Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

> There
> is no protection from the thieves. Then, in the end, they are still
> deprived of the right to keep and pass along their assets. How
> creative can one be while being treated with such disrespect?
> Better to quit and go flip burgers. There's more money in it.

> Why isn't everything I create from my own imagination
> and skill my property? It should be mine forever unless I choose
> to sell it. However, the government chose to take my creations for
> the public good and pay my heirs zip for the fair market value of
> the licensing fees that are lost forever upon the forced expiration
> of the private property rights. They don't do that to others.
>
> Your side complains that WE stole from the public domain by fighting
> to get a longer term. That seems ridiculous to me. Having a term
> at all is ridiculous to me. It would seem ridiculous to you too, if
> you were the one singled out to give up your private property. My
> fable was about an automobile because I thought maybe non creators
> could relate to the way they would feel if they had to give up
> something they believed they had every right to own.
>

> I have 19 infringers to email and bill for infringed usage right now and that
> is just from last week. You can bet that each of those emails will generate
> about 5 more as they will most certainly argue with me. I don't see how
> policing my rights myself is a protection which allows me to produce more
> work.

Linda,
Most of your arguments seem to center on the right of your heirs to continue to benefit from your "creative works," yet you complain of infringers on your rights while you are still alive. Changing current term limits will do absolutely nothing for you while you are alive, so I must agree with Eric here, who is willing to offer alternatives to the law that benefit authors while they are still alive. If all you are concerned with is leaving your children a legacy, then you are definitely in the wrong business and perhaps should quite to flip burgers--or more appropriately go into brokering and argue about capital gains and death taxes. The approach to copyright that says that "I, this personality in this body, and whatever may pass on of it through my blood to my heirs is exclusively important and deserving above all others" is paradoxical and in fact anti-creative. Giving financial reward to the next three generations of your family for work that they did not do in no way hallows the integrity of the creation, nor does it derive any benefit to you because you will be dead. It will not take away the battles that you have to fight with infringers, publishers, clipart, etc.

> The government didn't negotiate a contract
> with creators to do this. There was no meeting of the minds. They
> just did it the same way they took the land from Native Americans.

Your analogy to the racism, genocide, and bloodshed in this country's past hardly seems appropriate.

> No, in my fable, the government takes cars just as it takes creators'
> rights to keep the assets they create and ought to be allowed to pass
> on to their heirs.
>
> However, I am a free thinker. I
> don't know if my views are easily pigeonholed. My views are
> logical from the perspective of an original creator, but that
> usually means that those who don't stand in my shoes can't see the
> logic. That's why I have learned to tell fables.

You seem to have a very low opinion of the public ("non-creators") in general, even a certain haughtiness towards them. If "non-creators" are a lower life form than you, you are obviously not writing for them, which means you are only writing for financial gain and fame, as you repeatedly emphasize. It is hard to believe that anything truly "creative" could come out of such selfish motivations, though admittedly I have not read any of your writing. Nevertheless, in terms of copyright, I think Eric makes a very strong case below:

> > The author can choose to publish or not publish. If she publishes,
> > she takes upon herself the risk of not receiving the price she asks.
> > She receives from the government the exclusive rights she asks for
> > in return for publication.
>
> > What I have proposed instead is that government see creative works
> > published as a public good. Since the market has become distorted,
> > and only a scant few ever receive full market value in return for
> > publication, I have suggested that the public simply pay for the
> > rights directly. My idea of an Intellectual Property Conservancy
> > would have authors taking tax deductions for voluntarily donating
> > rights to the public.

This model seems much more inline with what I think copyright law has to reflect, which is a true understanding of what imagination and inspiration are. If you believe that they are "yours and only yours forever and ever" then you should not do the public the diservice of distributing the products of them to a wider audience. I would say that imagination and inspiration -do notbelong  to the creator, the "creator" is the medium by they find their way into the physical world, and as such the creator should be compensated, as artists always have been. A view of inspiration that sees it as coming from a much higher source and working through the writer might lead to changes that Eric suggests, i.e., that the author sharing the inspiration (and it is sharing, not selling or outsourcing or bestowing) should be seen as a public good and compensated as such in the interests of ensuring that such activity continue to the benefit of society--after all, a society without culture is no society at all. The argument of egotists and fame seekers is not sufficient to affect copyright law in a positive way, nor does it contribute to a better understanding or fostering of a true culture. Eric, where can I read more about your proposition?

> This sounds something like my idea (see below) of how the government
> should allow the heirs to continue to receive a licensing fee.

Again, you turn this to the benefit of your bloodline. If your hope is that your heirs will receive the recognition that you did not by receiving the money from your work, perhaps you should remember the example of Whitman, whose only desire throughout his life was that people should -read- Leaves of Grass-- this was the compensation, not the money. He wanted to suffuse the entire country with the product of an inspiration that he constantly ascribed to a higher being, which he variously called Democracy, Libertad, Columbia, and the Spirit of America. In his own lifetime he was severely disappointed in this hope, yet now he is known as the greatest poet this country has ever known. I am sure that he is smiling now.

Maurice York