Plagiarism in creative industries now
In the creative industries, especially those concerned with the use of the image, it has always been the case that new concepts are borne out of the use of existent materials. This is particularly evident in the area of art and design. Within the visual arts it is accepted that the «seed» of almost any creative project is going to be found in an existing image or object.
Blythman (2007) found that «Art and design staff are very clear about the long tradition of art on which their students are expected to build. They use the terms «appropriate», «expand on a resource», or «homage» to acknowledge that artists use each others’ ideas, processes and materials, but use them differently from each other by developing …show more content…
Viswanathan had just published the book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life to rave reviews when The Harvard Crimson, the school newspaper at Harvard, noticed similarities in passages between the book and previous works by author Megan F. McCafferty. Evidence quickly compounded her publisher, Little Brown & Root, eventually revoked her contract, forcing her to repay a $500,000 advance and yanked the book off the shelf. In the end, Viswanathan’s publishing career was …show more content…
There is an artistic tradition which has a relaxed attitude to the use of existent images; indeed, the use of such materials is encouraged in many fields as the first step in the creative process. However, concerns around the textual plagiarism which is perceived as being more prevalent with the availability of digital materials, is now spreading to non-textual materials.
But on the other hand, plagiarism is not a crime unless originality, individuality and authorship have the weight of legal and social norms. Our love of the «original» as in the primary/unique version of a work of creation is not necessarily shared by other cultures. In other parts of the world, the social norm says that the value of something is not diminished by its reproduction in millions of copies. On the contrary, it increases: the more copied, thus the more famous, and ultimately the better the