Apparently it was Picasso who said this about creativity. “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

 

I have spent too many years slogging my guts and brain out, and my fingers to the bone to condone stealing.

As an artist, which many job descriptions come under, we work our fingers to the bone to create different and unique art for sale. When arseholes come along and steal it, or when arseholes think they can take other peoples’ ideas and stories to use for themselves, it pisses me off.

There is a very big difference between taking inspiration, and directly taking the idea, but sadly, many do.

There are so many stories of authors coming up against people who pirate their books. Authors who have found people have fully, or partially, plagiarised their book to sell on Amazon. Artists who have had people they know print their art out and put it on their wall.

People don’t care about stealing because they don’t believe they’re doing it. People don’t have a clue about copyright theft and fraud, and theft and fraud in general.

The whole concept of “if it’s on the internet it’s free to use” is a lie. There is no such law in Australia, read Owning It, by Sharon Giovoni, she’s an expert, she knows. So, unless the law has changed in that concern, it’s still illegal to steal other people’s belongings. And that’s what books are. Other people’s belongings. The author made it, they spent days and weeks and months, and sometimes years slogging their guts out to create what they sell. You don’t get to be the arsehole who steals it for yourself to put on your shelf, or on Amazon to sell under your name.

There’s someone who comes up in my Instagram feed a lot. Someone who believes wholeheartedly in Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist. It’s easy for them, they made their whole fifteen year business stealing other designs. They continue to steal by taking sayings from the internet and printing them on items to sell, and writing a screenplay that’s a direct rip off of The Handmaid’s Tale, and then wonder why no one wanted it. They made, and still make, money from stealing.

I will not and cannot be on the side of liars who pretend to write books or create something they don’t.

I will never be on the side of a writer who blatantly steals other authors’ ideas, or who uses AI to write a dodgy as fuck book and then call themselves the author or writer. Or who uses a ghostwriter but claims to have written it themselves.

Be honest, be upfront, and be true. Write and create your shit your own damn self.