Andrea Sacchetti who is an Italian student of photography, is in trouble for plagiarizing blatantly Aida Muluneh famous Ethiopian photographer and artist and exhibiting his knock-off in the 2021 Milan Photo Festival. The most striking thing about this case is the obviousness of the plagiarism is as well as the setting that it’s being displayed at.

It’s also an excellent jumping off for discussions about the differences between plagiarism and inspiration.

The entire theft issue

In the year 2014 Muluneh took a number of photographs interpreting the work of Dante’s Inferno to be displayed on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. “The” 99 Series featured a model that was covered in white paint, with red hands set against an uncolored background. It’s an incredible series.

And then, earlier in the month an account on the African Women in Photography Twitter account discovered Sacchetti’s “eerily like” project in the group exhibit during the Milan Photo Festival. They were, of course, quick to call it “another instance that is theft” as well as “unacceptable.”

It was the Istituto Italiano Fotografia assigned students to translate Dante’s Inferno and Sacchetti inexplicably copied Muluneh without attribution or permission creating a sequence of diptychs using an image of a white model with red hands and photographed against the backdrop of gray.

The Milan Photo Festival, in the now deleted Instagram statement, stated “there was no intention to copywrite an accomplished author. We are aware that the young photographer has apologized already.”

This, to be honest appears to be an over-the-top excuse due to the similarity between the two images. Muluneh seems to be feeling the same way, stating that she is taking “this extremely personally” and Sacchetti’s apology was “not the end of the story,” in a Twitter post.

Copyright does not play a role in this

The first reaction of many people in such a scenario is to say something about copyright. But according to what I’ve explained in a different article that only artworks can be copiedrighted but not concepts.

If Sacchetti printed copies of the work of Muluneh and showed it in Milan it could constitute a violation of copyright. However, since he re-created the work in his own hands and holds the copyright for the new work.

Can Muluneh bring a lawsuit against him? Perhaps however, the court case will be costly, and likely not be able to go very far and would be conducted in Italian. It’s not really a tale of illegal activity or immoral conduct, but rather of a morally wronged behaviour.

The theft of inspiration versus the theft

There’s no clear and fast line that separates being in the same direction as someone else and copying it. It’s a spectrum with the majority of instances falling between the two.

In this case, Sacchetti claims (through the Festival’s since deleted Instagram declaration) the festival had “no intention to copy.” According to that statement I’m guessing that we’re to conclude that he was inspired by the work of Muluneh.

Here is where things start to get tricky.

There are a myriad of possible ways Sacchetti may have been influenced by Muluneh and not plagiarized her:

• If he was looking for technical training He could have duplicated her image as close to it as he could and not shown it.
• If you want to take a more artistic method it would have been possible to use the work of his artist as a starting into exploring various colours, hand placements or subjects similar.

However, that’s not what happened. The image in question is evidently a knockoff. It’s definitely to be too similar for it to be intentional, and falls short in both artistic and technical aspects.

One of the reasons for this is that the work of Muluneh is distinctive. It’s not a typical photographic motif, like the double exposure of a human figure and the outdoors or the selective-color image of roses–but an incredibly unique and stunning work of art.

Other aspects to consider

There are other instances where it is virtually impossible to copy.

The most well-known tourist attractions such as those of the Empire State Building have been photographed from every possible angle. It’s likely that whatever you’re thinking of doing there’s been someone else who’s done it before. That doesn’t mean your photo is stealing your idea. In fact, you’re likely to have been in the same direction as the huge existing collection that includes Empire State Building photos.

Moving closer to the middle of the spectrum is not uncommon for landscape photographers who usually check out the photos other photographers have shot in a particular location prior to visiting. If someone else is standing in the exact spot and snaps a photo similar to one that they have seen online, is it the result of inspiration or is it a copycat?

Well, it depends.

How many others have taken the photo? Are they trying to put their own spin on the subject or trying to replicate the photo as closely as they can? What are their goals at the moment?

It’s often difficult to determine this is the reason why instances of theft of images and plagiarism are so tense. They’re rarely as straightforward like this case.