{"id":347,"date":"2016-09-02T20:30:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T20:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/?p=347"},"modified":"2016-09-03T14:02:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-03T14:02:45","slug":"plagiarism-or-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/plagiarism-or-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Plagiarism or theft?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kees van Aalst
\nSaid Hamlet to Ophelia: \u201cI\u2019ll draw a sketch of thee, what kind of pencil shall I use? 2B or not 2B?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Would a charge of plagiarism by Shakespeare be successful in this case? I doubt it.<\/p>\n

When you give a creative twist to an existing thing, such as here, the courts are often inclined to be
\nlenient.<\/p>\n

But literal copying is a different story, in fine art as much as in literature. Don\u2019t do it, that\u2019s all I need
\nto say.<\/p>\n

In this ultrashort\u00a0exploratory article, I\u2019m not going to talk about successful thieves from art history
\nsuch as Warhol or Lichtenstein, nor about the forgers\u2019 guild that is only interested in monetary gain.<\/p>\n

Instead, I want to find out how you can draw inspiration from other people\u2019s work without literally
\ncopying it.<\/p>\n

\"scannen0010\"<\/p>\n

Existing images are often utilized in the art world. No one creates something from nothing. There are
\nalways influences, but a creative artist knows how to alter that influence in such a way that it
\nbecomes part of his or her own work virtually unnoticeably.<\/p>\n

Picasso had a strong opinion about stealing other people\u2019s products. \u201cGood artists copy, great artists
\nsteal\u201d was his thesis. Copying is plagiarism, it\u2019s not very creative. By stealing, you appropriate the
\nwork and make it your own. Originality then becomes skillfully disguised imitation. After all, the point
\nisn\u2019t where you get your ideas, but what you do with them.<\/p>\n

So don\u2019t be ashamed to use other people\u2019s work as a source of inspiration. Collect images of work
\nthat speaks to you, and use them as a catalyst and an incentive to improve your own work. You\u2019ll be
\nmore driven, more proficient in this way, resulting in work that has its own style and character.<\/p>\n

Finally, a few tips:<\/p>\n

\u25cf Set the bar high. For inspiration, study the works of great artists you admire, not the
\ndabblings of wellmeaning\u00a0amateurs. Those don\u2019t teach you anything.
\n\u25cf You could consider it a kind of honor when others imitate your work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kees van Aalst Said Hamlet to Ophelia: \u201cI\u2019ll draw a sketch of thee, what kind of pencil shall I use? 2B or not 2B?\u201d Would a charge of plagiarism by Shakespeare be successful in this… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7LrvK-5B","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keesvanaalst.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}