Did Apple steal the Finder icon from Pablo Picasso? | Hacker News Reader

Did Apple steal the Finder icon from Pablo Picasso?

macgasm.net

13 pointsjeffmiller15 comments

I would be surprised if Picasso was the first to do this. If you play around with permutations of faces, it's probably in the first 1000 things you'd come up with, if not the first 100. So while the answer could be yes, Occam's Razor implies it's no.

Inspired by: probably. Stolen: absolutely not.

The style is obviously the same. I think the 'stolen' claim comes from the using not only the same style, but (in this instance) the same dual-color scheme on a face.

I say that it's inspired, and not stolen. Though I find it interesting that the color scheme even came from Picasso. I assumed that it was just the style that was inspired by Picasso.

It's funny that it was Picasso who said "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal" (http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3500), a quote that Steve Jobs likes.

"Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." -- Pablo Picasso

Steve Jobs: "And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas"

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

If you'd call that an "idea".

I think cubism was hell of an idea. Probably an idea of an genius. :)

So what is the difference between copying and stealing according to Picasso and Steve Jobs? How do people interpret this?

I can think of a possible answer but I'm not sure this is what other people think.

Where is this a stolen piece. If they did the whole picture it would stolen, if they took a certain part of the picture it would be stolen, but the didn't. The picture of Picasso is just awesome, the Finder icon is ok, could be drawn by a kid.

"Picasso had a saying, he said, 'Good artists copy; great artists steal', you know, and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." --Steve Jobs

So that's about all there is to say about that.

Someone just got a subscription to Duh! magazine. Congrats.

P.S. There's nothing wrong with being inspired by good art, even to the point of highly derivative imitation. Aping what others have done well is how things advance.

Nothing is created in a vacuum. Good job for noticing the similarity but honestly, who cares?

I care. It actually fascinates me.

Yes.

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