"Changing Copyright," Essay by NEGATIVLAND
This is a fairly long article for the amount of information it covers. I think that if the author had not used three adjectives to describe every noun, we would all be in bed by now. That being said, here is an overview of the article.
The thesis, or main point rather, is posed in the form of a question, located near the end of the entire article. The question is this, "Should those who might be borrowed from have an absolute right to prevent any such future reuses of their properties, even when the reuse is obviously part of a new and unique work? Do we want to actually put all forms of free reuse under the heading of "theft" and criminalize a valuable art form such as collage?"
The article does not neccessarily contain much statistical analysis or research pertaining to the question, but rather a basic opinion which I am sure is the opinion of most of us when presented with these questions. Your average reader would answer "no." The article gives some basic arguments for this. The main one seems to be that copyright laws are killing creativity in America.
What the article suggests in this argument, is that not eveything that is created, something completely original. I would agree with this in a sense. Many writers, film makers, or artists of any kind are heavily influenced by books which they have read, movies they've seen, paintings, songs, etc. Therefore, the article suggests that by not allowing for at least some degree of "borrowing," creativity in America is doomed. Unless someone were to come up with something that is completely original, they would generally be paying a high price, or worse, opting not to create anything at all.
Much of the the first half of the article consists of an intense amount of wordiness. The second half is the meatiest, and most easily interpretable. The basic premise is that copyright laws are too tight, which most would agree upon. The article just takes it a step further in saying that this rigidity of the legal system is destroying the creative spirit of artists in America. The article even makes comparisons to Communism, in that it disregards the human nature of its own people (artists), and instead, adhears only to the rights of publishers and manufactures.
3 comments:
I completely agree with the article. I think copy right laws need to back off a bit, and especially people who use them as a way to make money off people.
Nothing is original. Have you ever heard of the collective conscious? The idea that we all share the same ideas some where in our brain.
I do think the laws at this point are discouraging to art every where. It is getting rediculous.
Old Bill Shakespeare popped into my head the other day, even before I read this article, and now I have a good reason to bring up my thoughts. Shakespeare ripped off almost everything we attribute to him. It all came from folk stories, other plays, older source material. We ironically consider it unique work, and indeed the pillar of English language canon. Shakespeare is supposedly the greatest writer of the English language, but he stole nearly all of his stories. And nobody was running around in a huff in 1590 talking about copyright laws and fair use and how "Bill's doing nothing more than remixing Plutarch and that poor Greek isn't getting a penny for it!"
That being said, a balance must be struck, and once again with this article, I fear we're dealing with an extremist who isn't being entirely realistic about the situation. It's a slippery slope. When you start trying to give more free domain access to intellectual property and copyrighted materials, you begin to offer more opportunity for abuse. Artists don't make money in this world unless people buy theire work. Gone are the Medicis. Patrons are now record labels and you and me in a CD store. So how much should we be allowed to take and use for free, especially if we start making money off it ourselves, and how much should see its way back to the artist who had the originality to create it in the first place?
Old Bill Shakespeare popped into my head the other day, even before I read this article, and now I have a good reason to bring up my thoughts. Shakespeare ripped off almost everything we attribute to him. It all came from folk stories, other plays, older source material. We ironically consider it unique work, and indeed the pillar of English language canon. Shakespeare is supposedly the greatest writer of the English language, but he stole nearly all of his stories. And nobody was running around in a huff in 1590 talking about copyright laws and fair use and how "Bill's doing nothing more than remixing Plutarch and that poor Greek isn't getting a penny for it!"
That being said, a balance must be struck, and once again with this article, I fear we're dealing with an extremist who isn't being entirely realistic about the situation. It's a slippery slope. When you start trying to give more free domain access to intellectual property and copyrighted materials, you begin to offer more opportunity for abuse. Artists don't make money in this world unless people buy theire work. Gone are the Medicis. Patrons are now record labels and you and me in a CD store. So how much should we be allowed to take and use for free, especially if we start making money off it ourselves, and how much should see its way back to the artist who had the originality to create it in the first place?
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