#artistic theft

[wickedzeevyln]

✮ The Transplant ✮

Whenever people asked Jimmy’s few friends what he was like, their faces tightened, slick as if they’d swallowed cooking oil. “He means well. Just don’t take that strange cat to a bar,” they chorused. “He ain’t no Matthew McConaughey, but he sure thinks he is.” Jimmy kicked a pile of clothes on his way to the kitchen. He opened the cupboard — no clean glasses. He glanced at the sink; flies…

✮ The Transplant ✮

[wickedzeevyln]

✮ Odyssey ✮

(One of Two) Self-confidence never necessitates the inclination to mention your name to elevate yourself; it is instead reliant on the mantra favoring the immutable voice of action to precede words. Failing as you go and carrying on is a true measure of courage. It transcends the usual function of readily available templates, for one is endowed with a chance to play the role of cartographer…

✮ Odyssey ✮

[tinfoil-hat-brigade]

tt-aa reblogged from khanspets and watch-this-face today including the papped moving photos so add her to the list

Thank you, Nonny, we caught on to he shenanigans last week. The main reason why some of us became really upset with her was that she was helping herself to photos from Cumberbatch Brasil and reposting them without giving Bru or that website any credit for it, and then we started to hear rumblings about her being a hater. I did a little investigatory work and confirmed that she frequently reblogs from khanspets and other haters, and I believe I remember seeing her like some of Gator’s posts in the past.

So for people who are interested in not supporting artistic theft and/or the hater community, consider this a heads-up.

[n1ghtwr1ter]

I just wanted to let you know that user @seventwentysalty on wattpad stole your one shot "Work From Home" and is claiming it as their own. They converted it into a camren one shot and named it "Daddy"

…fab. Thank you so, so much for letting me know, anon. @raedmagdon and I will…deal with them.

[cumberbangers]

A gentle reminder to REBLOG, DO NOT REPOST.

I’ve suddenly been seeing an influx of reposters who are obviously ripping images from Google searches, then uploading them to their blogs as reposts. One of these bloggers, abatchofcumberbatch, freely admits this is what she’s doing and seems to suggest that she’s blocking anyone who challenges her on it.

Reposting is not cool, folks. It’s actually unethical, you know? It’s artistic theft, and in some cases it’s violating copyright as well. Do it often enough and Tumblr could even delete your blog.

There are lots of wonderful blogs here with fabulous posts you can reblog. Just look around, m’kay?

By the way, if you’re wondering how to identify reposters, one really good way to do it is to look at how many notes the post has. Usually the number is quite low, usually barely in double digits. Plus if the blogger doesn’t source the photo and/or state that it’s their edit, it’s likely a repost.

Be kind, don’t rewind repost.

[arts-su]

Roisin the Irish rhododendron thief

If plagiarism is theft, let’s look at an artist who literally stole another artwork for her MA degree show at Goldsmiths.  Anybody who has seen the documentary ‘Goldsmiths: But Is It Art?’ may remember Roisin Byrne, who gladly described herself as “Roisin the Irish thief.”

“I don’t have to be focused primarily on creating original artwork, I just steal stuff.”

  After Byrne engaged Turner Prize winner Simon Starling through email correspondence, he revealed the location of his rhododendron plants, which were part of his conceptual art work ‘Rescued Rhododendrons.’  In this work he loaded seven rhododendron plants from Elrick Hill in Scotland into his Volvo, driving all the way to Spain, where they'd been introduced from.  Along the journey he’d occasionally take them out of the car for water and air, so seven photographs of the plants lit by two spotlights, with his Volvo in the background, is the exhibited work.

Byrne flew to Spain, dug up one of his rhododendron plants, flew it back to England, and exhibited the plant alongside their emails (including the last one, where he expresses his disappointment in her) for her degree show. 

The undertone of the documentary’s focus on Byrne, and the more sceptical reviews of her work online, are concerns that this sort of art demonstrates no original ideas… whatever your views on this work, remember that plagiarism is the inability to demonstrate original ideas (whilst clearly referencing the ideas of others) and it’s harder to get out of jail free using your ‘conceptual artwork card’! 

[refoundnoize]

Now I’m leery about sharing my dreams with people. They will agree about whatever idea I have and try to steal it for their own personal gain. I’m tired of this and its not strangers that are doing this. Its my family. It is my friends. I’m all for community and collabing on an idea but, don’t try to steal that shit and mask it as your own.

[needs-more-coffee]

There's taking pictures, and then there's "taking" pictures...

I possess no talent for drawing, or sketching, or painting-hell, even for coloring with crayons. "Useless" is a suitably good word to describe how I feel when staring at a blank sheet of paper, and no one has asked for an essay in under 500 words, or so much as a folded paper airplane.

I don't even like my own handwriting...

I wish I could draw. I envy the people who are disgustingly good at it. And I envy them mostly because they can create fascinating things-creatures, other people, shapes, and colors, and all manner of strange worlds from out of their own imaginations, from out of their own fingertips.

Me? A stick figure with its head on fire was about the most visually compelling thing my artistic capabilities could produce.

And then I discovered Photoshop... 

I. fucking. love. Adobe Photoshop. I now have a voracious hunger to create digital art. And yet... And yet, I'm not particularly proud of the way I go about doing it.

My artistic process, at it's most fundamental level, is "predatory." The world wide web is where I go hunting for images and photographs. It's like the African Savanna, teeming with big game and life and color and beautiful scenery taken by some very gifted photographers. When I go searching for these images, I go very much like a jackal. And just like any other beast that makes its meal from the hard work of some other larger creature, when I do find the work of another artist who has what I'm looking for, I grab a piece and take a bite. No permission is asked. None is ever given. Next, what I take is broken down, and combined into a new composite until I finally have something that best resembles what I saw in my head and what I wanted to achieve visually.

Not to digress, but my process could also be described as "perfectionism on cocaine meets adderall." Hours have been spent tweaking each and every element that I bring into an image: the lighting, the position, the filtering effects. Look at the picture above. Thirty minutes or more was lost in deciding just how high the lady and the child's feet should appear off the ground: five pixels or seven and a half. Predictably, it can take a long time before any project I've been working on is as "finished" as I'm willing to let them become finished, and then posted online.

I love what I'm finally able to create, and I love the creation process, but the act of thievery still bothers me and opens up an unsettling question.

I feel as if I'm an artist, but am I really? I do create, and what I've created looks radically different than the original source material. But am I really just a thief when you get right down to it... I create using other people's creations.

Where do you draw the line?

(no pun intended)

-NMC