Comments on: Deep Thought Thursday: Stealing your ideas

By: keith

keith — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:46:12 +0000

We also have to factor in the modern tradition of ‘appropriation’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriation_%28art%29

A very famous artist appears to have helped himself to 2 of my ideas- and a derived a 3rd hybridisation of those 2- probably he’d call it ‘sampling’- However there have been uncanny parallels between our ideas and practices over the years- we have similar mindsets- Never-the-less this doesn’t account for the blatancy of his act-
I showed my work in the epicentre of this artist’s activity sphere- and soon, striking similarities showed up in two markedly diverse projects of his-
There is also the famous quote supposedly from Picasso- “good artists copy- great artists steal”-
Apart from that- there is no real protection under law concerning artists’ ideas and work- In this case i end up looking like the guilty party- it reduces my credibility and sales potential- whereas the paintings he derived from mine sell for upwards of about $400,000- He was already becoming very famous- and i’m not- He wins!
keith

By: Michael Newberry

Michael Newberry — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:59:02 +0000

“How do you handle it when you think another artist is “stealing” your ideas?”
Oh man, they are more than welcome to have them. It is such a complex road from idea to completion, reminds me of the quote “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

By: C Barlow Marrs

C Barlow Marrs — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:31:34 +0000

An artist friend spotted a collage at a village art club exhibition that she immediately recognized as mine — or so she thought. It was by someone else, and she urged me to see for myself. I had never heard of the art club but stopped by to have a look. The other artist’s style was almost identical to some of my collage work. The title was also the same as one of my artworks that had sold a couple of years earlier. But I wasn’t upset. It wasn’t a copy, it was her take on some of the ideas she may or may not have picked up from me. And a person can’t copyright ideas. In any case, my work is evolving all the time, and I’ve moved on from what I had been doing back then.

It’s a different matter, however, if I spot someone photographing my art, say at an art fair. Most people don’t mean anything by it as they square up to one of my paintings with a camera or mobile phone and take aim. But I always explain gently that I can’t allow photography because I can’t control how he or she might use pictures of my work. And then, still smiling, I ask the person to delete the picture(s) he or she has just taken. I wait, expectantly and respectfully, until they do. After that, I like to try to shift the focus away from that “caught in the act” feeling and towards the art, and I ask the person what drew him or her to my work, and so on.

By: Maureen Sharkey

Maureen Sharkey — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:58:50 +0000

Coke and Pepsi are very similar.

Many paintings are of the same subject matter. But if John Singer Sargent were to paint a common subject, it would still stand out among the myriads of paintings.

By: Sari Grove

Sari Grove — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:28:35 +0000

Hey, if anyone is on the fence about supporting John T. Unger, who is defending his original firebowl designs in a lawsuit by the knock-off artist who is suing for the right to knock-off originals- I just want you to know I got the small table firebowl today as a gift for my brother’s birthday & it is awesome…It came really fast, no duties, & I ordered off of Amazon…So if you want to support protecting originals & get a beautiful functional work of art…Go…Buy…& help him pay for his legal defence…

By: Lemme

Lemme — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:10:08 +0000

Y’all are so noble! Not me, it annoys me…honesty is always good, right? I have been ripped off a lot…not much you can do about it, short of lining a lawyer’s pocket…then no one but the lawyer wins…not worth the bother.
I have even had an “artist” tell me that his intent/goal in his “career” is to copyright as many images as he could and sue people for a living (get this….the guy was an art professor!!). He ferociously sketched at all of my solo art exibits in Dallas because he said he thought some of my forms were the closest to “the perfect form” and he tried to sound so philosophical in his crime.
Once I was having a jewelry studio cast some original one-time-casts of my work and the owner of the studio looked me straight in the eye and said that he was making copies for himself and that he might even mass produce the design. When I informed them that they were copyrighted and that was illegal, he laughed and said, “so, sue me and see how far you get!” Needless to say, I took my models and left.
Countless stories, but why bother….it just happens…not much to do about it. I take comfort in knowing that they can copy the physical image, but the impetus behind it, the meaning, the extension of myself… that, they can’t copy. So the copy is a soul-less clone. Logically, one wonders why someone would copy….kind of like telling a lie…it requires another lie, then another, to perpetuate the crime.
But enough of that….let me ask: Of those of you who are teachers also, how do you manage to convince students that God made me and God made you. We don’t need another me. You have to do your own art…. your own expressions…your own messages. I really have to push this to my students and it almost hurts when they present something near identical to one of my pieces and I have to point it out to them. I feel like I have failed in helping them to achieve their own style, even though I drill it over and over. Just a thought…
God bless y’all ! Lemme

By: Laura K Aiken

Laura K Aiken — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:34:29 +0000

my link didn’t show-maybe this will work’
laura.

By: Laura K Aiken

Laura K Aiken — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:26:53 +0000

Hello Alyson
Boy everyone sure is on their best behavior! I feel if you put your work out there it is bound to be copied. I would really bother me if someone was making a profit off of my work. I don’t think that will happen though. If one is jump starting or using my design as a jump start it would be nice to mention my name somehow- it really bothers me when I see full copies of others work without any notice to the original artist.
I hope everyone is enjoying their family this weekend.

By: jessica

jessica — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:17:39 +0000

I am blessed to be an original thinker, so I have been copied all my life. At first, I felt flattered, then chagrined. Then, I decided to teach people how to do what I do and make my living from that.

It has worked very well, and since I expect my shared ideas to be copied, there is no reason for feeling negative about it.

By: AnnaMaria Windisch-Hunt

AnnaMaria Windisch-Hunt — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:13:28 +0000

ha ha ha oops ho ho ho, that is the ultimate in Ego . You can’t be stealing, the person who got the idea, got the idea from somewhere and technically everyone is stealing or use the words inpired.
Inspiration comes from everywhere, it is a softer term for stealing. Arists start out copying Paul Revere out of a history books or learning to do drawings from comic books. As to the Wolf Kahn comment above, you can not tell a Wolf Kahn from an impressionist background. He just left off the people and did the background.