Re: Some Thoughts on Copyright Term

On Mon, 09 Nov 1998, Jeremy G. Byrne <jeremy[_at_]iz.org> wrote:
>
> On 7/11/98, Tim Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
> >
> > Moritz Roettinger <moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> wrote:
> > >
> > > But this would mean that a considerable number of authors use
> > > pre-existent works without which their new works could not be
> > > created. I can't believe that!
> >
> > [snip several examples]
> > I can come up with more examples, if you like.
>
> No need to, Tim. Everything created by artists must, of necessity,
> derive essentially and in entirety from the public domain--the world
> around them. What other source is there than everything they've ever
> seen, read, listened to, or otherwise experienced?
>
> The skill we call creativity has been assigned an almost numinous
> significance in our modern culture, yet the abilities to clearly convey
> story or philosophy in language, to represent thoughts and emotions
> with colour on canvas, to evocatively reshuffle melody and rhythm or
> to accurately translate logical procedures into one or other form of
> computerese are no more mystical than the skills of the nurse, the
> teacher, the construction worker or the accountant. I have yet to hear
> an argument which could convince me otherwise, and yet so transfixed
> are most folks by the idea that imagination is somehow next to godhood
> that merely contemplating otherwise is beyond them.
>
> The mechanism of Copyright, originally designed to favour one group of
> printers over another, not only serves the interests of artists very
> poorly--replacing fair payment for effort with some bizarre licence to
> abduct part of the culture and pimp it back to its owners--it serves art
> and society not at all. Thankfully, the internet will almost certainly
> rid us of it, and soon.

This reminds me of B F Skinner's BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY which suggested person and personality were a product of experience from earliest days.

Obviously something happens in the creative process that makes each author different and their original works novel and interesting to others. That quality is what makes copyright important to some works and others not. We like that quality so much that securing authors exclusive rights is an important function of government and business.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Thu Nov 12 1998 - 21:50:31 GMT