So... I was thinking of a scenario concerning copyright, and I would like to know if copyright laws would count for it:

An animator makes an animation. He/She posts it for others to see. Several people state parts of it were traced. The problem is, the animator did not even know such scenes existed. He/She just made the animation through his/her own imagination. If such an anomaly occurs, would said animator get in trouble, even if they did not copy?

This question is solely my own.

It would be similar to someone with the same fingerprints as you committing a crime. You haven't done anything wrong but the odds are so low that no one will believe you.

If such a thing happened, how would the animator be able to establish credits then? Is animating itself a risk that could land yourself in jail if you made the wrong brush stroke (metaphorically)?

It is a risk, but it's such a small one that it isn't worth considering. It's all but impossible to do it by accident.

Ok, thank you very much for helping me, Zed.

Is this all hypothetical or are you talking about something that actually happened? A link would be nice

I doubt tracing one scene is sufficient for copyright infringement, it depends on the scene that's being accused of tracing. Most likely it's just run-of-the-mill plagarism. I'd be amazed if you're punished in any way (jail time? lol, no) beyond criticism from whatever community is accusing you of it.

It was a scenario, not based on an actual occurence, even though you could connect it to events if you wanted to. When the whole crazy event in the USA involving copyrighted infringment or whatever it was went by, even though the act wasn't passed, it still seemed to scare the heck out of many people. I was just worried how it would affect people in similar situations to the scenario I conjured up.

Edit: The whole jail time thing was a bit of an exageration, mostly due to my rather biased thoughts on the rules of law in the USA... the court seems to always find a way to jail people, whether it be for a day or years.

What crazy event? Did I miss something?

Quote from Exilement

What crazy event? Did I miss something?

He probably means the internet censorship thing. With websites protesting and whatnot.