Advice needed for pose(c)/Trademark?

[cyiakanami.livejournal.com]

So I wanted to start off saying, I've seen some comments vary across the internet on pose copyright/trademark and usage and it seems a lot of people are confused about someone's rights ect. I am sort of in that latter. 

I went searching AB and google and couldn't find any good citations of legal standing on if poses and "image concepts" are legally bound as are say trademarked characters or artists legal rights to their art and came up dry on both. 
Long story short, I had a commissioner today note me on FA stating someone noticed the pose reference picture that we used on one of their commissions from me. Which would be fine by all means, except this person went on to state I was ripping their friend's art off and it was illegal to use their friends picture as a pose reference and concept for their commission and was pointing out that they would be infuriated if someone did that to them. (Commissioner feigned not knowing about anything on the reference for fear of a drama storm, which is fine by me. I also didn't reply to this person because I wanted to be 110% sure in what I tell them is backed up law and not also start unnecessary drama.) I've also added a link back to the original image we used for the commission pose reference in my fa gallery.

In short, my questions would be, is it ok to reference other artist's art for pose reference whether in personal art or commissioned art if the commissioner requests it? Should we link back to the picture(s) we referenced just the pose from? Are poses and or "concepts of the image" legal to use as reference or do we need to ask the artists permission first?

(Clarification of "concept of image" I'm speaking of would be, a person skate boarding, an android women kissing someone, two characters in a staring look, ect as a few examples off the top of my head right now.)

Thanks for your time.

*EDIT* I wanted to point out, that I think everyone has been looking at the wrong submission. I have an idea of which one you are looking at and have credited back to the original reference. And will be doing so from now on. I appreciate all the feed back and honestly had no idea had to reference back to what pictures I was using for poses. I shall do this from now on. I'll also be adding in my tos about commissioners and referencing poses ect. The submission I am talking about was done middle I think of last year so you would have to do some digging to find that one. And I've already referenced back to that pose on it. 
I would rather not post a link to the image in question in public for fear of naming my commissioner without their permission. If anyone would like to see the two images, please message me privately and I can link to them for you. Thanks again for your help!

Comments

[nambroth.livejournal.com]

Since the legalities have been mentioned, let me add this:
Unless referencing the artworks of a master (or someone with a unique art handling that you can learn something from), such as making mastercopies for personal educational experience (etc), it's never all that great of an idea to directly reference other artist's work for stuff like this, even if you have permission.
The reason is that you are copying another person's interpretation of something, so in essence it is going through at least two 'human filters', which makes it overall less of your impression and more of a stack of impressions.

You copy not only the other person's artistic discoveries, but also their mistakes, and their intentional changes. I'm not even necessarily talking about style, here (though it comes into play), but how the other artist has, at the basic level, translated an idea or a reference into their art. Instead of another artist, it's generally best to reference life, then videos, then photos, as necessary.

Note: I want to be clear that I am talking about direct referencing only. Learning how someone else handles a painting or drawing, such as how they lay down brush strokes or use color is another matter entirely.

There are so many incredible, free to use (or at least Creative Commons) resources out there on the internet now that there is almost no excuse not to reference in this way. :) Arguably, artists have more materials that are okay to use at their fingertips now, than EVER before!

[ocelotish]

I would also point out that there may be exceptions where parody come into play. For example, if I'm parodying the lion king, I'm welcome to use the Rafiki pose to get that point across. I'm not allowed to do that exactly if I'm just trying to invoke dramatic young baby.

[nambroth.livejournal.com]

Oh-- yes, sorry! I had forgotten about parody.