Gilda

Sure, all of the elements of art that are used by artists already exist. This doesn't justify the direct use of someone else's work.

Sure, but merely taking somebody else's work and reediting it isn't creativity.

Supreme was created by Rob Leifeld for Image comics. Alan Moore's work on the title was work for hire, i.e., he wrote stories using that character with the permission of the owner (Image Comics).

Courts ruling on the use of comic characters copyright infringement have consistently ruled that the use of an archetype--such as the flying, tough, strong guy or the street vigilante--don't violate copyrights so long as the particular images, name, history, or stories aren't copied. Image couldn't create a red and blue clad, black-haired, blue-eyed, super strong flying man named Clark Kent who was an alien and reporter, but they were certainly within their rights to create a white clad, white haired, super-strong, super-tough, flying man named Ethan Crane who was an artist and who got his powers from a radioactive meteor.

Using the same basic building blocks is hardly stealing. If clean flicks wants to make their own action movies or romances, using the same basic story types and plot lines as hundreds of movies before them, but without the cursing and blood and sex, I'm all for it.

Evil? Wow, that's going a bit far.

I'd say that copyright laws are far too lax, and allowing other people to use and to profit from my work without my consent or permission is bad.

I think I'd be best qualified to determine what modifications of my creation are good or bad, especially since someone else, not me, is making money off of my creation.

I'd call that theft, not creativity.

By siphoning off profits for yourself, you're actually dimishining the value of my property to me. If you've diminished the work with your changes, you've caused the perception of that work to be harmed. If you've actually produced a product that is percieved in some way to be superior to my original, then you've hurt my ability to profit from my work by stealing my potential customers.

Hence my Supreme/Superman example. There are flying strong guys all over the place. Captain Marvel, Superman, Supreme, Prime, Hyperion, Endymion, Majestic, etc. You're perfectly welcome to create your own flying strong guy in a cape, and by doing so you can tap into the cultural knowledge of the Titan archetype, thus standing upon the shoulders of giants as you (and Newton) say earlier. But by not being able to use Superman specifically, you're forced to come up with your own origin, personality, back story, supporting cast, environment, and so on--you have to be more creative in creating your Titan than you would be if you just used Superman.

That copying someone else's art demonstrates a lack of creativity seems pretty obvious to me. Copying and creating aren't synonyms, they're antonyms.

It isn't creativity, it's theft.

Gilda

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert