A lot of the time when I am looking to start a new creative project I generally browse different sites and sources for inspiration to try and get ideas running. In the past I have seen work that I have wanted to do something similar to but I would always think if I did that it’d be copying, and that would be something I thought hard about. I feel like context can play a big role in the ethics of creativity and graphic design, but in all cases any work used in your own, whether it be blatant or just the source of inspiration generally should be credited. A project I had done about a year ago was heavily inspired by someone else’s work, my idea was basically to do exactly what they did but using a different subject in the piece. Knowing that I gathered all my inspiration and incentive to create from the piece of work, I made sure to credit the artist when posting my work. After going through the ‘Fairey Obama’ case study, one big thing that sticks out to me is that both sides agreed to disagree on whether copyright law was infringed. This to me shows that copyright, infringement, and fair use isn’t just clear cut or simple and straightforward. Again context has a lot to do with everything; How much of a work was referenced or used, why was it used, how it was used and exactly how much was an idea/work/reference was transformed and the result of all these things. Aside from this case, I am reminded of Richard Prince and his use of the Marlboro Cigarettes. All Prince did was crop, blow up, and rephotograph another photographers work, and then claimed it as his own. He profited tremendously off of this project and I don’t believe it was in fair use and in my opinion is unethical. Fairey lying about sourcing and tampering with evidence only made his case worse and all the more unethical. Had he not lied, maybe the case could have went differently. All in all though, I agree with the result in the Fairey case and him having to split rights with A.P. as well as having to collaborate on future projects utilizing the images.
#12 Ethics: Part 2
