The above image of 2B from Square Enix’s Nier: Automata is the work of artist Meli Magali. According to a bit of weekend drama, though, billionaire Elon Musk doesn’t think you should know that little piece of information.
As pointed out by Kotaku, Musk settled a lawsuit less than a year ago over using an artist’s work without giving them proper credit. Over the weekend, he decided to post an image of 2B without even bothering to say who made it. He didn’t make any money off of the tweet, though, so obviously no additional legal action is coming.
But just because he didn’t break the law doesn’t mean he’s in the right. Musk has an odd stance that artists should not be credited for their work, period. Given how much money the guy has made off of the work of others, that probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. But when we’re talking about the simple act of sharing an artist’s name when you post their work on social media, it’s not clear why he continues to be such a jerk about things.
The tweets have since been deleted but, when asked to credit the artist, Musk replied with a simple “No.”
When pressed about the matter, he decided to lean in even further. You can visit the original post for images of the tweets, but his response was: “I wish people would stop crediting artists on twitter when any fool can find out who the artist was in seconds. It’s destroying the medium.”
I don’t even know where to begin with those two seemingly simple sentences. It only takes a matter of seconds to credit a piece of art in the first place and, I could be wrong, but I think it might actually be pretty difficult to track down some of the random pieces of art that catch my attention on a daily basis. More importantly, how the hell is giving credit where it’s due “destroying the medium?”