How Not to Be a Ripp Off
In the race to originality and self-expression, there’s a recurring problem that’s been emerging: rip off. Taking someone good idea and hard work, slightly modifying it (maybe), and pretending the whole thing came out of us.
We can’t put everything on malice though. As the number of daily inputs has become ridiculously high, it can be daunting to know what has inspired us. And trying to be hyper-aware at all times of the genesis of our ideas would be a creativity killer.
If there’s no easy solution, there are ways to avoid the shiny trap of ripping off.
- Learning to collect ideas and inspirations is one thing. It’s a skill that can be developed or dismissed. If you aspire to lead and inspire others, it is essential to realise that you are constantly influenced and inspired by a multitude of elements and to put yourself and your ideas in a context.
- Giving credit whenever possible is also a major step. Writer Austin Kleon made a telling comparison between “good theft” and “bad theft”.
Here is a story of creative influence over decades and countries that could have gone a whole other way:
1946. 47 year-old Argentinian born and Italian based artist Lucio Fontana sits down to write the “Manifesto Blanco”, a manifest that will become the basis of a new artistic movement: Spatialism.
For the next 22 years, Fontana will explore and express his creativity playing with the concepts of Time and Space, and that will translate into this:
21st century, France. Three-stars Michelin French Chef Michel Troisgros works in his kitchen on a new dish that uses milk and truffles. After testing many consistencies and effects, Michel decides to cover the truffles with a veil of milk. The veil accidentally breaks and suddenly, the dish looks like a Fontana painting:
As he serves the new dish, Michel notices that the cultural reference doesn’t connect with his guests: sure it’s an excellent dish, but to them it’s “another” dish.
Along with his team, Michel decides to take his new creation to the next level by sharing an experience.
Instead of simply serving the dish, the waiters started placing the untouched veil of milk in front of the guests and lacerate it in the middle to reveal the black truffle. Only then they would explain the Lucio Fontana’s influence.
All of a sudden, the dish became a story, a story with a backstory. A creative ripple effect bridging painting and cuisine.
Creative influences work in mysterious ways.
Lucio Fontana didn’t create his movement and paintings imagining they would influence a chef half a century later.
And Michel Troisgros didn’t set to create a dish that would replicate Fontana’s work. A happy-accident revealed an influence that he turned into a story.
Here is a humbling truth: what we create never comes out of nowhere.
Sometimes you don’t know who influenced you, and it takes time or other people’s comments to consciously connect dots your subconscious made emerge.
We don’t “create” anything, we transform many things into one new thing, using our unique perspective. It’s a beautiful thought and a liberating one: a flap of your wings might trigger a creative tsunami years from now, in another country, and in another field.
There’s a fine line between being inspired by and being a rip off.
And there’s one sure way to avoid being a rip off: give credit. As soon as you realise what connects your work to others, find ways to mention it.
You can do it the way Michel Troisgros did, creating a bigger and better story, or you can just mention it in a corner, to remind us all that we never create out of nowhere.
Just the same way that we always create for someone.
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Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.
