The “There’s Nothing New Under The Sun” award this week goes to photographer Connie Hong and the Shanghai branch of Ogilvy & Mather Advertising for their creative repurposing of Jill Greenberg’s crying child style in order to sell pasta.
TPI has mentioned this topic before – see post . It would seem that copyright enforcement is difficult because despite the fact that stylistic attributes and techniques are Greenberg’s, the subject matter – crying children – is open to everyone. At this point Greenberg has not launched a counter attack a la William Klein.
We all tend to build on things that we see and it is possible to argue that good ideas take hold because their time has come. What do you think? Will copycat behaviour increase – through exposure – the value of Greenberg’s work, or will it dilute the impact of her ideas?
