It's easy to get into viral trouble...

This posting from cycling industry website Bike Biz caught my eye for two reasons.

Firstly it tells a story of how London transport body TfL has got into trouble for implied plagiarism.  A neat idea for a viral ad has been attacked for failing to credit the original brains behind a very simple idea.  (to be honest - as I remember the original this version isn't all that hot!)

Secondly though, it does remind me of the point that you can only see what you're looking for...

Follow the links through to You-Tube...

Enjoy

Liam

Comments

[Tom Abbott]

There are quite a few examples of this:

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/cpayne/entry/sugar_puffs_crimping/
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2007/10/plagiarism.html

Derren Brown did a great trick once where he got two ad men to come up with an advert and he basically came up with the same ad without any sight of what they did.

You can see the item here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

What's interesting about these is the extent to which these are conscious decisions to copy a style or work as opposed to unconscious decisions based on received messages and images.

It's also interesting to consider this from a perspective of creativity and originality. I'm not sure Shakespeare ever credited the earlier playwrights whom he took ideas from and there is always the line about 'there are only 7 stories in the English Language'. In the current age, however, it pays to wear your influences on your sleeve - and reward the original artist if you profit from it. If you put this together with the discussion about DRM then you can see just how broken the current copyright, IPR and artist protection frameworks really are.