Creativity from Without

Over this past weekend, I saw the film The Social Network which is based on the Mark Zuckerberg's journey as he designed facebook.  Facebook has quickly become a part of nearly everyone's everyday life.  I know I click to facebook any time I'm sitting idly at my computer and I regular refer to people "facebooking me."  The Social Network depicted the process of Zuckerberg's invention of the number one social site on the internet in an intriguing, albeit glamourized and dramatized, way.  It posed the question of creative credibility.

Essentially, according to the movie, Zuckerberg was approached to create a website which he then morphed into the beginning of facebook.  This begs the question, was facebook really his idea and he was just inspired by the original website, or did he hijack the original idea and pass it off as his own?  My first inclination is to say "I have no idea," but I think this topic comes up a lot in the art world.  Where do you draw the line between inspiration and plagiarism? 

Shepard Fairey, a graphic artist and illustrator, designed the iconic "HOPE" image for Obama's presidential campaign in 2008.  His work became instantly associated with Obama - a connection that is unlikely to escape anyone's memory.  And yet Fairey's Obama poster uses an AP photograph as its jumping off point and has called "fair use" into question.  Can Fairey really call the "HOPE" poster his own if the original photo was, essentially, stolen from another artist?

I don't know if I'm qualified to draw these conclusions, but I think that what it comes down to is how the artist fulfills his or her point of view and how much that point of view differs from that of the original artist.  Zuckerberg saw potential for an internet empire in which exclusivity is prized and everyone can easily feed their curiosity by accessing information about people from your surroundings.  The original website was basically a dating site for elitest college kids.  Fairey turned a photograph that simply documented a moment into an icon with a clear message and a goal for swaying voters.  Both Zuckerberg and Fairey were inspired by the original website idea and, respectively, the AP photography.  By bringing their own clear points of views to an already existing idea or subject, the artist can claim ownership of the ultimate artwork.  To find inspiration from sources outside of an artist or designer is natural and should be embraced.

The first image is the official poster for the movie The Social Network.

The second image is of Fairey and his artwork and credit goes to Wikipedia.