In Praise of Copying (review)

Anyone who followed Barack Obama's popularity leading up to the 2008 presidential election in the United States no doubt recalls the iconic "Hope" image that seemed to become the unofficial poster of the campaign, because many felt it defined Obama's message so well. The poster itself was so powerful in a symbolic sense that the Smithsonian Museum acquired it when Obama took office, despite their usual policy of collecting official portraits of presidents as they are leaving office. As it turned out, the artist, Shepard Fairey, had used an Associated Press (AP) photograph to achieve the likeness. As a result, a question arose: Did Fairey's use of a photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia, require permission or was it covered by fair use? The ensuing legal case, which was settled out of court, has stimulated enormous amounts of discussion because of the many examples of artists who have copied photographs to create their work. (For example, Gerhard Richter has conceived numerous series based on photographs.)

More amusing are the Jeff Koons cases. Koons recently sent a "cease-and-desist" letter to an artist he claimed was copying his balloon dog sculptures. Like Fairey, Koons settled this case out of court. The Koons case received quite a bit of coverage because this artist has been sued several times for copyright infringement. A better-known case is perhaps Rogers v. Koons (1992), in which the court agreed with Art Rogers, a photographer, who claimed that Koons had used Rogers's material to model three sculptures he then sold for $367,000.

These vignettes are among the many that touch upon the variety of questions concerning the nature of copies and originals. While the computer, the Internet and our global society have perhaps heightened awareness of what we gain and lose with copies, as Marcus Boon shows in his book, In Praise of Copying, the subject of copying is neither new nor simple. Walking us through an immense volume of information, Boon argues that copying is an essential part of being human and demonstrates the complexity of the subject.

The strength of Boon's book is this author's ability to write easy-to-read text and to simultaneously provide an erudite discussion. In part, this is accomplished by putting many of the nuances into the footnotes. This is an effective approach given the breadth of the presentation. Equally compelling is the volume's originality, particularly in light of a thesis that validates copying. I wondered if he would argue, along the lines of a Nietzsche quote he includes, that life itself is an appropriation, and thus his work is more a compilation of material than an original perspective. In any case, in my view, the presentation is novel due to Boon's use of Buddhism as a touchstone to the broad sweep of Western ideas.

The author explains that his impetus to write the book grew out of the observation that copying is pervasive in contemporary culture, yet at the same time subject to laws, restrictions and attitudes that suggest "copying" is wrong. Proposing that we need to rethink how we see the tension between copies and originals, Boon suggests that Mahayana Buddhism, in its various historical forms, offers entry into the subject because it provides a way to rethink the common duality of terms that have historically supported Western views. While Buddhism may offer an alternative to dualistic types of ideas such as subject/object, I did not find the dualistic thesis convincing regarding copies. Even before I read the volume, the tensions between originals and copies did not strike me as a dichotomy.

One interesting aspect of the Buddhist perspective is that it allows for a comprehensive overview and does not compel a "new" ethics, so to speak. Rather the effort highlights the role of copies in our culture, largely through a weaving of critical theory, philosophical history and cultural examples. Platonic mimesis is meshed with...