Week 7 class exercise (Appropriation & its legal implication)

This week's lecture, we discussed about the Copyright issues of doing Appropriation art. After that, we were randomly grouped to discuss a few questions about the topics that were covered during the lecture. I grouped with Ying Qi, Jiamin and Luo Lan and these were the questions we got:

1. Is there a difference between Appropriation and plagiarism? If yes, what is the difference?

Yes. We feel that there is difference between Appropriation and Plagiarism. Appropriation to us meant using someone else's work to create and produce something of a different feel or expression to the previous work. Artists usually uses works from the public domain to avoid infringement of copyright rules. Works that are still protected under the copyright rules are still being used in this case but in a more careful and legal manner such as under fair use, educational fair use and transformative use. Plagiarism, on the other hand, uses the same material to represent the same idea. The expression of the ideal is similar.

However, we find that there is a thin line between appropriation and plagiarism and it is a very subjective issue to each individual. From the lecture, the example of Jeff Koons.

#1: The painting with the legs vs. Gucci photo advertisement - Jeff Koons won the case as he was portraying a different idea compared to the Gucci ad and does not affect the commercial benefits of the advertisement.

#2: The sculpture of 1 couple and 8 puppies vs. postcard (same content) - Jeff Koons lost the case even though his work expressed a different feeling from the postcard.
Therefore, we conclude that when doing appropriation, we should be very careful to not plagiarize.

2. Does the strategy of appropriation encourage or hinder your 'creativity'?

We understand the strategy of appropriation as the use of other people's artwork to create our own of a different expression. We feel that appropriation can both encourage and hinder our 'creativity' depending on how we view this issue. We feel that it might limit creativity as we will be restricted by what others have produced - the material, the ideas and also we have a tendency to rely on existing artwork instead of coming up with something new. In addition, we are also hindered by the fear of plagiarism (as mentioned the 1st question). However, it also encourages creativity as we can improve from what others have left off developing new ideas from the inspiration that is given by previous works.

3. Will you consider using the strategy of appropriation (if applicable) in your future work (beyond NUS)?

In NUS, we find that it is difficult to come out with something from scratch and so most of the time, we tend to grab ideas from other artists and in many cases, we do apply appropriation for our school works such as poster designs, etc. Therefore, beyond NUS, we will still consider using the strategy of appropriation whenever applicable.

However, we might also try to avoid using appropriation as we are afraid of violating copyright laws as it will become a very sensitive matter in future. We find that this sort of encourages us to be more creative in innovating new works rather than always relying on others. We are aware that its not always possible for us to come up with something new all the time, appropriation might be the best alternative after innovation. Therefore, being aware of the legal constraints of copyright laws related to appropriation is important for us so that we can practice it legally for future work without plagiarizing.