Nothing new: Intertextuality

Intertextuality, fancy word for lack in originality. Although not really plagiarism, but more towards "influence".
According to Julia Kristeva: "the term intertextuality denotes transportation of one sign to another"

“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931
Le Conquete de l’ubiquite

Quite the opposite of semiotics, in intertextuality, you try not to find any sense in it.

On the order hand, thanks to Picasso's quote:

Creations nowadays is a ripoff, if not collaboration on a bunch of things that influence or inspire us. In fact, here is an outgoing link on how to steal as an artist.

However, in today's world, it's hard to find any sense of originality anymore, there seems to be a never-ending loop of things keep repeating itself. For example, take a look at movie, there are hardly any new, interesting script anymore, in fact, the so-called blockbuster, is just a bunch of sequels, prequels or new adaptation: Cars 2,  The Dark Knight Rises, X-men: First Class, and so on. Like the recent movie The Rise of the Planet of the Apes  is simply a prequel to 1968's Planet of the Apes, although one would argue that the 2011's version has differences to the 1968's, and, in fact, better in a lot of ways.


I might get a little bias when I start talking about music, since I have hated remixes ever since I know its existence, not to mention covers, I would start loathing a certain artist if I found out they are covering another artist's work (probably why I can never bring myself to watch Glee). However, it is said that because there are only 6 chords in music, there are bound to be repetition in one way or another, and it's ridiculously funny how often one artist sues another artist for "this 5 seconds of your music sound similar to mine".
In this video shows how just 4 chords can be used in so many different ways:

The Axis of Awesome: 4 Chords (2011) Official Music Video