In Praise of the Budding Art of Plagiarism

When I look at all the videos on YouTube that are remixed I think, “Wow, these are really creative guys.”  You understand the visual vocabulary first by playing with images.  Then you create your own image.  That’s how most of us learn as artists.  We’ve always copied.  We’ve always learned by sharing.

I think this whole idea owning your work seems silly to me.  I feel you should flip everything.  So one of my apps that I’ve created – it’s not finished – it’s called Swipe.  So you basically swipe other people’s art and you mash it up. And the more someone plagiarizes your work, the more points you get as an artist.  It’s like GitHub.  Why do technologists share with each other and artists don’t? Artists are fighting over copyrights and they’re worried about putting their stuff on Pinterest.  I don’t understand that.  I feel like we all learn because of this shared vocabulary.

60 Second Reads is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock