When is Appropriation Just Copying?

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Bert Posted: Sat, Dec 15 2012 1:52 PM

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Since this forum is going down I figured I might as well make this it's own thread instead of low content.  The article, When is Appropriation Just Copying?, is about an artist who saw his work appropriated almost completely, and sold in a gallery for $4,000.  The "copier" also did this for another artist, taking photographs and painting/drawing them exactly, and then adding a few details of his own.

Here comes the "kicker", the artist did not directly engage the appropriator of his work, he merely made a Tumblr post about it, showing his photographs side by side to the appropriator's pictures.  What happens?  The public takes note, and his artwork is removed from the galleries, and is ostracized from the art community.  This was also the case when such information that this artist was appropriating work in other communities, there was denouncement.

I feel the art community is the most fluid - this is in contrast to the industrial world (what my engineer referred to as "productive art").  It's the easiest to appropriate, but we see it's the easiest to be ostracized for these acts when it becomes noticed.  In the event above there was no mention of copyright or patents, simply put "that's not of his own".

Thoughts on this?  I may make this a complimentary post to my first post on IP on VR.

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Blargg replied on Sat, Dec 15 2012 7:46 PM

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Did the person who made a replica claim that he created it himself? Was people's enjoyment of it based on this notion of who created it, rather than simply how it looked? I suppose that with original art works, this is all critical since people value it for it being unique, rather than just a copy of something.

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Anenome replied on Sat, Dec 15 2012 9:49 PM

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This is pretty much how it's gonna work. Cheaters will be exposed and denounced and shunned, and original artists will retain patrons. It won't be perfect, but people will try to reward good art, and if they find someone copied they'll feel ripped off.

There's any number of possible free-market solutions for this. A buyer might stipulate in his purchase contract that the seller warrants that his proffered art is an original work and not immediately derivative of any other's work, etc., and if he lies then they can hire an arbitrator to figure out recompense, w/e.

You could just as easily have free market art verification services spring up, which specialize in certain areas and certify it's an original piece via pattern matching. Using pictures for that medium, or even 3D scans.

Any number of free market solution waiting to be developed.