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Appropriation art is not just a new concept in today’s day and age. Appropriation has been around for quite some time. According to the article The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem, the author Vladimir Nabokov, singer songwriter Bob Dylan, and King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry are all guilty of appropriation. This guilt, however, is not something to be ashamed of. No one doubts that Dylan is one of the greatest musicians of his time. Dylan, like many others, did not plagiarize but was simply inspired by the works of other great men before him including Shakespearre, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and old Hollywood films. Dylan took the aspects he loved about these people and films and the things that inspired him and made them new, made them his own.

Taking things that have already been done and making them your own is exactly what appropriation art is. Many people have done this whether they were remixing music, using songs as background music to uniquely and humorously display their ideas through a music video, or just taking old paintings and adding new things into them. Many artists use appropriation. It is a way to keep creativity in the world today.

Cory Arcangel is a present day artist who uses appropriation in a very interesting way. He is one of many self-taught programmers who make music and art with obsolete consumer technologies like video game cartridges and dot matrix printers. He has hacked into Super Mario Bros., a game from 1985, and replaced the program chip from the old Nintendo with a new chip that he created himself. By installing this chip, Arcangel erased everything in the game except the famous Super Mario clouds. He is taking something that has already been seen and done, but presenting it in his own unique and unconventional way.

Artists are not the only people who appropriate. Saturday Night Live, for example, is a television series, which has been broadcasted, live from New York on NBC. The show, which began in October of 1975 often, performs parodies of movies, television shows and current issues. Surely, the producers get their creativity from big time movies and television shows. They are not stealing; they are simply making it more humorous. SNL is definitely a well-liked program and has not suffered one bit from taking ideas from other medias.

The bottom line is that appropriation is not stealing. Appropriation is simply solution to the constant problem of how to express oneself. In today’s world where every person displays their life on the web it is hard to not see some familiarities with one another. If using and tweaking another person’s artwork, music, or ideas to get your point across then I say go for it. In a country that is built upon this idea of freedom appropriation should not be frowned upon, but accepted.