In my opinion, the concept that a minor change to someone's work is considered "creative" and that it creates and builds on another person's idea is ludicrous. Credit should be given to the original artist, and then credit can be given to the artist who built upon his/her idea. That Stephen Colbert could make a few scribblings on the cover of Lawrence Lessig's book, then commit plagiarism by drawing a profile picture of Snoopy on the inside and now claim the book as his own was ridiculous on it's face. What about the writing inside? He clearly did not do that. How could Lessig say that was okay? I would not want someone to do that sort of thing to any work of mine and claim it as their own simply because they changed, or added, a few things to it. Besides, the only reason this book could probably have added value would be because Colbert is a celebrity. If I did that to someone's book, I doubt it would become more valuable.
On the other side of it though, if an artist creates something and another artist totally transforms it into something else based on the original idea, that would be a different story. People do see things differently. In my mind, Colbert would have to totally redesign the cover, make the Snoopy drawing inside much different, and re-write the text. That, to me, would be a new work.
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