Okay, it’s the OP again. Just to add fuel to the fire:
The assumption made by most who oppose either any copyright or any inheritable rights in copyright is that Frost’s heirs are simply enforcing their current legal rights for money. Bad evil wicked bucks–simoleons–moolah–you know the stuff.
Ummm, what if their reason is purely artistic?
Say that Robert Frost strongly insisted during his lifetime that poetry is MEANT to be purely words, read or spoken aloud, and that setting it to music debases it. (This is a hypothetical argument; I’m a huge fan of all kinds of music and believe that the distinction between "poetry and “lyrics” is just silly. But just suppose.)
Or say that Frost left explicit instructions that any use of “Stopping By the Woods” as lyrics should be done ONLY if the accompaniment were say, solo harp—something artistically appropriate to this poem about a moment of peace in an isolated woodland. Rather than 120 voices singing about silence.
Now what? Do the “art-is-inherently-public-domain” advocates think that Frost should have no ARTISTIC say over his own work? We’re not talking about sampling, or using his ideas here, remember…we’re talking about taking his entire poem, word for word, recognizably the creation of Robert Frost.
OK, thanks for correcting me. Based on promoting the progress of science and useful arts, how could the composer in the OP be considered MORE creative or to progress the arts by using someone else’s work? I think it would be more creative and foster the arts better if he created his own lyrics or hired some unknown poet to put words to his piece. That creates new works and work for other creatives.
Franz Kafka wanted all that he had wrote to be burned at his death. His friend decided to publish them.
I think his friend did the write thing. Eventually you have to say that the wishes of the author are no longer relevant to what the next generation wants to do with the author’s works.
With the hypothetical situation, I’d say the same thing applies. Frost is gone. His wishes should only apply for a limited time.
If he is that uptight about what should be done or nor done with a set of words, he should have never written them down, and certainly never released them to the public. When you publically release things, people are going to do things that you may not like to the. They will write bad reviews. They’ll whack of to your picture. They’ll laugh at the wrong time. They’ll interpret it as an allegory on nuclear weapons.
That is part of the joys and pitfalls of publishing. The public gets strange ideas in their head, and ultimately you cannot have perfect control of your work. The only way to make sure that work gets used exclusively in ways you approve of is to never let anyone else see it.
I have no interest in controlling how people react to my work. After all, art is an attempt to capture something that touches us as humans.
The point is that the world we live in is, for the most part, economy-driven. And since I live in that world, why shouldn’t I get paid for what I do? And why shouldn’t I be able to provide for myself and for my heirs with my writing, if I can, just as owners of farms or of retail or manufacturing businesses may, if they can?
Nitpick time. Copyleft predates the GPL by several decades. The first time I can recall seeing it is in the Principia Discordia, and it simply assigns the rights to the public domain.
Too bad for him. Releasing works inherently involves giving up some amount of control over how they’re used.
What if New Line Cinemas insists that the Austin Powers DVD is meant to be viewed on a 27-inch TV or larger, and watching it on a smaller screen debases it by blurring the details? Too bad for them–I’ll watch it on a 9-inch TV through the wrong end of a telescope while standing on my head if I feel like it.
Indeed, what if I were to insist that my IRC program–which I consider every bit as artistic as a poem–is meant to be used to connect to servers that allow totally free speech, and using it to connect to any server that censors chat content is making a mockery of my work and putting the last 4 years of my life to waste? Too bad for me! I can try to control who gets a copy, but once someone downloads it, it’s out of my hands.
You should. But keep in mind that farmers have to keep farming, and manufacturers have to keep manufacturing, if they want to keep making money. You can’t keep licensing the same bushel of wheat over and over.
And if you leave a farm to your kids, they have to keep farming if they want to make money from it. They can’t just collect checks from everyone who ate the wheat that you grew.
How would that make him more creative? Easy. Perhaps the poem inspired the music. All art is based on prior art. None of it exists in a vacuum. (yosemitebabe, are you listening?) Some art is based directly on existing art, but all inherits the cultural influence of all previous art. Creating art is making a contribution to the cultural basket that affects all of us. It’s not the same as building desks or chairs. Art is not property, except in the sense that it becomes community property. Yes, there is an owner of the actual print of the Mona Lisa, for example, but nobody can own the art itself. Art is created to be shared, seen, and appreciated. If you can make a living from it, then bravo! But if money is the purpose behind it, you’re no more an artist than Walgreens - you’re in retail manufacturing.
Copyright was intended to foster creativity in the arts, not to secure money fountains for generations of heirs. You are GRANTED (not entitled to) the exclusive right to your art for a limited time. After that, your art belongs to society. Period. And the reason is so that society and future artists can be inspired by it and build on it.
Indeed. And if the term of copyright is not substantially less that the average lifetime, then no-one will be able to create with reference to popular culture from his/her own lifetime without first asking permission.
Most copyright holders will license their content to be used as-is. (if you can figure out who the copyright holder is), but very few will license content to be hacked and mangled into the raw material of new work.
Creativity would basically come to a standstill if it were not for the fact that most violations of copyright simply fly under the radar of the copyright holder.
See, the thing about art is this: it wears very well. Obsolescence is not generally built-in. I make something which I intend to last. Another thing about it is this: one piece of work can be used (viewed, read, heard) by many people at the same time. Should I only receive compensation from one of those people? If so, why, and which one? They are all using it.
And as it is made to last, it may be used many times by many people.
Now, since it is made to last and it does, and since people keep using it, it must be providing them with something of some value. Therefore the time and energy and materials used in making it were an investment with a lasting value.
If you choose to make an investment which brings a return, an investment from which your heirs may receive a return, does someone else have the right to ask you to give up that investment and its return?
If you choose not to ask for a return, that’s fine. It’s a valid choice. But it does not make the opposite choice any less valid.
What’s wrong with asking for permission? Would you wear my coat without asking for permission?
What’s this about hacking and mangling? Why is it assumed that it is necessary to use chunks and slabs of another person’s work to do one’s own? Other people’s work certainly inspires me, but it inspires me to move on from that point of inspiration, or to examine it in a different light or from a different angle using my own words and techniques. It doesn’t make me want to use it as if it were my own. Where’s the creativity there?
Some forms of art do not last:
[ul]
[li]A charcoal drawing on the side of a building will disappear next time it rains, unless it can be copied to another medium before then.[/li][li]A software program becomes useless when technology advances to the point where the program is no longer supported, usually within a decade.[/li][li]A music recording that only existed on 8-Track tape is nearly useless today. A music recording that only exists on CD will be useless when CD players become obsolete. If the copyright holder decides it’s unprofitable to release the music on a new medium, it will be lost.[/li][/ul]
Copyright is a limited monopoly granted by the government for a specific purpose, not an inherent human right. The notion of copyright is only useful as far as it advances that purpose, and in cases where copyright causes works to be lost, it is a failure.
If they granted you the monopoly that made it possible for you to receive that return, they certainly have the right to revoke that monopoly.
Your coat is physical property, it belongs to you. It wasn’t given to you by the government for the benefit of society.
Have you seen the new Romeo & Juliet? It lifted the dialogue straight from the original story, but in doing so, it brought the story closer to a whole generation, and let us all see it from a different perspective. That’s creativity at work if you ask me.
Granted some things don’t last as long as others, but I think these points were covered by this:
As for this:
I said nothing about a monopoly. I talked about an investment of time and materials which produced something of lasting value. Then, without specifically saying so, I compared this to a longterm financial investments which continue to bring a return. No monopoly there; just an investment.
So let me get this straight… Say I write a poem, or a song, or make a sculpture. You’re telling me that I didn’t actually create one of those things – it was given to me by the government?
As to the new Romeo & Juliet… no, I haven’t seen it. So I can’t comment on it. Or on how it may apply to this discussion. Sorry.
Of course not. But I would wear a copy without asking
As with most fallacious arguments about copyright, you seem to think that copyright is property. It isn’t, and your wishing or sloppy thinking isn’t going to change that. Copyright is a monopoly, a prohibition on other peoples behavior intended to maximize creativity by providing the creator with a return on investment.
You give yourself too much credit. ‘original’ work is far less original than you seem to believe. The notion that ‘creativity’ involves making from something from nothing is common among a certain set of artists, but it’s hogwash. People who say that are just really refusing to admit (even to themselves) the nature and extent of their borrowing from the world around them. Given that everything created more recently than your great grandfather is still under copyright, borrowing from the world means copyright infringement.
Much of classical music, for example, uses themes or excerpts from other pieces of music from the same era. The practice was common, and accepted at the time (think 'variations on a theme by xxxx), but would today, be a clear violation of copyright.
Much of Motzarts’ work would have been suppressed if he had had to ask permission before borrowing themes. The Magic Flute, for instance, is just full of sly references to the music of his contemporaries. Musical jokes, as it were, that wouldn’t work as jokes unless he borrowed enough of the original themes to be recognizable (and thus infringing).
Much of Walt Disney’s early work would have been the subject of copyright battles if he had had to live under the rules we live under now. Lawrence Lessig has some good examples. Including the original Mickey Mouse cartoon (called Steaboat Willie) that explicity violates the copyright of a Buster Keaton film only a few years older by borrowing it’s theme music to “set the stage”.
Actually, no, I don’t think copyright is property. I think copyright is a [sadly] limited protection of my intellectual property. The nature of my intellectual property is such that it does not provide a huge immediate return on my investment. Instead, that return comes in small, irregular installments over long periods. I would like to see copyright extended, not in perpetuity but for at least the first generation of descendants I may or may not have, in order that the value of the return may be at least a reasonable approximation of the investment. In other words, I think people should get paid for what they do.
Please don’t put words in my mouth, it’s already full. <grin> I have never claimed to make something from nothing. You are making assumptions about what I believe. I would find impossible (and probably silly to try) to create something which had no relation in anyway to the world in which I live. Anything I make is a synthesis of my thoughts and experience, including my experience of and my thoughts about other people’s work. Experience is to some extent shared with others, so there is inevitable cross-pollination. But my perspective on my experience is my own. It is filtered through my brain, and formed into my work in a manner peculiar to me. This is what I refer to when I speak of originality.
Ick, my last post is pretty bad. That’ll teach me to try to write a post when I’m in a rush.
I’ve mostly been waiting for Primaflora’s response, but Fatwater Fewl has said some things that have caught my attention.
So now I’m curious, Fatwater Fewl: How long do you think a copyright should last? Let’s not have anything complex, like life of creator plus so many years. If you could make it a nice, round number, what would it be?
I will not attempt to explain the intricacies of a wonderful piece of legal arcana known as the “Rule Against Perpetuties” (merely typing these words means that hundreds of lawyers have broken into a cold sweat in case Professor Grumbles is about to call on them in Property Law)…but the underlying idea is that with ORDINARY property, the law doesn’t like to let dead people control what happens to it forever. So there’s a legal limit built into how long you can control stuff after your death. (Sorry for vast oversimplification, fellow attorneys!)
This is actually pretty typical of the position we get to in society—we balance things out. On the one hand…on the other hand…on the THIRD hand…
The current state of the copyright laws seems approximately correct to me…a lot like the operation of the RAP.
However, reading these posts, one thing that amazes me is the insistence of certain posters that there’s no such thing as originality. (!!!) I can only conclude that they have never had an original thought.
Seriously–we can all see that Austin Powers is derivative of James Bond and The Saint and other spy flicks. Then we can trace Ian Fleming’s influences back, and so on, and so on. Acknowledged. But writers all start with a blank page. They’re not painting by numbers. They make the outlines of the story and fill them in from a deep inner place called creativity. And the more original that is (I do not mean by this, the more outrageous-to-custom), the more wonderful is the result. There’s a spirit that moves great art. That spirit is often the result of surviving great pain, or struggling against obstacles, or at least being willing to suffer through tedium and delays and boring practice to wait out the truth, to find the best form. I just don’t see why we shouldn’t richly reward the people who do this. Wouldn’t we have a better society if more (not all) artists, musicians, songwriters, sculptors, dancers, and poets were wealthy and tobacco executives had to live in fifth-floor walk-ups with a healthy cockroach population?
