So, copyright law. Big issue, right? Is it constitutional under free speech? Does it still serve the purpose that is was meant to when it was first conceptualized? To start with, copyright was a sort of signature, being that something bearing that signature has your name attached to it. This attachment between object and person can be taken in a number of different ways. In wine makers, and metallurgists, it is to say that “This is my product. If you have a problem with it, I am who is responsible. If you like it, I am who you credit.” There’s the jib: who to credit. Nowadays we are copyrighting ideas. Everything can be copyrighted. I can think of nothing that is outside copyright, patent, trademark, whatever category you place the mass right to ownership under. That’s right, the mass right to ownership; Ownership of ideas and tunes, smells, tastes, theories, words, the list goes on.
Some feel that “proponents of [free information use and distribution] believe that authors, artists, software designers, and other creative agents will take the trouble to innovate and develop new products and services that will benefit the larger public only if those agents can themselves be assured of a significant personal reward” (Charles Ess, p74) If you chop up this sentence, you get two rather different views of people who might use this “free” information. In the first half, you feel the optimism felt by many proponents of free information. This optimistic view, exemplified by Brett Gaylor in his movie on copyright law and creation, is held by many. But at the same time, the second, more pessimistic view of humanity and creation comes into play true. No one creates without wanting something in return (Andrew Finly, 2005). Weather the creation is self serving of for the public to take and destroy; it is all in want of something. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle. If everything were free, then the creators of some great works would see no return on their work, and no longer have the ability to produce it. We would see the wane of creation as there would be not enough revenue from the sale of an idea or product to cover even the development of that product.
Free distribution, free drugs and medicine, free art for everyone. Great! Now who is willing to spend 6 billion dollars to develop that cancer saving drug, if as soon as produced it is copied? Who can afford record music in a studio if all recorded music is up for grabs in the international highway? Sometimes the system works great, protecting the right of a person to have “control” (Gaylor), to say “this is mine, I deserve the credit and profit of its propagation.” And sometimes the system fails. In the case of Moana going international, the production of new material from pieces of old material, or the inability to copyright cultural values, the system both fails to protect original ideas, allow for the creation of original work from old ideas, and allow the owners of original idea to retain the right to their ideas. It is possible for two separate people to come up with the same “original” idea separately and without contact. So what happens when these two separate and original people meet? Who gets the credit? The kiwi artist Moana poses this same question in the end of the movie Guarding the family silver, and the answer is whoever gets better lawyers first.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, or are they? Has someone already had that opinion and decided that they wanted to own it, and thus it is no longer free for me to say and voice that opinion as it is mine as well?
structurethought 