Some admirer (probably himself) made a MEME that, naturally enough, told the world copyright is copy WRONG...and it went "viral" on Farcebook and other social-disease media.
It turns out the quote, from a book the grand British twit "wrote" in 2004, was stolen almost word for word from somebody else.
BANKSY hasn't commented yet, but you can predict his response. It'll either be: "Oh, pardon me, I meant to use quotation marks," or more likely, "I'm a guerrilla writer as well as the fab artiste who goes around spray-painting public buildings with my selfish self-advertising. Leave me alone. There are no rules. I'm a revolutionary. Most of all I'm an ORIGINAL...if you forget about all the pop artists and enfant terrible assholes from the past that I'm imitating..."
The great BANKSY MEME...
The pathetic thing is that if you look at the comments this asshole's MEME has drawn, 90% cheer him as brilliant. A few acknowledge he's a thief but figure that's ok, because copyright IS copy WRONG, and BANKSY is entitled to take somebody else's quotes without attribution. What's the big deal? The important thing is BANKSY is getting the message out, and that other guy didn't. The other guy should be grateful.
The message, after all, is that "trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law" are bad, bad, BAD, because "advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. FUCK THAT."
That's language we can understand: "FUCK THAT."
Childish, no? Look, I remember childish very well. I remember the Yippies. I remember Abbie Hoffman. I remember "Steal this Book." Phil Ochs was part of "guerilla theater" in the street. The whole idea was anarchy. Anarchy's great! Let's strip in the street, let's smoke dope, let's play our music loud, let's disrupt The Suits as they go to work. Let's go up on the roof and play "Get Back" and "I Dig a Pony," why don't we?
I understand youthful rebellion because I was part of it. But the difference, it seems to me, is there was more of a spirit of fun at the time. Abbie Hoffman was basically a clown. So was Hugh Romney who put on clown make-up and became "Wavy Gravy." Ken Kesey and his bunch went off on their silly Magical Mystery Tour bus to be "merry pranksters." Nobody was trying to make money off it, like fucking BANKSY who self-promotes his anarchy to make money for himself.
Most of what was going on back then was a counter-attack on THE WAR. We were being drafted. We did not want to be killed. Even so, we had a sense of humor...think of "The Fish Cheer" at "Woodstock." What was going on, in art, in music, in literature...was creative and original. Even at the level of fucking comic books...we had R. Crumb. What's going on today? "Graphic novels" are just comic books and that's all anyone reads?? And art is...BANKSY? Christ, and people thought Dali was commercial. At least Dali belongs in a museum.
There is no draft today. BANKSY has no real political agenda. Is he toppling Cameron with some kind of savage art work? He's no Tomi Ungerer, whose anti-war posters in the 60's were astonishing and witty.
About as political as BANKSY gets is painting Hitler into a bucolic painting and giving the canvas to a gay charity to sell. Lovely BANKSY, such a generous fellow (when he knows the fag-driven art world wouldn't get fully behind him otherwise). Charming BANKSY who cleverly kicks the Jews into the gutter at the same time. He knows what minority group he can victimize and get the maximum bang for his buck from a world of bratty Holocaust deniers. At a time when the old Jewish survivors of Dachau are almost all dead, antisemitism and Holocaust denial and Muslim scapegoating is at a new high...and here's BANKSY painting Hitler, with swastika armband, and being cheered for it.
Here's the original stupid quote where BANKSY takes on...billboard ads. Ooooooh, what a guy! Take on Cameron? Putin? World hunger? Boko Haram? Nah. But BILLBOARD ADS and intellectual property? Rah rah rah!
Neither of these twits bother to point out that advertising makes money for...US. The ads in the underground help pay for repairs. Ads on bus shelters have helped...pay for bus shelters. Tell me, TWITS, do you want to wait for the bus in the pouring rain? Or would you rather be able to sit down in a bus shelter, and glance at some annoying ad?
PS, most ads aren't that annoying. If they are, avert your eyes. I'm not a big fan of huge highway ads, bus shelter ads, subway ads...any public ads...but I'm mature enough to know that these are licensed ads that bring in money. Your problem, BANKSY, and everyone else, is what the government does with the revenue they get. But why fight the government and be a whistle-blower, and delve into government spending waste and write about it...when you can put graffiti on a fucking ad for crisps? And then make money for YOURSELF if you elusively scream, "I did it" from behind an Internet website, while not showing your face?
BANKSY is right for the times, isn't he? He's encouraging abuse of copyright, trademark, intellectual property...and being one of the few shrewd and clever enough to make money at the same time. He's the Kim Dotcom of shit-art. He's the Kim Jung-Un of spray paint. So little of what he's done is really art, or really shows anything beyond an art school dropout's capabilities. Like Pussy Riot, a truly shitty band that made it off their name and their politics, BANKSY has made it because he appeals to selfish stupid brats and affluent fags...just as a previous generation of jerks (like Christo, who put up a bunch of orange sheets in Central Park) made it by appealing to the rich "avant garde," who pretty much no longer exist.
I wish every BANKSY fan a spray-painted car, spray-painted and vandalized home, and burglars walking away with everything they value because "owners" of anything...copyright, intellectual property, or actual property...should be trampled on. Date rape. Murder. It's ALL good, isn't it? Viley Virus jokes about date rape. The news each day is full of selfish people who kill. Some football player worth $40 million is going to jail for murder. Bieber and his body guards regularly commit crimes. It's ALL good. It's ALL selfish.
I suppose part of the reason is that unlike the 60's, when kids only worried about The Bomb, and males worried about being killed in the war...today's youth are worried they'll be exploded while watching a parade, that The Bomb is much closer to falling because more nations have one, and the planet itself is being destroyed by climate change, by rampant poisons in our food, by new diseases, and by pollution. When we were kids, we didn't worry that there would be no food to eat because the fish were gone and the ground too dry to plant wheat.
So...the answer is Internet porn, trolling, bullying, hedonism, selfishness, proud illiteracy, creepy "reality shows," inane celebrities, and nasty puppet-manipulators like BANKSY and Assange and Kim Dotcom and the owners of GOOGLE, telling people to piss on common sense and ignore laws, and be vicious, heartless and vile.
Right, everyone, next time you see a street advert, write BANKSY all over it. Get some dynamite and plant it around some billboard ads on the highway and KA-BOOM. I'm sure it'll give you a great sense of pride and accomplishment, because you haven't the wit or the guts to do anything better.
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