Quote:
Originally Posted by perversity
From an artistic standpoint, copyrighting has very little to do with monetary gain. It's more about protecting what I created. If I write a love song dedicated to my wife, and someone in marketing hears it and likes it, they should not be allowed to use that same song as the background music in a commercial for herpes treatment, or any other type of commercial unless I give my consent as an artist. If it does take some sort of financial gain to give my consent, that is my perogative as the creator of the song, my RIGHT as a copyright holder.
The life of the creator seems like a good lifespan for copyrights. Any longer or shorter is not fair and does not benefit society( IMO)
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That's so wrong
I guess I'll have to make a long post to say why.
In the beginning of every civilisation there is a group of people that have something common with each other, share information, share ideas, share inventions, share culture. Each of them, through childhood years receives gigantic amount of data from others, learns about the world, customs of sicety, dangers, ideas, songs, stories. Then at some point creates something new, a small variation on one of the old themes, a set of old symbols put together like nothing was put before, and if people like it enough, it becomes part of the culture, otherwise it dies.
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey were most probably created by a long succession of people over a period of four hundred years, and evolved into what they are today by people sharing ideas, lines, scenes from each other, new performers taking what they liked and cutting away what they didn't like from their performance.
Around 17th century in some countries people grew concerned that too few new things are created, as not many people were educated these days, and troubles of everyday life didn't leave much time for creation, and those who were supported by some wealthy person didn't feel free to create whatever they liked, so an idea was born - to grant each creator a temporary monopoly for copying of his work, so people whould pay him to make copies. That's called copyright now.
Later - I'm not sure exactly at which time - an idea was born, that author is not just a small part of community, taking from culture, and giving back to the society, but someone existing in opposition to the society, who should obstruct the flow of culture, deny others futher improvement of his addition, lock it under copyright laws, their terms extended out of proportion. The idea of derivative works showed up, to grab and lock more of a culture from the same creation. Terms like "intellectual property" or "creative control" were coined, to insinuate that the author is the owner of this collage of elements he took from other people, and that he should be in control of something more than the fact of his being the creator.
Nowadays Odyssey and Illiad could only be written if everyone participating in their creation put special effort into releasing their addtions from the clutch of copyright laws. This form of creation - by sharing, and cooperating in creation - is dying out, and barely anyone is mourning it. People seem to be of mind that creating is just another way of making money, though it has so little to do with all other ways of making money, and that the whole of their creation is somehow their property - as if they all gained the insight which let them create by themselves. A few centuries ago it was obvious that the newly created work becomes part of the culture, property of everyone, immediately, and copyright law exists to encourage creativity by letting author gain money to have more time to create and has nothing to do with property - who still understands that now?
It makes me sick.
There are a few people here who call copyright infringement theft. What I call theft is blocking anyone from improving on existing state of culture for years and centuries by locking new works under copyright law. It's a theft of what might have been, so it's not as easy to spot, but people who are mourning lost sales should be able to, with some effort. Culture is still evolving and improving through fair use, through people not insisting on acting on their copyright, but who can say how stifled it is?. It's evolving much faster than it had before Internet, and so the lockdowns on good books and movies hurt its growth more. If "Rozenkrantz and Guildenstern" were created not long after "Hamlet", and Shakespeare chose to act on his copyright, would it be good for the world? How many such works are not created today for fear of paying legal fees? The loss is immeasurable