{"id":680666,"date":"2010-03-02T14:13:07","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T19:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Gizmodo-5483914"},"modified":"2026-10-04T11:06:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T15:06:56","slug":"steve-jobs-1996-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/680666","title":{"rendered":"Steve Jobs, 1996: &quot;Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal&quot; [Apple]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- videoId: CW0DUg63lqU --><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\nnewVideoPlayer( {\"type\":\"video\",\"player\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.youtube.com\\\/v\\\/CW0DUg63lqU&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22\",\"customParams\":[],\"width\":500,\"height\":412,\"ratio\":0.824,\"flashData\":\"\",\"embedName\":null,\"objectId\":null,\"noEmbed\":false,\"source\":\"youtube\"} );\n<\/script><!-- \/videoId: CW0DUg63lqU --> Oh, hello! A trip to the YouTube wayback machine shows that 1996&#8217;s Steve &#8220;Great Artists Steal&#8221; Jobs might have taken issue with <a class=\"autolink\" title=\"Click here to read more posts tagged #stevejobs\" href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/tag\/stevejobs\/\">Steve Jobs<\/a> 2010, and his <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/5483632\/apple-sues-htc-for-infringing-on-20-iphone-patents-the-complete-documents?skyline=true&#038;s=i\">patent lawsuit firebombing<\/a> of HTC. Irony!<\/p>\n<p>The comment was made during a 1996 PBS documentary called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/nerds\/tvdes.html\">Triumph of the Nerds<\/a>,&#8221; and looks a smidge hypocritical in light of today&#8217;s events. As does this one:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Goodness. If that&#8217;s true, then lawyering up against innovative competitors must be the one of the best ideas you ever heard.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, compare the above to what Jobs said just today in the press release about the HTC lawsuit:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We&#8217;ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but <strong>competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Emphasis added. That&#8217;s quite a 180 for a company and a man who have always been known for respecting and triumphing innovation. A disappointing one, at that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update:<\/strong> To clarify, and as is clear in the video, Jobs was quoting Pablo Picasso in the headlined quote. The follow-up quote is all him. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU\">YouTube<\/a> via commenter <a href=\"http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/comment\/20007385\">Fractal the Meek<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p><br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=ca47a2ee0959d8bf41c0804b240792fe&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=ca47a2ee0959d8bf41c0804b240792fe&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?resize=0%2C0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=ECb0fwRKu-8:WNC9izM5EPw:H0mrP-F8Qgo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=ECb0fwRKu-8:WNC9izM5EPw:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=ECb0fwRKu-8:WNC9izM5EPw:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?i=ECb0fwRKu-8:WNC9izM5EPw:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.gawker.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?a=ECb0fwRKu-8:WNC9izM5EPw:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/gizmodo\/full?i=ECb0fwRKu-8:WNC9izM5EPw:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/gizmodo\/full\/~4\/ECb0fwRKu-8\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, hello! A trip to the YouTube wayback machine shows that 1996&#8217;s Steve &#8220;Great Artists Steal&#8221; Jobs might have taken issue with Steve Jobs 2010, and his patent lawsuit firebombing of HTC. Irony! The comment was made during a 1996 PBS documentary called &#8220;Triumph of the Nerds,&#8221; and looks a smidge hypocritical in light of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3563,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2R4u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781534,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680666\/revisions\/781534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}