Speaker 1: Pablo Picasso famously said, good artists copy, great artists steal. Here on the Fix Gerald channel, we've talked a little bit about plagiarism in literature and in music. Well, the art world is also no stranger to plagiarism, and today we're going to look at some of the best examples to understand what counts as plagiarism in art. The most famous case of plagiarism in art, probably the most amazing plagiarism scam of all time, was pulled off by Han van Meegeren, a Dutch painter who started by creating his own original artwork. Critics, however, called his work tired and derivative, which obviously affected his career. He decided to prove his talent by forging paintings of artists like Pieter de Hooch, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals, and he did such a good job that the best critics and experts accepted his forgery as genuine works. His most successful fake was the Vermeer painting, Supper at Emmaus, created in 1937. During the Second World War, he sold a Nazi general the fake Vermeer, and took, as payment, 137 paintings from the general's private collection. In fact, he duped buyers, including the government of the Netherlands, out of the equivalent of $30 million in 1967 money, which is over $254 million today. His works were so convincing that the police arrested him for selling Dutch cultural property to the Nazis. He would have faced the death penalty if he hadn't confessed to them being fakes. He's not the only one, though. John Mayatt painted over 200 forgeries, and Tom Keating claims to have faked over 2,000 paintings across 100 different artists, including Rembrandt. With increased access to the internet, plagiarism is becoming more and more of a problem in the creative world. In the case of literature, you have online tools, like the Fix Gerald Plagiarism Checker, which will show you whether you've even accidentally copied someone else's work. Plagiarism in art, however, blurs the lines a little bit. What counts as plagiarism? Plagiarists copy sketches, paintings, photos, and sometimes even sculptures. And when they do so, without permission or giving credit, it can be considered plagiarism. Even if they were to put a filter on the photograph, change the colours, or add a text overlay, it would still be plagiarism. This kind of plagiarism would be art theft, which is the blatant stealing of artwork and republishing it as your own. The other type is called tracing, which is the duplication of the original artwork with some enhancement. Keep in mind, though, that these enhancements still don't avoid a lawsuit. Consequences of plagiarism. They also don't avoid damage to your professional reputation, or penalties you'll have to pay if you are proven guilty of plagiarising someone's artwork. That's what happened when Jeff Koons was found guilty of plagiarism in Paris, and he had to pay a fine of $168,000 to the original creator of an ad he copied. Basically, Frank Davidovici, a French ad executive who created the 1985 campaign Fait Diver for a clothing brand called NafNaf. Jeff Koons then produced a sculpture that derived heavy inspiration from that campaign, and he even called the piece Fait Diver. And this isn't the first complaint against him. Koons has faced a total of five lawsuits for his banality collection alone, and one of the suits was settled out of court. Obviously, it never pays to copy. You might be successful for some time, but eventually the creators will find your work and they will come to collect. But truth be told, settlements like these are rare. What happens when the case is of a small creator against a giant corporation? Companies like Zara and Forever 21 have been accused of stealing artwork from smaller artists in Los Angeles, but we hardly ever hear of them paying damages to the accuser. This is why we need stricter laws surrounding art and plagiarism, and what counts as plagiarism. Online plagiarism checkers and artificial intelligence software definitely provide creators with proof, so they may voice their protest, but is proof even enough? How can we protect creators better and ensure that we allow inspiration without allowing copying? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below. There is a more detailed look at plagiarism in art on the Fix Gerald website, and I highly recommend checking it out. Thanks for watching, I'll see you in the next video.