Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Copyright Infringement?

Cthulhu knows that I'm as guilty as any artist of "borrowing" more than my shares of images in the creation of art, or even this blog, in the early lawless days of the Internets.

But Bailey thinks that WaPo's Chief Art Critic Blake Gopnik's Twitter site has a case of the copyright infringement blues... Read Bailey here.

I don't know why, and I haven't asked Blake, but I get a nagging feeling that the Blake Gopnik Twitter site may be a spoof of sorts and not Blake's at all. Maybe I'm all wrong, but something doesn't "feel right" about some of the stuff that "Blake" writes in the site.

Any comments?

2 comments:

The Right Reverend James W. Bailey said...

From Gopnik's Twitter site:

Ah, paris, city of light. One cliche that sticks.

I don't know, Lenny, but lines like the above sure sound like Gopnik to me.

Remember this line penned by Gopnik?

Here's a fine idea. Let's find an abandoned school and then invite local dentists to ply their trade, free of charge, in its crumbling classrooms, peeling corridors and dripping toilets.

The above line about Paris from Gopnik's Twitter site reminds me of Gopnik's famous opening paragraph in his now legendary review of Art-O-Matic in which he compared visiting AOM to a trip to the dentist. :)

I just find it interesting that Gopnik doesn't credit the artist of the mural, a photograph of which appears on his Twitter site - especially considering the fact that Gopnik so praised this mural in a previous published article.

The issue of reproducing the photograph of the mural in question is probably an issue between Gopnik and the Washington Post and its credited photographer.

You would think that a well-known art critic who actually penned a glowing review of this mural that is now embedded in the art critic's Twitter site would at least give the artist his props by crediting his name.

Unnamed and semi-anonymous artists have names.

Gopnik knows the name of this artist.

I'm simply questioning why Gopnik would not give the artist Frank a little bit of respect on his Twitter site.

The mural/work of fine art/advertising sign/whatever you want to call it did not just create itself out of thin air. An Hispanic artist named Frank created it.

I think its safe to say that if Gopnik had embedded a photograph by Sally Mann on his Twitter site that she would be properly credited.

Anonymous said...

Dude, you call it! It isn't Blake!