There is a blurred line between ‘creating original content’ and ‘appropriating past content,’ after all, nothing is original, right?
As Lessig suggests, “Creators here and everywhere are always and at all times building upon the creativity that went before and that surrounds them now. That building is always… at least partially done without permission and without compensating the original creator” (2004).
So is the copyright law an ‘evil’ that is corrupting society and restricting human kind from an abundant development of pioneering technologies, art and culture? Or conversely, is it a necessary law, put in place to ensure the intellectuals and artistic genesis’s of the world are commended for there innovations?
Some say that copyright is a heavy-handed government intrusion into individual freedom to explore our cultural heritage, all in the name of protecting individual freedom to create. Although some degree of protection is good, but it carries heavy costs and collapses of its own weight pretty quickly.
Additionally, others feel that a lot of the anti-copyright enthusiasts are stuck in state of purely wanting to remake their favourites who don’t feel worthy of creating their own stuff. An interesting story by Steve Sailer tells of how the early Rolling Stones just wanted to perform cover versions of American songs, but manager Andrew Oldham kept telling them about how much money there was in writing original songs. So, he locked Mick and Keith in a kitchen until they'd written a song. After they'd eaten all the food in the kitchen, they decided they might as well try writing a song. So they came up with "As Tears Go By."
The debate over intellectual property law is a difficult, controversial topic. By protecting the original creators we are holding back progression into a world of fruitful modernism. But the creators need to be credited for there work. To strike a balance between the two, like so many other government enforcements, is difficult.
Lessig, L. (2004). Creators. In Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity (pp. 21-30). New York: Penguin [URL: http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html]
It is difficult. I wrote a similar point about copyrighting original content and I also believe that sometimes it is necessary to borrow a melody or tune in order to really string a potential classic together. It would be nice if we lived in a sharing world, but when money is involved, it is rare that people want to share...especially if they believe they have done all the work. I agree that protecting original creators does hold back progression, maybe a slightly more flexible royalty system would be great. At the end of the day, any publicity for some bands is good publicity.
ReplyDeleteWow this blog summarised all my thoughts about this week's topic perfectly! It is really such a difficult and controversial topic. Your absolutely right about that. And while most people would say that they wish we could live in a world where we all want to share and ideas come free - we need to make money in this world.
ReplyDeleteMy first thoughts were that things, ideas and inventions that will progress our society in terms of technology should be free and made available to build upon for the good of society - whilst creative things like music and art should be copyrighted - but music and art definitely have their place in building society and it is unfair to make the scientists and engineers work for free.... and get nothing for their work.
I dunno.. I think it is a balance that is never going to be fair :(
I think copyright is it a necessary law, and although it is often breached, it does serve a purpose and aims to protect what's ours. However, the internet especially, makes it very hard for our ideas, and creations to stay ours.
ReplyDeleteIt is becoming so difficult to censor copyright breaches on the internet, after all- if I were to mime to one of my favourite songs and share it on YouTube am I technically breaching copyright laws? It's hard to draw the line when mainstream media is so easily accessible on the web.
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