If you’ve seen Exit Through the Gift Shop by Banksy, you know the artist behind this bit of street art. His name is  Mr Brainwash. Whether you like this is irrelevant. The point is that Mr. Brainwash creates by copying. And he continues to do so. Banksy himself does not go so far as to call him an impostor, but he clearly implies it. But is anyone listening? Not the art world anyway, which does not see this as plagiarism but as outright invention. In fact, the belief is that he’s using other works to create altogether new art with a signature all its own, much like Youtube phenom Patrick Boivin is doing by the way.

So no this cheeky mash-up is not restricted to the web. Mr. Brainwash is all the craze in the art world right now. And copying is not showing signs of relenting. You don’t even have to be paying attention to recognize it. Hip Hop music has been doing this forever.

The point is copyright may very well be choking creativity. Rip: Remix Manifesto by Brett Gaylor touches on this. Gaylor uses the recording artist Girl Talk as the poster child of remix culture. This film makes a case for what’s wrong with copyright right now. And Canada’s current bid to redefine copyright with bill C-32 is still a further example of what’s wrong and will continue to be wrong with copyright.

Take the thriving fashion industry, for example, where there’s no copyright to speak of.  A dress, no matter who designed it, is part of the public domain. While there is trademark protection in the fashion industry, there’s very little intellectual property protection.

Check out Johanne Blakley: Lessons from Fashion’s Free Culture, yet another indictment of copyright. She challenges the widely accepted notion that “without ownership of copyright there is no incentive to innovate.” Blakley argues that the absence of copyright in the fashion industry actually opens up the creative process. Copying, says Blakley, encourages the democratization of culture, speeds up trends and ensures the acceleration of creative innovation. In the end, it’s all good for the bottom line. The global and economic success of high end design speaks for itself.

Blakley compares gross sales of low intellectual property industries (food, fashion, automobile) with high intellectual property (films, books, music) industries. And wouldn’t you know it, low intellectual property industries fared far, far better. Numbers don’t lie.

What are the film, music and book industries waiting for to copy this revolutionary business model?

At any rate, those who are vying for more copyright restrictions will be on the wrong side of history. Just look at the sclerotic music business.

So if you want to stay ahead of the curve, copy.

We were back in NY recently and this is what happened to the piece…