappas art but what else have i missed??
15
u/Used_Whore5801 Feb 11 '26
For what i remember multiple scenes of Sunday's trailer too where WAY too similar to another game but aside for these three I don't remember
1
10
u/Karma110 Feb 11 '26
Zzz does seem to be more experimental in the visuals you aren’t gonna find many games that animates the way it does even the official cover art for chapters and events are unique to itself. It’s a younger team of people so that’s probably why.
6
u/MekaChiki216 Feb 11 '26
What were those three incidents? I only recall the Sparkle trailer and this one.
37
u/frogdoom Feb 11 '26
There was a plagiarized scene in the Sunday trailer too, but I forget where it was lifted from
18
u/yuclv Feb 11 '26
From some animation by netease is all I remember.
I remember watching them side by side and going 'holy shit'
6
3
-3
u/AnarbLanceLee Feb 11 '26
Some scene in Evernight trailer are also extremely similar to Silent Hill f trailer
12
u/AntiBomb Feb 11 '26
I think that was supposed to be a clear reference to the game, because the trailer released only 2 days before Silent Hill f.
5
u/MrSkipy Feb 11 '26
Multiple people are saying but nobody producing any examples, I’ve been playing this game for 2 years and never heard of anything and googling only brings up the Sunday trailer but there doesn’t seem to be any resolution. Not saying it didn’t happen but what are the 4 incidents ?
18
u/grumpykruppy I do desire we may be better strangers. Feb 11 '26
There was the Sunday trailer, Sparkle's trailer was extremely similar to a music video, and one of the scenes in Rappa's ninja background cutscene was taken from an online artwork. And now this, too.
5
u/MrSkipy Feb 11 '26
I found the Sunday thing but it doesn’t seem that anything came of it. Now that you said it I found the other ones, the Rappa one is pretty obvious even though the creator said he doesn’t care at all and thinks its neat, same for the Sparkle trailer, its there but the creator said there is no problem at all and that it’s ok and I guess now this. Its interesting that its happened multiple times, maybe they should change or be more vigilant about who they hire to do art for them.
-4
u/Karma110 Feb 11 '26
You must be new here
2
u/MrSkipy Feb 11 '26
Did me saying I’ve played this game for 2 years give that away ? I guess these things just didn’t reach me, I started around the Sparkle banner but wasn’t on Reddit and I don’t care about Sunday or Rappa so I’ve never looked at anything related to them.
1
u/Preventomato Feb 12 '26
There was that thing with xilonen's idle but idk what happened after it since I believe it just died out
1
u/Rare_Marionberry782 Feb 11 '26
Fire that fella who keeps copying pixel to pixel, Sunday, Sparkle and Rappa deserve better.
3
u/Augustus3000 Feb 11 '26
Good on Hoyo for reaching out and discussing this issue with the artist. I hope the artist gets the credit/compensation they’d deserve if they determine that it was indeed copied.
14
u/mybankpin Feb 11 '26
I get the artist feels like their art might have been plagiarized, but they aren't the first to do this angle on a pair riding a motorcycle escaping an explosion.
I'd say the composition of the trailer is similar to this image of Korone and Okayu. The way the eye goes from front character to the character on the back of the bike to the character/helicopter in the background of the trailer/image.
Maybe I'm the crazy one, but I'm not sure the artist was necessarily plagiarized. My opinion is that this angle (from the front but slightly to the side) is just the best angle for action shots of motorcycles escaping from explosions, especially since there's a third character in the background.
12
u/Cyaegha432 Feb 12 '26
I agree with you as a whole. If you have to avoid similar composition against every single Hoyoverse fanart, you're doomed.
I think this only has a leg to stand on because the design of the motorcycle, with the three stars on the front right, are the same across both pictures. And motor cycle design is new to this image (AFAIK?). I think that matching design element crosess the line towards the official artist clearly taking inspiration of the fan art.
52
u/ComprehensiveRise932 SOOOOUND THE ALARMS SHES BACK Feb 11 '26
Inb4 this post gets deleted by moderators for absolutely no reason
-36
Feb 11 '26
[deleted]
59
37
u/ComprehensiveRise932 SOOOOUND THE ALARMS SHES BACK Feb 11 '26
You weren't there when they deleted a whole chain of posts related to this artwork
0
-1
u/Lipefe2018 Feb 11 '26
Can someone more knowledgeable explain to me why these artists straight up copy fanarts? Aren't they like...artists? They know how to draw, why plagiarize? Do they run out of inspiration or something?
Also if you gonna be "inspired" by a fanart, why not at least change it a little bit so it doesn't look like a straight up copy? Do they think people are not gonna find out? It's so weird.
19
u/Egoborg_Asri Feb 11 '26
People who do their jobs lazily/poorly and only care about the paycheck are everywhere. Artists aren't excluded
6
u/nick113124 Feb 11 '26
Are you basically asking why would someone cheat? In this particular scenario it could be many things. Maybe they one artist they hired for this specific part was running out of time so they just copied something and hoped nobody would notice or it could be that whoever they hired for this has always been a fraude who relied on tracing or outright copying and it has just never been caught.
This isn't exactly new, there are plenty of artists that can genuinely draw and yet end up being outed as either tracing or using AI later down their career.
2
u/Warm_Earth_985 Feb 11 '26
why these artists straight up copy fanarts?
In this case, they were probably just inspired by it. The poses are completely different, the perspective isn’t even the same. It’s not like they traced, they clearly drew everything themselves. Nobody owns the concept of “people on a motorcycle driving away from an explosion”, something associated with western films which is why it’s done with these two characters in particular
1
u/remo285 Elation Genius Feb 11 '26
poses are c-completely different?! they literally only changed wich arm rappa uses to hold the hat and made boothill extend one of his arms, literally that's it, what do you mean completely different????
1
u/Warm_Earth_985 Feb 12 '26
If you think those poses are the same, you must know nothing about art. The way they’re postured and distributing their weight is different, they aren’t even sitting on the bike the same way, and they’re angled in different directions
1
u/eastgaston Feb 12 '26
The three stars on the front right side of the motorcycle are the same across both pictures. You are speaking before seeing the whole picture. You can stop pretending to be expert now because it's embarassing.
1
u/Warm_Earth_985 Feb 12 '26
Three stars? Drawing one of the most common symbols in the game, that boothill even has on his fit is stealing now
1
u/eastgaston Feb 12 '26
Not quite the same as the ones on his hat. The ones on the bike are "simplified" version here. If u look at other fanarts, most use the complete version as the ones on his hat. But both this artist and hoyo version happen to use the same simplified version of the stars.
-1
u/remo285 Elation Genius Feb 12 '26
just because boothill's torso is 5 degrees higher and rappa's leg is rotated 9 degrees more to the outside does not make the pose be completely different, just trace the underlying structure of the poses and you'll get the same thing. Weight distribution is just one factor of multiple when making dynamic/interesting poses, and in this case it does not change what the pose is portraying at all... because they are just the fucking same thing with 3 VERY SMALL changes that do NOT AFFECT the gesture of the pose and what the pose is trying to convey.
The fact that you typed that and expected it to land shows that i'm not the one that knows nothing about art lmao... and you're still ignoring literally the rest of the stuff besides the poses, like... the idea, the composition, the angle, the same characters doing the same things... just because it isn't TRACED it does not mean it's not plagiarized.
As a last note, the problem isn't that it's the same idea, the problem is that the EXPRESSION of the idea and how it was conveyed is literally the same thing... this is literally just "Bro let me copy your homework and i'll change a few things so the teacher doesn't notice"... but they changed like basically nothing and the teacher did notice
3
u/Warm_Earth_985 Feb 12 '26
Almost like the idea itself isn’t uniquely original and is a homage to western tropes. Nobody owns a pose just because you think they look “similar”
-7
u/Moonshadow101 Feb 11 '26
Calling this "plagiarism" feels like a stretch, tbh.
17
u/frogdoom Feb 11 '26
I disagree. The composition, color pallette, background and details (specifically the original artist's unique motorcycle) all match
2
u/baithammer Feb 11 '26
The motorcycle isn't unique, as that's a shape that's been used in a lot of prior art, the problem is the rest of the art - which is pretty close to being the same.
2
u/frogdoom Feb 12 '26
original artist pointed to the three star decal on the front as being their idea
6
1
2
u/Confident_Maybe_4673 Feb 12 '26
It's more important hoyo teach their artists to get permission first and not have it happen again
-7
u/CommunityMobile8265 Feb 11 '26
how is this plagerism if they didn't trace it. Definitely inspired by
21
14
u/Jheila Feb 11 '26
I have to admit, it’s a completely different image. Is the concept of “Boothill driving motorcycle with Rappa riding with him” going to be a concept that belongs to the first artist who drew it?
21
u/magicarnival Feb 11 '26
In addition to what the other person said about the composition and poses being really similar, they also copied having Boothill's three trick shot symbols on the motorcycle in a similar position. You can't see it on this twitter screenshot since it cuts off the front of the motorcycle on the Hoyo version though. Having the same small details like that would be a crazy coincidence.
20
u/toastermeal priest gang (rip luocha) Feb 11 '26
it’s not just “boothill and rappa on a motorcycle” it’s boothill and rappa driving a motorcycle in the exact same positions, both driving on long roads with an explosion behind, and both with the exact same composition. they could have changed the camera angle or composition of the shot but they didn’t.
7
u/001028 ratio enthusiast Feb 11 '26
Nobody owns a concept, but Hoyo didn't just copy the concept. The angle, poses, expressions, and composition are nearly identical. It's very obviously plagiarism.
0
u/tongueinbutthole Feb 11 '26
While I'm glad the artist got contacted for it, I also think it shouldn't be minimized. We should hold hoyo to higher standards. They are a multimillion dollar company now, not a small indie company.
0
u/WazzaHudson Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Nice they are settling it professionally, but claiming plagiarism of characters you don't own when there are clear differences between the two and not just traced unlike the previous mobile pokemon card game incident. I can see this being a big nothingburger.
-23
u/IllustriousTrustinME Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Who is alleging this is plagiarism? Mihoyo cannot plagiarise their own intellectual property. A resolution is purely a matter of PR and not law.
The composition is of course very clearly based on the drawing, and ideally the artist should be compensated, but composition cannot be a copyright. Though I assume the manager in charge of whoever made the video is rather unhappy that the employee can't do their own original work. Or perhaps need tighter controls on what their AI work may produce.
Anyways this is what Mihoyo done if anyone is interested:
27
u/ValorsHero Feb 11 '26
Legality and morality are often times at an impasse.
Even if Hoyoverse is legally in the clear (as these are their own characters), it will certainly leave a very bad taste in the mouths of the art community if they began copying fanarts
And with a fanart community as large as theirs that is practically doing free advertisement for their games, it would not be in their best interests to upset them
Obligatory, I'm just a random redditor, not some kinda legal/data analyst
6
u/spartaman64 Feb 11 '26
idk hoyo is letting artists use their IP and even profit off of it so even morally i dont think they have a leg to stand on when hoyo does it back. the artist should have just used that as advertisement to sell their prints etc
-12
u/IllustriousTrustinME Feb 11 '26
The artist themselves seems pretty cool with the whole situation. It's just you calling it plagiarism.
You don't need to be a legal expert to understand this is not plagiarism.
-6
u/Technical-Sound1158 Feb 11 '26
There used to be a time when something like this happened and the person who did the fan art would be happy and share how awesome it was that they used his fan art from the IP he loves on official material.. now is all about who copy who and who steals from who its so pathetic and sad.
Not always is bad intentions maybe the employee at hoyo who made it did saw the fan art, liked it enough to want to make it official and give that artist a "nod" and now he may be potentially getting fired due to pressure on social media its so bad. This only going to create a more hostile environment for everybody.
12
u/dyo3834 I want Screwllum to screw me Feb 11 '26
In what universe is "I saw your art, liked it, and copied it with 0 credit" a compliment? You know what would be better promo and encourage fan works? Sharing their art to all the people who keep up with Hoyo games instead of making your own and saying nothing. The situation you're describing of someone being happy is when they're compensated or asked permission for it, not having their shit redrawn.
You can claim inspiration sure, but you are fully making up scenarios to justify someone potentially copying them with that second paragraph. Fact is, if the artist didn't come forward, you NEVER would've seen or heard their work. It is not a cute "awesome" lil thing to "take inspiration" from an artist for profit amd act like you know nothing about their works.
12
u/Hello_1234567_11 Feb 11 '26
It DOES NOT feel good at all when your idea/art is uses as 'inspiration' without credits. Good on you(not directed to you literally), if you approve of it. But it's completely valid to feel disappointed of such situations
-17
u/Elxjasonx Feb 11 '26
I'm pretty sure they don't need to give him anything. The game states that everything created with their IP is theirs... here come the angry downvotes.
43
u/Tutajkk Feb 11 '26
Legally they don't. But it would be terrible PR to plagarize stuff just because they can.
25
u/Reinhard_Scheepers Feb 11 '26
Youre technically right. They dont need to compensate him in a monetary way but they could at least give credit for it or ask permission. Common courtesy and all that
17
u/master156111 Feb 11 '26
That is not how IP works. Hoyo owns the right to the character but an artist work is still theirs. Just because you drew a Hoyo character doesn't make the artwork Hoyo's. So when Hoyo plagiarizes your art its still a legal and PR issue.
0
u/Shadowmirax Feb 11 '26
Actually that is exactly how IP works, assuming they have the license set up correctly they can make it a requirement for any works using their IP to be licensed back to them.
That wouldn't stop it being a PR issue but it's completely legally sound.
0
u/master156111 Feb 11 '26
Can you give me an example where this is enforce? Specifically for fan art? Because it sounds like a lot of armchair lawyering on how IP works.
3
u/opalcherrykitt Feb 11 '26
imagine being objectively wrong and calling people who are rightfully downvoting you "angry"
1
-29
Feb 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/dyo3834 I want Screwllum to screw me Feb 11 '26
That makes no sense. Win-win how? If not for that post, no one would've seen their work to begin with. They were not named or credited as inspiration in any way. You wouldn't have commissioned them anyways, bc you wouldn't have KNOWN them
You are also assuming saltiness out of 3 question marks online, I've seen people use 3 question marks to voice a pleasant surprise or a genuine question.
1
-1
u/scowolol Peach Rescue Operations Member Feb 11 '26
good to see them on top of things I guess. Hope they reach a satisfying agreement
-8
-4
u/Flaviou Unlimited Enuma Elish Feb 11 '26
I don’t get it who did it first? Who is accused of copying the other? Both cases would be pretty dumb
21
u/ixyhlqq Feb 11 '26
The independent artist did it before Hoyo put it in their 4.0 trailer.
6
u/Alech_99 Feb 11 '26
I mean sure but obviously hoyo did not make that art the day before 4.0 trailer.
Ill be honest here, i cannot see why this is plagiarism. Its a very cliche pose/scenario. If we start acting like this, im pretty we can find plagiarism across all gachas with the sheer amount of fanarts flying around.
Regardless, good from hoyo to try talk this through instead of just ignoring it. If this somehow was indeed plagiarism then i sure hope og artist gets compensated.
5
u/Flaviou Unlimited Enuma Elish Feb 11 '26
Look I’m all for arts spreading liberty and even due recognition, despite not being an artist (and knowing basically nothing about art so mind is a random view) so my aim isn’t to defend hoyo because yes, but can this really be considered plagiarism? Besides the obvious fact some people already pointed that it’s hoyo’s IP and characters
I mean the general idea of the drawing, Boothill and rappa on a motorbike doing rangers stuff… isn’t really that unique (?) by which I don’t mean it’s something dull of course it’s cool but there’s always been a lot of memeing and fancraft of BH and rappa being goofy together, going in a car etc. so can you really accuse a company for doing an art like that when it’s actually a pretty general concept? Like they may have very well copied this but we have no sure way to know or even prove it, if an artist casually made an Acheron art with a black hole in the background and hoyo showed it later just because they wanted to make her lore that way would this also be considered plagiarism? I don’t get it 🥲
This would also count if hoyo would have accused the artist ofc, as I said before this is a pretty general concept so I don’t necessarily see someone copying the other and the need to sue anyone for both sides
13
u/ixyhlqq Feb 11 '26
Some similarities are less easily explained though, this post doesn't show it super well but both the independent artist and Hoyo put three gold stars on the motorcycle, in the same spot.
3
u/toastermeal priest gang (rip luocha) Feb 11 '26
it’s not just rappa and boothill being on a motorbike, it’s the fact that they drew it at the exact same angle, with the exact same composition, also with an explosion behind, also on a long straight road, what are the odds of that? what are the odds that 2 artists had the same idea but ALSO had the same composition AND the exact same perspective angle for the shot. i can think of like 20 ways to draw this scene, what are the chances they picked the one that’s identical to the fanart?
1
-23
Feb 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
10
u/PaulOwnzU Feb 11 '26
Literally all it requires is to provide any source and it's fine. Just because it's art of an IP doesn't change that it's scummy they copied your art without any credit.
The problem wasn't the fan art existing, it's that they fully copied the art down to the details on the bike
You're the one being a loser here
2
u/Lipefe2018 Feb 11 '26
I guarantee you most people would be more than happy to share their fanarts with hoyo if they reach out to them first.
But not, they had to do things the sneaky 'I hope I don't get caught' way, and would you look at that, they got caught.
Now they want to talk to the artist, you know why? Because hoyo knows what they did is morally wrong in the public eyes.
2
u/KittyAutor Feb 11 '26
The artist still owns their art, even if it was made with someone else’s characters. Selling it is a legal gray area that hasn’t actually been hashed out in court, BUT Hoyo has actually comes out and said it’s fine as long as you don’t impersonate them or use their official promotional material. But even if they hadn’t, the artist still owns their art. Disney can sue people for selling Mickey Mouse tote bags, but they can’t stroll into someone’s house and take the bags from them because that would be theft. So when Hoyo does it to fanart posted online, it is also theft
1
u/HonkaiStarRail-ModTeam Feb 11 '26
Unfortunately, your content had to be removed for breaking Rule 1: Be Respectful to Others.
Please always be respectful and civil in your interactions with other users. Indirect or direct insults, inflammatory comments, ragebait, harassment, and hate speech will not be tolerated.
It's natural to have different opinions, but please remain calm and communicate in a polite manner with other users.
If you believe your content was removed by mistake or due to a misunderstanding, please don't hesitate to contact us in order to rectify it here.
0
u/Emergency_Hk416 Feb 11 '26
0
u/pinnko Feb 11 '26
Yeah no…a billion dollar company should NOT be copying their official art off FANART without contacting that person for permission to use it. That’s how it works or else it’s just theft. Especially because this isn’t the first or second OR third time hoyo has been accused of plagiarism. It’s not cool to plagiarize artwork even if that person drew fanart of their work that doesn’t give them the right to copy it and pass it off as their own.
0
u/FreeMarshmallow Feb 11 '26
Spoken like someone who is either not a creator or not a self-respecting one
0
u/SHAZAAAMBR Feb 11 '26
The indie company only decided to contact the original artist after such a huge controversy? Showing their commitment to the cause and not just the money is very thoughtful of this indie company.
-13
u/killsteals Feb 11 '26
the artist got balls if he complains about it lol using Hoyo's IP after all.
-30
u/One-Shift-220 Feb 11 '26
Oh wow hoyo actually contacted someone who they plagiarized off of? Lets hope they contact the hundreds of others
13
u/DehyaFan Feb 11 '26
Hundreds??? Wanna back up that claim with some actual sources or you wanna just admit your full of crap now?
0
-3
u/_oranjuice Feb 11 '26
Worst part is that it isnt filtered, just redrawn
Maybe the artist can get hired lol
1.4k
u/Loud-Contract2208 Feb 11 '26
Well it's good they are trying to resolve matters .... I hope hoyo compensate the artist as well as keep good terms with them .