Week 1 Blog Comment #2 - Meghan Bassett

My response to Meghan Bassett:

Your blog really shows the push and pull of the struggle of how much to allow and where to draw the line. My six-year-old daughter is a great artist and some of the projects we do with her utilize copying the master’s such as van Gogh. You talk about emulating the technique of artists and I know that is important for developing artists. In the Renaissance I remember learning that the master would teach their students to copy them exactly so that the artist and their students would do big works of art and no one could tell the difference. The best students would then branch out and make a name for themselves when the timing was right. Of course we want the students to be creative on their own and not get into a habit of getting their ideas from other places instead of reflecting and bring it out of them. But sometimes the expression we are looking for depends on using something borrowed. Much like you expressed when it comes to saying just the right thing with music. This struggle of course will always be present in the creative process and is good for it. The hope though is that it will not hinder the process as it seems the current copyright practices are starting to do.

Meghan Bassett's blog link and copy of content:

http://meghanbassett.blogspot.com/

Being an Art Teacher, I always worry about my students copying work. In fact, one of my 4 rules in my classroom is no copying or ‘borrowing’ previously created characters. I do allow my students one project where they can use what they want, but that doesn’t get published anywhere.
The film brought up a great point when it comes to music. I sometimes hear a song and could swear I had heard it before. At times I have taken the time to think about it, at pinpoint what part of the song I recognized in the other song. They use such similar elements that it has to be so complicated to make a copyright infringement decision.
That being said, how much more recognizable would our work be, and how more into our work would our students be, if we could use samples of music that they can relate to? Not saying we should or could use them, but I think as far as education goes, it would be extremely useful if we could. For my screenflow videos, I use the tools taught to me in Music Theory and try to create my own music. In theory this is a great idea, but it’s time consuming and not always what I want.
I have to look a little more into artwork copyright laws at least for my students sake. My students aren’t obviously trying to steal anything from other artists, but are trying to emulate them to learn their techniques.