TW: @ssault.
Edit: This is an account of my experiences. Everyone is entitled to their own and may or may not feel this describes their situations.
At the beginning of my theft experience, I felt a queasy and unsettled rough spot in my chest that gnawed at my sense of safety.
It felt like the many times I’d experienced sexual harassment.
Not long after exposing another artist for stealing from me, I experienced back-to-back sexual assaults. The parallels between these experiences became crystal clear.
Theft and assault are rooted in entitlement to someone else’s body, whether a physical body or a body of work.
At first glance it isn’t obvious how problematic artistic theft is. Perhaps this is because we learn to steal early; our first lessons occur in art class, via tv or the radio. We learn to view beauty the same way we learn about bodies. The people on screen don’t have feelings. They exist for our personal pleasure. The art hangs in a sterile museum or distant social media profile, depersonalizing the creator.
Copying by contrast is cooperative and a temporary learning tool. In a learning environment like a workshop or school, there is a level of consent between parties. You have permission to combine your ideas with someone else’s and create a new entity.
Every partnership is contingent on reciprocity. The terms are subject to change. Experienced creators can juggle multiple partnerships at once with clear agreements in place. Whether a one-time thing or a long term situation, all healthy collabs have clear boundaries.
The best creative/romantic partners understand the sanctity of this union and treat it with care. When we have children (people or projects), we combine our DNA to breathe life into a new path. These offspring are not carbon copies of one person; they strongly resemble each partner. We attribute parentage to our partners and they rejoice in our shared ownership.
If co-creation is so beautiful, theft is that much more painful.
When we resist theft, it can sound like complaining or disdain for a spotlight. Sometimes saying no takes the form of a project or post. And unfortunately our responses to those in resistance parallel our responses to assault victims.
“You should be grateful you’re getting all this attention.”
“You don’t own [your body/of work].”
“What were you doing/teaching/wearing?”
“Did you fight back? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I would be flattered.”
“This has happened to me, and I wasn’t bothered.”
The aftermath of outing someone for bad behavior is also parallel. Public opinion favors the aggressor. “At least you weren’t completely replicated” is a common argument. The target is discarded and ostracized as washed up, tainted, or damaged.
All of my sexual assault was performed by men. Almost all of my artistic theft occurred at the hands of women. Anyone of any gender can experience and perpetuate this problem.
It makes you angry, sad, and exhausted. Instead of sharing yourself openly, you shrink from public view and new experiences. It stirs you awake at night; someone is profiting off a piece of you that wasn’t freely given. You question who to trust and practice hyper-vigilance around anyone interested in your work. The law stops short of blatant replication, which means it’s up to us to shift the narrative.
At scale artistic theft looks like erasure of underinvested groups and cultural origins lost to history. I don’t have to recount centuries of white supremacy and colonialism forced on vibrant cultures. We already know. Artistic theft seems innocent, but misogyny and white entitlement are its heartbeat. I’ve never read Steal Like an Artist. I hear it’s amazing, though I wonder if this phrase emboldened us to steal without fully grasping the consequences of a botched job. The act of theft/assault is about filling a void in one’s identity. It never works, of course.
Dominating someone else in any capacity does not bring us closer to beauty, nor does it give us the connection to self or others that we deeply desire.
If we grapple with this overlap, we give ourselves the chance to choose a different culture, one that promotes safety, security, and consent for everyone in the creator space.
So how can we shift away from theft culture?
Search Ourselves. Where have we fallen short? Have we stolen, and did we linger in that practice momentarily or longer than necessary? Does someone else’s experience activate fear or shame in us?
Seek Consent. Want to study someone’s work? Ask them. Want to post it online somewhere? Ask them. Want to make a spin-off project? Ask them. Ask others for their boundaries and get enthusiastic consent.“No” is a valid answer.
Recalibrate the Dynamic. A target will know when someone has grabbed them without consent. Nobody enjoys coming forward or deserves to suffer regardless of audience size, talent, identity or perceived strength. If the power dynamics are uneven, (social power, underinvested group status, etc), consider who has more to lose. Society skews towards blaming targets. Listen openly.
Follow Evidence. Theft has a pattern, often over years and involving multiple targets. Observe evidence and ask questions.
Name Bad Behavior. The more often we name theft, the less common it becomes. Like streetlights on a quiet street, shining light on the darkness keeps crime at bay.
This article was made possible by private talks with several artists of different genders, who prefer to remain nameless. Their contributions and privacy are deeply respected. Many thanks to Amber Vittoria for her accompanying illustration and chronic discussion which helped inform this topic.