Until reading Lawrence Lessig’s piece “Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity”, I was unaware that Walt Disney took stories from the ‘public domain’ and used them to create all the classics I grew up with; Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, etc. But having never heard of the Brothers Grim fairy tales before, why would I? This discovery made me wonder if any other characters or stories from my childhood were rip-offs of something else. I stumbled across an article by Juan Arteaga entitled “6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs”. Throughout this article, Arteaga (2009) counts down through 6 characters that I personally grew up watching and revealed the original basis for the characters along with shocking similarities between the two. The characters included the X-men, Superman and the Lion King! Although shocked and surprised by the similarities and the pictures that accompanied them, I began to think – who cares? The characters I grew up with were huge improvements on the original characters they were based on. I believe the same applies to the Walt Disney classics. The end result (I feel) outweighs the act of copying; although I do feel the creators of the original characters deserve some recognition.References
Lessig, L.
(2004). Creators. In Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law
to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity (pp. 21-30). New York: Penguin
[URL: http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html]
Arteaga, Juan 2009 ““6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs”, Cracked.com, pp1-2, April 29, accessed 14.09.2011, 6 Famous Characters You Didn't Know Were Shameless Rip-Offs | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_17299_6-famous-characters-you-didnt-know-were-shameless-rip-offs.html#ixzz1XtzOYYE1
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sourced from: www.cracked.com
If the creators of works of art are improving on the works they are appropriating then essentially as the audience, we are the ones who win in the end. However I do agree with your final comment that the original authors need recognition. I feel this is paralleled with some modern music. Often I will come across a song which heavily samples another but makes no reference to the original artist. Is this not a deceptive practice?
ReplyDeleteThe original creator does need more recognition I feel but I also agree that it is not a big deal for them to take the original and recreate it. That is how things evolve and if we didn't build on what was already created, we wouldn't live in such a technologically advantaged society. I liked your post thought it was a good read :)
ReplyDeleteUsing your examples of Pinnochio, Peter Pan, Bambi and so forth, the stories were taken and modified. However in this case i would argue that this is not a sham or a crime for the fact that these movies are not copies, instead they are modern adaptations. If the originals were made they would not have been nearly as popular compared to Disney's alternatives. However when looking at the lion king it is nothing but a blatant rip off. It still astounds me how they could get away with such plagiarism. There was no oxford or Harvard referencing to be seen throughout any of the movie.
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