Copyright is Out of Sight

[wyndslash]

well yeah, they got to eat some time D: i mean, it's another way of making a living~

[Groucho54]

Yeah, but I know of someone who wrote one hit song.. and he get's £120,000 per annum from that and has done since 1968!

Now that's OK but really was one pop song worth that and should one pop song provide an income for life?

OK he's done a lot before and since and still plays gigs and works hard but the performing rights from a song... are they a measure of worth?

[wyndslash]

Well I do treat the music and book industry differently...

[carld]

Originally Posted by Groucho54

Yeah, but I know of someone who wrote one hit song.. and he get's £120,000 per annum from that and has done since 1968!

Now that's OK but really was one pop song worth that and should one pop song provide an income for life?

OK he's done a lot before and since and still plays gigs and works hard but the performing rights from a song... are they a measure of worth?

Sure, why not? It's no different than writing a best selling book that continues to sell well year after year (except, of course, pop songs don't take as long to write and probably pay better).

I'm all for creative people making a living from their craft, especially any kind of writer.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

When people write in order to make money they make creative decisions based on how it will impact their profits...

Again... so what? If people like it, that's all that matters.

This high-fallutin' attitude about art may be fine for the noses-up, pinkies-out sophisticates and their monocled scholars, but art transcends matters of intellectualism and class. It's a product of its culture, and culture is made up of people, not ivory towers and fine china. To suggest that art is directly lessened by its popularity is ludicrous.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

This high-fallutin' attitude about art may be fine for the noses-up, pinkies-out sophisticates and their monocled scholars, but art transcends matters of intellectualism and class. It's a product of its culture, and culture is made up of people, not ivory towers and fine china. To suggest that art is directly lessened by its popularity is ludicrous.

It isn't popularity that lessens it, it is the pursuit of popularity.

To gain mass market acceptance you need to write for the mass market. Every decision you make has to be made in pursuit of that mass market. So anything that has the potential to lessen that market has to be changed or removed.

Whereas a writer who has no desire (or need) to generate income will write whatever they want to write, with no artificial restrictions.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

It isn't popularity that lessens it, it is the pursuit of popularity.

And exactly why can't the "pursuit of popularity" still be art?

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

It isn't popularity that lessens it (art), it is the pursuit of popularity.

priceless!

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

And exactly why can't the "pursuit of popularity" still be art?

oh, it can! Even an urinal can be art nowadays!

Which is why I now prefer the term "product", as pumped out by an "industry" by contigent "workers". It's more honest.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Groucho54

Very few of the world's really great writers made fortunes while they were alive... same with painters and musicians. Many had to rely on the patronage of the wealthy just to survive... didn't stop them though.

I doubt very much that money is the motivation for true creativity.

It is not. The true motivation is getting beautiful woman and free drinks, and perhaps feeling good about yourself for bringing smiles to people's faces.

Money, ever since capitalism was brought about, is just a way into that, fame is another. It just happens that fame usually also brings money with it...

In any case, while sharing our creative thoughts with others is all fine and dandy and makes us feel all fuzzy and warm inside, if I'm willing to put much effort into a work to the point of making a living out of it, I'm willing to be paid for it from people who enjoyed it and to shoot cretins willing to share a free copy of it with the whole world through a torrent rather than just their close friends through lending...

[spellbanisher]

The distinction between art and entertainment has to do with intention; if a writers intention is to achieve some higher truth what he is doing is art. If a writer is only trying to entertain and provide pleasure, what he is doing is entertainment. Whether a work of art is any good or not is up to each individual reader. The only objective measure of any work of art is time. Note artistic and profitable or popular are not mutually exclusive. Shakespeare is the best selling author of all time. Mark Twain was one of the best selling authors of the nineteenth century, and in fact was a literary superstar even during his own time. Hemingway also did all right; he never had a multi-million seller like Stephanie Meyers during his lifetime, but almost all of his novels sold several hundred thousand copies worth. Still, its harder to sell well if you're not catering your works to the general tastes of the reading public. There are ways around that though. For instance, James Joyce was able to use controversy to sell his novels. I like Ursula Leguinn says about art: “art tries to express what cannot be expressed in words, literature tries to express in words what cannot be expressed in words.”

I think the cry of “snobbery” and “ivory towers” is the retort of egotistical people who have nothing to say yet want to be recognized for saying something: “Anything I write is good, as long as people like it. Anything I write is gold, as long as people buy it. Anything I write is wise, as long as people read it. Anything I write is true, as long as people believe it.” When I make a distinction between art and entertainment, I do not so with the mind that one is good and the other is bad. I simply say that one strives for truth, and the other does not, and that is true.

Whether you believe there are truths to be strived for, or that truths are worth striving for, is a matter of personal philosophy. One philosophy says that either there are no truths, or that one cannot find truth in art. This philosophy says that the highest goal in life is pleasure, that pleasure is the measure of all things good. You could call it hedonism; I won't call it that, because when I say that this philosophy is about pleasure I don't mean personal pleasure. An author who toils for thousands of hours to produce works that will be pleasurable for his readers is not living for personal pleasure. He desires to give pleasure to others, and there is nothing wrong with that pursuit. In terms of market and profitability, I don't think that these books can ever compete against movies and television for one simple reason: reading requires work. It requires that a person take abstract symbols on a page and translate them into entire worlds in their heads. Reading is an interactive process, whereas television and movies require nothing of the reader. It is much easier to plop oneself down on the couch and watch tv then it is to pick up a book and start building worlds in your head from words on a page.

The other philosophy believes that there are truths that we will not apprehend just by going about their lives. This philosophy believes that art can ennoble the soul, that if we are willing to work we can achieve states of aesthetic bliss that transcend the petty emotions we go through from day to day. This philosophy believes that art can shake us from complacency, stir us and lift us up. This philosophy believes that art can create beauty where there is barrenness, meaning where there is meaningless, knowledge where there is ignorance, insight where there is blindness, awareness where there is oblivion, life where there is mere existence. It is a belief that there are higher things to strive for, higher truths, things above and more important than what is in our our minds. If this sounds religious it is because there is an element of religiousity and of mysticism in art. Yes, art is difficult and it often requires work. The artist builds mountains from whose tops we can look down and see things from a higher and wider purview. But to get to the top of the mountain you have to climb. Things outside the worlds we live and hide in are always inscrutable to us. The language of truth is not our native language nor is it one we speak and hear everyday. But people who believe in art think that it is important to venture out our tiny worlds everyday, to expand our spheres of existence, and sometimes that means getting lost in alien lands.

I do not believe one philosophy is right and the other is wrong. I believe we are free to make whatever choice we want to make. I believe in what I have called art, but I accept the legitimacy of those who have a different philosophy as long as that philosophy is not destructive unto others. But lets not call a rabbit a duck. Lets not try to have it both ways; to, on the one hand, repudiate what I have defined as art, and then on the other, to say that entertainment is art. Entertainment provides a pleasurable experience, but I think art can provide a more enriching experience.

I think one example of the power of art is Michelangelo's David. The David is more than a statue of a naked man; it is the affirmation of a new way of seeing the world, a challenge to the medieval mindset that man was a fallen, dirty, nasty creature, and that the body and material world is a cesspool of sin and depravity. The David proclaims a new era in human consciousness; it proclaims that man is beautiful, that man is divine, that the naked body is not something to be ashamed of or disgusted by but something to be admired and adored, that the physical body and world is just as wondrous as the immaterial soul and universe. Michelangelo's art helped contribute to a new reality that people would live in for centuries to come.

[Namekuseijin]

You do waste such brilliant thoughts like that here, spellbanisher. Why don't you open up a blog and spread it to much more people?

it's also hopeless that you interweave so many trollish arguments with others of much clarity of thought.

[spellbanisher]

One of the reasons why people don't understand art is because of our faulty understanding of subjectivity. Most people equate subjectivity to personal opinion, which it is not. Most people believe that subjectivity means that something has no meaning, that its up to each individual person, which is also untrue. Something without meaning cannot exist; to exist is to be defined, and to be defined is to have meaning, and meaning by definition has limits. To say something is subjective is to simply say that an object is experienced by subjects.

For instance, suppose too people are looking at a couch. The person standing in front of the couch sees there are holes in the cushions, and says that it is a bad couch. The person standing behind the couch sees that the couch is very sturdy, and says that it is a good couch. Both interpretations are valid. But it would be insanity for someone to come along and say that the couch is really a car, which is how most people seem to view subjectivity. Hamlet, for instance, can be interpreted in many ways. It can be seen as a critique on political institutions, on dysfunctional families, on irrationality, on the nature of existence, and all these critiques would be valid. But to say it is a slapstick comedy would be ludicrous and patently false. (The example of Hamlet is a paraphrase from the introduction of Robert Darnton's “The Great Cat Massacre”).

Subjectivity simply means that no individual can see the whole. The meaning of a writers work is too vast, the reality too massive, for anyone or even everyone to be able to see. Interpretation is a communal activity. The artist provides a vision, and it is up to a community to interpret that vision. From our own perspectives, purviews, and knowledge we create new knowledge, each of us providing a piece to a much larger picture. Through our collective interpretations we expand our spheres of reality, existence, and knowledge. Reality is not one narrow thing. It is not something that can easily or even possibly articulated. Interpretation recognizes that fact, but the interpretation still must occur within some logical framework or it becomes bullshit.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

And exactly why can't the "pursuit of popularity" still be art?

For the reasons stated.

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

You do waste such brilliant thoughts like that here, spellbanisher. Why don't you open up a blog and spread it to much more people?

it's also hopeless that you interweave so many trollish arguments with others of much clarity of thought.

Ah, the mark of an authoritarian mind; when I write things you agree with its "clarity of thought:" when I write things you disagree with its "trollish arguments."

Anyways, I can't help what I am. I am half troll half human, like a minotaur or a centaur, except there is no name for what I am. It happened one night, an experiment gone horribly wrong, most of you think spellbanisher is one name, but it is actually two names, Dr. Spell and Mr. Banisher.