DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT SUPPORT EITHER PLAGIARISM, FORGERY, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT OR ANY MIXTURE OF THEM .
What is art? What is copyright? Is it right for us to claim ownership of a piece of art, when what we did is just make an inferior copy of the original?
I've just read chapter 7 of Billy Bat, a comic/manga by the renown mangaka/comic artist
Urasawa Naoki. It's a pleasant read, and I find myself immersed inside the mysterious events unfolding in the manga.
In this latest chapter I've read, Urasawa cleverly put his words in the dialogues of the characters, discussing about what art is, and the issues of plagiarism - an issue very much delicate and sensitive to artists, which strikes home to me - I'm a digital artist myself, being involved with projects that requires my expertise as lead concept artist, sprite artist, and background artist.
These are a portion of the manga I'm talking about [SPOILER ALERT]:
*Copyright of the manga belongs to Naoki Urasawa and Kodansha.
What is art?
As being told in the manga, art is an expression - when the artist is inspired, he materializes that inspiration. That materialization comes to be called 'art'. To categorize them, people give names to similar classes of art - manga, drawing, lyrics, literature, architecture, design, song, composure, and many more.
But the original was not the one the artist himself creates. If the artist reads a lot of books or manga, he may have 'borrowed' stuffs from those readings, mixing and matching them.
And what is copyright?
Let's not forget that copyright is a manmade law. And as with every manmade law, it's not perfect. But as long as it keeps food on the table for the artist, it's enough. Law is initially made to protect. But with protection, comes confinement - which limits freedom. Quoting Robert Kiyosaki, "That's why the place with most security is prison. There's no freedom."
So who is the original author?
Who is it that inspires us?
We look at another experienced human, anskillful work of art, and we feel inferior.
But we forgot that he's just human, he's just another creation by God.
Never forget.
"God created man in his own image "
Look around us. Before we know it, we confine ourselves into manmade things. We look at manmade things, we forgot natural things. We become conceited. We think we can do everything on our own. We think we're great. We forgot we are only human, we are only inferior beings. Why not? We are surrounded by inferior creatures around us, we believe that everyone else is stupid, but the stupid one is actually us.
We must remind ourselves, we're only a work of art by the almighty God. I'm not atheist.
We must understand that we are not born with sin. We sin ourselves with our imperfectness in the course of our life. I'm not Christian.
Praise be the Lord.