When I first posted my Minted chal­lenge favorites last week, I had no idea that the result­ing con­ver­sa­tion would take the course it did. That post gen­er­ated the most com­ments we’ve ever had on any given entry, which made it pretty clear that peo­ple want to talk. So this seemed like the per­fect time for us to start the Let’s Talk series—something I’ve been plan­ning to start for quite awhile—to con­tinue the conversation.

Before I throw in my two cents, let me get this out of the way—I am in no way an expert on copy­right or pla­gia­rism. I have my own opin­ions, but I def­i­nitely have more ques­tions than answers, which is why I’m espe­cially curi­ous to hear what you all have to say.

These days, with most artists hav­ing mul­ti­ple online homes, it’s become eas­ier and eas­ier for those who don’t have ideas of their own to steal from oth­ers. Clearly a huge prob­lem. And it’s a topic that artists are def­i­nitely con­cerned about, as blogs like You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice have cropped up to doc­u­ment this very thing.

But at the same time, it seems to me that we’ve also become hyper­sen­si­tive to poten­tial copy­right infringe­ments. I’ve been see­ing more and more com­ments that go some­thing like, “This looks like this…” with a link to some other piece of art­work they think the posted work has been stolen from. Granted they may be right, but what if they’re not?

When it hap­pens on this blog it puts me in a strange posi­tion. I do my best to post work that is orig­i­nal. But since we are bom­barded with with thou­sands of images every day (from places like this very blog), it’s vir­tu­ally impossible—from a tim­ing stand­point as well as a purely infor­ma­tional standpoint—to trace every sin­gle piece of work’s his­tory. It also puts the artist in a posi­tion where they’re forced to defend them­selves (if they even see the accu­sa­tion) in a very pub­lic forum.

Most recently I’ve seen this in regards to The Social Network movie poster. Half of the com­ments on the var­i­ous blogs where it’s been fea­tured link to pieces of work that look some­what sim­i­lar (see below). And most of the time I sort of see their point. The exam­ples are other layouts—book cov­ers, posters, whatever—that also fea­ture a tight crop of a face under­neath white typography.

Mind you, I’m part of the camp that thinks the Social Network poster is smart, well-designed and eye-catching. Maybe white type on top of a photo isn’t the most orig­i­nal idea. But is it that impos­si­ble to think that another designer arrived at the solu­tion to layer white type over a head­shot with­out con­sciously rip­ping off another piece of work? And don’t the other ele­ments on the page—the Facebook bar etc.—add orig­i­nal­ity to the design solution?

This is just one exam­ple. But I find that the same type of ques­tions keep com­ing up.

Blatantly steal­ing some­one else’s work is always wrong. Being inspired by those you admire is not, and I think this is where the line gets blurry. When it’s not obvi­ous, how can you take a piece of work at face value and know whether the artist came to that con­clu­sion entirely on their own, whether they out­right stole another artist’s work, or whether they were sub­con­sciously influ­enced by the work after see­ing it online?

So how do we pre­vent peo­ple from steal­ing our work and the work of oth­ers with­out being so quick to assume the worst? And where do we draw the line on a piece that is inspired by ver­sus a rip-off? What do you all think?