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Even if you use something like official game art or an anime screencap, which would be fine stock for a website, it's stealing if you say that a picture of Sephiroth or Renji is a picture of your RP character. Like I said before, it's the content that's stolen. Have you ever seen that legal notice that says "All characters and their likenesses are copyright to (Lucas Arts, Square/Enix, CLAMP, etc.)?" That means that to take any picture of someone else's character - ANY picture, even fanart - and claim the drawing is of your character, it is copyright violation and therefore illegal.

Also, according to law, all art, characters, and likenesses are considered copyright to their creator. That means that even if there's no notice on the art saying "This character and his likeness are mine," like, say, in a Photobucket album, you're still not allowed to take the art without permission.

I don't really know why this really old topic was revived but it should probably be locked to avoid more comments on eyeballed work. Contains original image. The sword is moved slightly but the shadows and highlights and basically everything else is the same.