The idea is that people should work -together- and follow -all- eventual rules that the administrators of the site comes up with. Not to be some kind of misunderstood children of art who must act like rebels. That's not in line with the collaborate spirit of the whole site. We're trying to create seemless pictures, not individual masterpieces. The main purpose of every tile should be to enhance the tiles that you get to blend into. When you've done that, you get to add your own flavour. That's what this site is about. If that isn't your game or concept, there are a lot of other siter where you can just upload your artwork without having to match any other artists work. I don't know if there's a written rule about using copyrighted and/or other persons material on the site, but I feel that everyone has come to understand that it's not the actual content that matters most of the time, but that you actually was the one that created the artwork and that it goes in line with the rest of the quilt. We already know that you can draw, and that you have talent. Why not show that you can follow the rules that, even they might not be written, must be kind of official considered that most people tries to follow hem?

That remark about the cars... They actually draw the cars by hand. Once, and then they copy it with machines. ;) If that is what you want to recreate in your art, I think you should do it on a site that is meant for that kind of work, right? Please try to grasp the spirit of the site instead of finding ways to excuse yourself from doing it. Because, as I mentioned earlier, you have talent. Why not try to use it in the concept of the site, collaboration. If you still want to show that you are good at manipulating other persons art / visual information, do that, on another site, and leave links to it in the threads of your tiles?

/Samuelf

An artist has a few things to his side when it comes to using other's images. The right to parodise, and the right to appropriate (so therefore caricatures are protected, so is Warhol's Campbell soup paintings (and who painted the Campbell Axle-grease cans?)). However as I'm aware of it, reproducing money, scanning money, etc is very much in violation of some laws. I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong tho. But let's look at using photos and such in tiles, for a moment. It is very much encouraged that the artists only use their own original artwork in the creation of tiles. Why? Probably to maintain an overall original feeling to the quilt. Though if suddenly everyone started using other's artworks/photos for their tiles, the quilt would look like a large clip board of randomly selected cutouts of photographs. Would that be appealing? I'm not so sure about that.

There's also one aspect which is 'ripping', but let's not go there now.
Eddie, I would recommend you keep usage of photos to the minimum, and add more and more of your own original work. Try to use the photos for reference only!