RE: "Against Intellectual Property"

> Linda Gruber writes:
> "A creator is the sole parent of his creative offspring."
>
> I would argue that this reflects a gross misunderstanding of how art
>is created. No art is truly original--in fact, all intellectual creative
>activity is in part derivative. All artists must draw upon the public
>domain. As Judge Leval stated:
>
> "Not since Athena sprung from the head of Zeuss has an
>artist emerged fully formed. There is no such thing as a
>wholly original
>thought. Every idea takes a substantial part from what has gone
> before. Intellectual man, like biological man, displays the
>genes of his forbears. Titian's Venus and Goya's Maja are
>both present in Manet's Olympia. Cezanne's
>geometric reductions are found in Picasso's cubism.
>T.S. Elliott tells us that while lesser writers borrow, great
>writers steal. Fair Use or Foul.
>
> --Barbara

That recalls Pete Seeger's retelling of a remark of Woody Guthrie's. Apparently there were concerns because some other folk singer was singing what amounted to a plagarized version of one of Woody's songs. His comment - "Oh, he stole from me, but I steal from everybody!"

I'd have to dig through my albums to tell you just which one had this comment.

Barb

Barbara Ruhmann
Text Buyer
UCD Bookstore
University of California
2828 Cowell Blvd.
Davis, CA 95616
Phone 530-752-5538
Fax 530-752-4791
e-mail brruhmann[_at_]ucdavis.edu
http://www-bookstore.ucdavis.edu/ Received on Thu Aug 31 2000 - 15:19:11 GMT