‘Great Developers Steal Ideas, Not Products’

David Barnard, in a post from 2011 on the oft-cited (and oft-misattributed) adage about good artists copying and great artists stealing:

In dancing around the moral and semantic differences between borrowing and stealing, I’ve been missing the greater point. Elliot used the word steal, not for its immoral connotation, but to suggest ownership. To steal something is to take possession of it.

When you steal an idea and have the time and good taste to make it your own, it grows into something different, hopefully something greater. But as you borrow more and more from other products, there’s less and less of you in the result. Less to be proud of, less to own.

Barnard quotes the actual origin of the adage, from T.S. Eliot, and that alone is worth a bookmark. In Eliot’s formulation, it’s not copying vs. stealing, but imitating vs. stealing. That subtle distinction is clarifying. People who are creative and ethical generally see the clear distinction between remixing and ripping off. I add generally there because some people are truly offended when the ideas behind their own creations are remixed — stolen — by others.

To name one notable example, I’d argue that Android, as a whole, is a remix of the iPhone. But there are specific Android handsets — starting with some early Samsung Galaxy models — that are rip-offs of iPhone hardware designs. Steve Jobs, however, felt otherwise.

(And which is not to say Google hasn’t often been a shameless imitator/copycat.)

★ Friday, 1 March 2024