Art inspires Art. But who draws the line between inspiration and plagiarism? For some, even credited pieces are plagiarism and appropriation. And for some, it’s not plagiarism until there’s some heavy cash flowing in.
But how does one differentiate between a trend and an inspiration? When every second ethnic wear brand is using the same pattern cut for a low-neck, back-tie short kurti, it becomes a deadlock situation. There emerges an unspoken rule among them to not point any fingers at each other; else one goes down they all go down.
Vaguely similar to how no ONE brand can own an ‘eating jewellery’ symbolism. *Ahem Ahem*
But at instances of an entire design/motif copy. It’s not hard to trace it back to the origin. Whether it’s a funky cat shoe design, or an entire hand-block print copied. So, wouldn’t it be easier to just… collaborate? Or hell, just a credit tag?
Sometimes, the inexpensiveness of plagiarism takes over the moral obligations we all hold working in a creative industry. And sometimes, the AI feeds us an idea that we (very conveniently) can’t trace back to its origin.
As consumers and audiences, what matters more is how the brands handle it. With ‘founder-led content’ booming, shouldn’t accountability and responsibility be on the forefront of it?
This might be a useless topic on debate on, though. In an age of AI product images, AI designed clothing and God knows what else. The cases of unintentional plagiarism AI will cause, will have trials never seen before.