Creation or plagiarism?

This book primarily examines four lawsuits related to plagiarism in modern Korean art. In modern times, some artists intentionally or unintentionally engaged in plagiarism, which was not considered illegal due to the precept taught by Chinese artists and art critics such as Xie He: "to create by imitating the previous artist's philosophy and techniques." However, Korean artists in the modern era were influenced not by Chinese art, but by Japanese and Western art. Particularly from the 1960s, some artists began plagiarizing original artworks to submit to public competitions. The Korea Art Exhibition, a central government-sponsored competition, was the pivotal gateway for artists to achieve fame and high-level employment. Most of the juries associated with the competition did not voice strong criticism against detected plagiarized artworks. Furthermore, plagiarizing artists sometimes lied or expressed only moral regret. In examining this tendency to disrupt creativity, I suggest measures to curb plagiarism and briefly discuss the situation of AI-generated art, which allows for freer copying of originals without permission.