Artwork’s Copyright: Appropriation, Derivative Works, and Plagiarism (Part 2 of 3)

Back again for another round of artwork copyright education? This second edition was a delayed due to a severe bout of sleep deprivation, but I am back and ready to take you on the adventures of Appropriation This specific area of artwork copyright is filled with trap doors and back passageways, but hopefully after this post you’ll have a gained a better understanding of what falls under appropriation and how to misappropriate something.

Let’s refer back to the definition back in post one:

“Appropriation: In the visual arts, to appropriate means to adopt, borrow, recycle or sample aspects (or the entire form) of man-made visual culture. The term appropriation refers to the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work (as in ‘the artist uses appropriation’) or refers to the new work itself (as in ‘this is a piece of appropriation art’).”

Appropriation Art has been around for decades. Artists were keens to use bit and pieces from other sources and combine them to create new works. This was acceptable and no one raised a question to many of the pieces that were created, but in the 1980’s there was a changing shift. Copyright laws in the US became stricter, limiting an artist’s freedom to use what they wanted in their pieces. Some of this was necessary because it prevented blatant plagiarism of pieces, but it is also slowly killing this category of art.

“Many countries are following the U.S lead toward more restrictive copyright, which risks making this art practice difficult if not illegal.” – Wikipedia

You might be saying, “Well that’s all well and dandy, but what are some examples of this?” Those are coming up right now.

Case 1: Rogers v. Koons
Jeff Koons is well known artist who is know for his appropriation of images and re contextualizing them in his pieces. In this case though, he pushed it too far and paid the price for it. Art Rogers was a professional photographer and took the picture (bottom right). He then had the picture printed on postcards and sold them. Koons in turn saw the postcard and decided to make a statue of it, most notably ripping the copyright sticker off of it and handing it to his assistants with instructions on how to construct the statue.

It was inevitable that Rogers would find out due to the popularity of Koons at the time. After the trial, Koons was found guilty of misappropriation of the photograph and that the pieces were found to possess “substantial similarity”. Koons lost on all accounts

Case 2: Damien Hirst‘s sculpture Hymn
Regardless of this one act, Damien Hirst has publicly laughed in the face of copyright. He once claimed that is someone wanted to buy one of his dot paintings they should instead buy them from a woman who worked in his factory since she did them far better than he ever did.

What caused the uproar this time was that he created a larger than life version of his son’s anatomy toy set. The problems that came from this piece were rooted in money. Hirst previously sold the sculpture for 1 million pounds sterling. He was benefiting from the sculpture’s popularity and in turn it offered him a monetary gain. A suit was brought, but was settled outside of court. Instead of the trial, he paid two undisclosed amounts to two charities.

The root of all evil stems from money when talking about appropriation. If you are using appropriation for personal use or for Educational use, you are generally safe from repercussions, but it is when you publicly present your work or try to sell it that the problems arise. This is only the tip of the iceberg on this topic and as you wade further and further into murky waters it only becomes more confusing, but the basics that are outlined her can keep you out of trouble and still loving the work you create.