When is an idea just coincidental and when is it stealing. There have been many waves of themes in art that sometimes make you think was this a unconscious hive mind thought or did one company hear about it and create the same thing to compete.
Examples of the supposed hive mind happen a lot in entertainment current events have that effect and making money is the producers goal.
Remember Dantes peak and Volcano
Image credit: MovieGoods.com / ReleaseDonkey.com
There are Tons of examples of the hive mind at work
Then you have people who reference other artwork or depending who you talk to rip it off. My college friend refused to talk about the Lion King because her favorite show was Kimba the white Lion
Or Disney copies their own work
Is it an homage to the days of old laziness (animation is expensive) no clue
there are many famous artworks out there that everyone has seen and have imprinted on their minds. Composition mathematics causes artists to make similar decisions because it is pleasing to the eye. Pantone 448 C, declared the world's ugliest color, is not going to be used anytime soon.
The most recent example is this article . Ankur Patar was hired by Adobe as part of a campaign to show off their stock photo collection. His task was to recreate "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," a 1633 painting by Rembrandt that was stolen in 1990 and never recovered. Using only stock images, Patar was able to create a remarkable imitation; you can see his process here on his website
an artist in the Fstoppers Community had posted his own recreation of the exact same Rembrandt painting six months prior to Adobe's new ad campaign. Although Joël Vegt's version was a bit more humorous, the resemblance was rather uncanny.
Read more on how this story turns out
The long and short of it we really never know what happens in the artists mind. It is up to us to police ourselves and do what we believe to be morally right. The golden rule still applies and if you had this happen to you it is a difficult position to be in. Keep records of your work date, photograph, watermark, hide little clues like old mapmakers of the past and know if your art is stolen and you can't do anything about it you are still good enough for someone to want to take credit for your work. Make more art better that what they stole challenge them to online. Never stop or they'll really win
https://fstoppers.com/composite/these-photos-show-thin-lines-between-coincidence-plagiarism-and-inspiration-139597
