TOUGH LOVE: Is it okay to steal?
Artists are sponges. All day, every day they absorb ideas, insights, sensations from the world they inhabit — and turn these into music, painting, theatre, movies, dance, sculpture. Some of this ingestion is conscious, much is not. But it is why and how artists both inhabit the world — and reflect it.
But many young artists feel uncomfortable with the use they make of other peoples’ work. When is it inspiration — and when is it theft? When is it okay — and when is it wrong?
All creativity comes from the world; everything new owes something to what came before. You are a product of your parents — you are also your own unique being. What looks new and special (which is how you looked at birth) is a mix of the old. That isn’t just true of people but of what we make. Kirby Ferguson explored this idea with his fabulous video series Everything is a Remix. Watch it — it’s a dazzling argument for the debt that all artists owe each other. He even suggests that there really is no such thing as a completely original piece that owes nothing to anyone. Creativity is all about mashups.
In music of course, sampling is ubiquitous. The iPhone is a mashup of MP3 players, mobile phones, cool interfaces and lots of technology none of which was invented by Apple. T.S.Eliot’s masterpiece The Waste Land is full of quotations and Shakespeare borrowed almost all of his plots. Much of the resonance in art comes from knowing references to, and echoes of, other peoples’ work.
BUT…you have to bring enough of your own thinking, experience and craft to create something genuinely different. That’s the conclusion of the many plagiarism court cases that have beleaguered the music industry in particular. Marvin Gaye’s kids, for example, sued Robin Thicke and Pharell Williams for, in effect, stealing their Dad’s work to create the songs ‘Blurred Lines’ and ‘Love after War’. If you look at ‘music plagiarism’ in Wikipedia, you’ll find many recent cases like these.
SO WHAT IS STEALING — AND WHAT IS NOT?
I think the answer lies in 2 places. First, it’s stealing when you’ve added little of value to the original work. What matters more in the work: what you took or what you brought? Even when the borrowing is unconscious (which it often is) you have to make the larger contribution if you’re going to claim the work is your own.
But the other deeper point is this: Give credit. When something has inspired, provoked, informed your work — say so. Be grateful. Celebrate, appreciate and congratulate your fellow artist. It’s the right thing to do. It’s stylish. And you turn a potential opponent into an ally, maybe even a supporter or future collaborator. Giving credit shows confidence and self-awareness; theft exposes competitiveness, anxiety and a mean spirit.
In his magnificent book, Give and Take, Adam Grant proves that people who are generous are more successful than those who are selfish takers. All the people I’ve met and worked with in the arts concur, telling me that artists who are generous and give credit have longer careers. The reason is obvious: these are the people other people want to work with. Since you can’t really ever do anything alone — this is the kind of person you want to be.
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The TOUGH LOVE blog is dedicated to emerging artists. If that’s what you are, or hope to be, please feel free to post questions or suggest topics, as well (of course) as add your own thoughts and suggestions.
