udor wrote:
It's a pretty sad attitude!

Can people be inspired to create a new variation on some existing thing... of course, but to accuse all people of stealing ideas and reproducing those ideas... it's a pretty hefty claim.

maybe i should have quoted elliot instead....

immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

Michael Pandolfo wrote:
From the stolen land of our ancestors?

Do I pass the Native American Studies course you're conducting?

nyk fury wrote:
everybody steals. native americans, for that matter did too. artists steal creatively. douchtards steal stupidly and then get all butthurt when they get caught.

There's a difference, a huge difference, between taking an idea someone else has had, assimilating it, running with it, and producing a new and different work, and simply lifting or copying someone else's work and performing a minimal modification.

I can honestly say that I've never lifted anyone's idea but I have certainly been inspired by someone else's idea to create my own treatment.  For example, I was very impressed by Hans Hoffman's cubist work, but at the same time a bit put off by the lack of depth.  Got me thinking, "What would happen if you took the base concept of multi-colored rectangular shapes, added depth, and painted it on a multiply curved surface such as a woman's body?"  I'll be giving it a try this weekend.

The thing is that I'm taking an idea that has been expressed in several pictures (the idea is not copyrightable, incidentally) not the pictures themselves, adding my own interpretations, personality and concepts, and producing a totally new work, the likes of which I've never seen.  I have no idea whether or not anyone else has done the same thing.  But my guess would be that something very like it has been done many, many times by many, many people, completely independent of one another.  There is an unlimited number of original ideas floating around in the cosmos, none of which is totally unique.

If you don't understand the difference, then perhaps you are one of the people that might benefit from the reflection I suggested in my earlier post above.

All IMHO, as always

nyk fury wrote:

Oh... okay... I see what you are talking about.

Rays Fine Art wrote:

Ahhh, not so much!

In the one case you have a direct copy for the purpose of creating a competing piece of merchandise, i.e. the artwork.  In the other, you have a record being created of an object (not the design of an object but the object itself) being used for its intended purpose.  A picture of someone wearing a dress is not a violation of the copyright that is intrinsic to the design of the dress because it is only the design that is copyrightable, not the dress itself, just as a physical building cannot be copyrighted but the architectural rendering, as well as the overall design and all its elements, of that building,  can be.

There are buildings with artwork on them - billboard ads, even graffiti is someone's work of art.

It's not about the law it's about using someone else's work to make your work which photographers do all the time.

Rays Fine Art wrote:
How often do we sneak past that "No Trespassing" sign to get that perfect sunset?

How often do we flash a little kid on the beach to get that exterior nude?

How often do we buy and then return a piece of wardrobe after using it, convincing ourselves that it's not stealing the store's profit because we're "creating art"

Um, like, NEVER!

I know it's silly but, I follow the rules and expect everyone to do the same.



I have always said yes to an artist who wanted to use my pics, so there is no reason to steal them. But people do. Even MM GWC's do it. My avatar has turned up in at least 2 other portfolios on this site.