DTC 356 is it piracy?

For my FA 332 class last spring, we were instructed to recreate an old painting. Something done by a master of his/her field, that exemplifies the themes that consist of a specific genre of art. I chose "The Guitar" by Juan Gris, a cubist painter from the same era as Picasso. I created an image in Photoshop that was supposed to be a modern, digital interpretation of his work. It features elements of guitars, an attempt at cubist perspectives, and certain colors that were obviously sampled from the original work.  Assuming that Juan's painting was made in recent times, I certainly sampled some content from his painting; did I pirate the idea from his work? Do I owe the original composer money?

            As Lessig mentions in Free Culture, the word "piracy" isn't well defined and encompasses much more than it should. It is hard to draw the line between inspiration and copying techniques. If Samsung's devices operate the same code as Apple to create the touch screen actions, then maybe they are copying and benefitting from it. If they saw an Apple phone, thought that it was a cool idea, and use the same commands to operate their phones one could argue that they were inspired.

            Companies need to take a step back and think about what is really hurting them. Lessig mentions "We may have been born a pirate nation, but we will not allow any other nation to have a similar childhood" (63). He indicates that our country has getting carried away with our piracy concerns. If a phone company takes the idea of pinching to make pictures smaller on the phone, is that the same as me taking the various techniques used by cubists and repurposing them? The devices interfaces looks different, most of the navigation is different, but an action by the user is the same. There are a few elements that resemble one another, although the end product is considerably different.

            Following the logic of the big corporations, does their new law suit mean that Apple is paying someone for the right to make a qwerty keyboard? Surely someone designed it and everyone else likes to use it. Apple's keyboard may not be the same font, size, or contain every button that was on the original keyboard but their users navigate it all the same. Who was the first to make a laptop where the screen folds up? I don't think they sued everyone from then on the claims that "we patented folding technology".

            Brands have been imitating others for centuries. Most artists have drawn inspiration from a wide variety of works before them. Apple may claim that Samsung stole their ideas but they didn't steal their property in a physical sense. As Lessig explains "The difference is, of course, that when you take a book from Barnes &Noble, it has one less book to sell. By contrast, when you take an MP3 from a computer network, there is not one less CD that can be sold" (64). Apple can still sell their product. They can continue to use the pinch and other touch screen actions to help their users navigate the phone. I doubt that anyone purchased a Samsung phone just so they could pinch a picture and make it smaller.