Times they are a-changing... or are they?

I have seen a few blog posts recently that stand up and say to would-be-writers and developing writers: read, read, read and steal, steal, steal - everything. It seems that everywhere I look I see something about art being about stealing and developing ideas that have come from other works. Has the world gone mad? Is this a 'Brave New World' we are creating for ourselves?

Well, not really. It's what I have said all along and others have said before me: we are the product of what has gone into our heads and so what we produce must be influenced by what has gone before. That's just common sense. But if it is to be something other than mere copying (which would be an infringement of the copyright rules) then it has to be something more, a development on what has gone before. It must add something to what is already 'out there'. That's how Art works.

But let's not think that this is anying new. Here, read Goethe:

“What am I then…? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity, and old age all have brought me their thoughts,… their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name of Goethe.”

And so, those petty people who are so prissy precious about their ideas need to wake up and do some serious thinking and realise that their ideas are only really worth anything if they are passed on and made much of. There should not be a sense of having been stolen from, but rather that someone else has been fed and watered by what you put out there. When I give blood it makes me feel like I have done good in the world; when someone takes my idea and makes a new life out of it, then I should feel good also. Is the blogosphere waking up to this? Is that why I am seeing so much on the subject just now? Do we need to differentiate between plagiarism where actual arrangements of words are lifted and 'plagiarism' where an 'artist' uses another's ideas as a starting point for a new work of art?