Ei-en's Departure

Quite a while ago a member was disqualified from the elite nominations due to the questionable originality of his works. Recently this member was again nominated as elite and this time became elite. However it seems his methods had not changed and soon proof was delivered that pieces of other artworks were used to construct some of his own. This was done without any permission, explanation or given credit.
Just days ago I confronted this member with the material and after a short talk (which not happens that often) he explaned to me he made some bad choices, apologised for them and assured me that some of his art was indeed completely original. However given the history and the fairly large amount of members who informed me I had no choice but to suspend the account. The least I could do was to let him say goodbye himself before closing his account.

Just another reminder that although borrowing material from other artists doesn't seem that bad, it is still a serious copyright violation. No matter what your history or status here is, we enforce our rules and suspend accounts. Ei-en is by no means an unskilled artist, but skill is just as important as respecting other peoples creations. I'm sure that with time he'll come to understand this and will turn out to be a fine artist.

Another discussion that branched from this issue is assigning the elite status to the runner up of elite nomination that produced Ei-en as elite.

[EDIT] Since the nomination in question was last month's, we'll discuss it with those involved and decide wether the runnerup will instead get the elite status.