Elbow \”Grace under pressure\”
David Guetta vs. Swedish House Mafia
Pablo Picasso is famously quoted saying “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
The practice of one artists ”borrowing” from another is clearly not new and has probably existed forever. The members of Coldplay have talked about their ”borrowing” from other artists’ work and said that ”We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original.” Chris Martin even admitted in an interview with Rolling Stone that he regarded him and his group to be increadibly good plagiarists. The guitarist Johnny Buckland further explained in another article that their song ”Fix You” is a close copy of Elbow’s ”Grace Under Pressure” and that they never so directly stolen off anyone before and never paid for their plagiarism. Song after song seems to be accused of infringing on another artists copyright, and you can’t help to wonder if a song, a book or any piece of art actually can be truly original without any influence from earlier works?
You can’t escape outside influences and there’s really no reason why you would want to since great works in my opinion don’t develop from sterility. Artists borrow consciously or subconsciously from the artists that came before them. You take what someone created and add, subtract and manipulate it until it’s transformed into something greater than the sum of its parts. This is essential to the progress of artistic expression and it’s not a bad thing unless you actually copy someone else’s work with the intention of claiming it as your own or out of laziness.
Many people don’t seem to have a problem borrowing from works in the public domain, which raises an interesting question of whether copying from someone else goes against the principles of artistic expression or simply is wrong because the law has made it wrong? The key to the legitimate reuse of creative works is not in what you take or how much, but in the end result. If you can make something that someone else has created better, or give it new meaning, or a new kind of value, the end result justifies the means. Art is collaborative and as long as you don’t go too far I think it’s a powerful resource to be influenced, inspired and borrow from others in order to create great art.
