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How to Steal Like An Artist

By Posted by Alan Wexelblat

You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life.

A friend pointed me to Austin Kleon's blog entry on how artists find material and get started on a creative life. Kleon adapted the entry from a talk he gave about his own experiences as an artist/creative person and the lessons he wished someone had laid out for him.

There's really not much in his entry that will surprise long-time Copyfight readers, though I like his quoting Ecclesiastes. He touches on themes of self discovery and fan fiction and much more - I won't spoil it because you should read the original. It's a brilliant set of ideas to give to young artists and almost every one of those ideas violates some DRM policy or some copyright restriction somewhere. The lesson - the overall lesson that gives the essay its title - is that learning to do art is transgressive. To the degree that we crank down the screws of control we are stifling art, and destroying the learning process of new and undiscovered creative people everywhere. Rip, remix, release and in the process find your own voice and individual contribution to the stream in which we all swim.

Full post as published by Copyfight - The Politics of IP on March 30, 2011 (boomark / email).