Is it ok for other people to steal your ideas?

Are you offended if you see a copy of your own idea? Is it ok for other people to steal your ideas?

Of course it is! If you’re guilty of inspiring others you have it coming, and you should be proud that someone else values your work so much it’s worth living up to. Copying other artists’ work has been done for ages. Painters have always done it. Musicians do it all the time. But, they will never become the original. Many guitar players can play the guitar just as good as Jimi Hendrix, but nobody plays Jimi Hendrix like Jimi Hendrix!

Your work is always you work, but if someone adds something good to it, you can learn from it, and if they make your idea look bad, you’re better than them.

Someone once copied a wedding photo I had taken, fixed it, signed it and gave it to the bride and groom as a present. At first I thought boy, has he got the nerve! Putting his name on MY photo?! Then after a closer look at the image I thought: Thank goodness he put his name on it. Coz there’s no way I would want my name on that horrible excuse of a wedding picture. He had totally destroyed it, softening the edges and cropping it in a way that left the couple’s hands floating with no arms attached.

I see photos here on the FAA all the time that I wish I had taken myself. All I can do is learn from them and try to add something that comes from within my own heart and creativity.

Learn from the masters and be a master! Also try to give some credit to the ones who made the art that inspired you. You would like that yourself, wouldn’t you?

PS: I have a confession to make: This photo was very much inspired by someone here on FAA: Bill Cannon. Thanks for inspiring me!

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/rock-and-roll-woman-bill-cannon.html