Being an artist in the New Media Age is such a weird feeling. With endless information at the palm of your hand, inspiration can be just as easily found. With the Internet, it can take you a few minutes to find other artists on forums, photo sharing apps, or even on video tutorials.
Having access to so many different outlets and being able to connect with creatives all over the world inspires this huge mass of collaboration and collectivity. There are so many experienced or professional artists sharing their wisdom and expertise online for free. If you ever need to figure out how to do something, the internet can always help! Being able to collaborate with others online also makes it easy to get feedback and to discuss about troubleshooting issues that others may have also encountered. Sharing your work and getting feedback, both praise and critique, is a fundamental aspect of creativity. The internet has allowed us to share our work with people all over the world.
With the ease of sharing information comes the ease of sharing art; however, this makes all artists susceptible to being copied. As an artist you want to share what you create, but the feeling you get when you see someone replicate your work and selling it is a huge blow. There are major multi-million dollar corporations who are known to copy from small independent artists who might not have the means to legally defend ownership of their work. Holding people accountable for plagiarism is not always guaranteed, although having enough exposure on the issue can help them greatly.
From my own experience, I know that I love to share my work because I'm so proud of it. I want to show the world what I've created, what I've written, or what I've done. However, there's sometimes this feeling I have — when you're hesitant to share your work because of other people copying you, stealing your design or your idea.
It's one of the most frustrating feelings as an artist — being copied. We might copy others work for practice, like copying classical artists in art school. But when does it become plagiarism? Simple, it becomes plagiarism when you don't credit your inspiration. CREDIT ARTISTS!! This is all we ask for. You loved our work enough to copy it, so please credit us so other people can love our work too. When you don't credit artists that you've copied, people seeing your work will believe that that is your work, your design, your concept, or your ideas.
Being a creative in the New Media Age is a blessing. Being able to share your art with people all over the world is inspiring. But as a creative, let that inspiration be just that—inspiration, inspiration to create your own work and your own designs and your own ideas.
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