… and trying to worm your way out, once you’ve been accused, can also be ugly.
For an article about the rise of fascist movements, the Polish news magazine Przekrój used a cover image of Hitler’s face with a barcode instead of a mustache.
Very clever. Also very already done.
The cover artist argues it’s all a remarkable coincidence:
[T]wo artists arrived at the same conceptual solution independently … [T]he similarity is more a comment on the fact that we think and solve visual problems alike than anything more.
Unfortunately, the similarity lies in far more than the use of the mustache as a barcode.
September 7th, 2011 at 8:22PM
I’ve not seen the Przekrój article and it’s behind a paywall, but just judging from the cover headline, having a Universal Product Code mustache makes sense since the article says something to the effect of Nazism “selling very well”. So it probably has relevant context here, but unfortunately someone else got there first with the image.
I don’t agree with Maria Popova’s analysis in her Atlantic piece, however: “it comes down to a rather simple litmus test: If a derivative work changes the original in a creatively meaningful way, or offers cultural commentary or critique on it, then it’s a new original work of its own creative merit; if it merely parrots or mimics the original while adding no context or commentary, then it’s a rip-off.” It’s a very generous definition of what represents “new original work” and rather than being a simple test, creates a lot of moral ambiguity.