Mark Helprin has a great Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times. He discusses how it makes no sense for copyright owners to have to give up their rights (to the public domain) at any time and makes a call for Congress to extend copyright forever. His arguments are compelling and vital to those of us in creative fields.
To the arguments of people like Larry Lessig of the emperor’s-new-clothes-B.S. better known as “Creative Commons,” this Op-Ed points out how copyright protection does NOT harm creativity and creative growth, and also how the lack of protection doesn’t impede the big companies from getting rich–it only hurts the original creatives.
We must stand up for our rights…now…or beings like Lessig will most assuredly remove them piece by piece. Helprin’s article will help, but we need to promote it and ideas like it.
Mark Helprin speaks to my needs as a writer and photographer. But copyright has become very weak, at least for an individual, due to the ibility of people to steal via the nternet. On the one hand I delight in having my ideas distributed widely. As long as they are available free, people are glad to access and spread them. But if I need to get paid for my work, then the internet is my enemy. It is simply too difficult to police. Even the large entities–like publishers and producers–are unable to stop the tide. See what happened in the distribution of music.
The internet is a great medium for marketing and promotional distribution. The entities that are getting rich on other people’s content are the aggregators, the search engines, and other “publishers” of found and stolen works.
Copyright is coming to serve the publisher more than the author: Disney wants to have a permanent copyright. But this type of extension of permanent copyright does not help the artist, writer, or photographer.
In the realm of ideas including science, free and open access and wide distribution is for the benefit of the broad community. Perhaps instead of copyright we need some new form of compensation that will enable creative people to benefit from their works.
Jerry:
Thank you for commenting. I wish more folk would!
I disagree with you about the impact of the internet as well as who is “getting rich” and what is happening in music. ITunes has significantly altered the music situation (piracy is way down), “little guys” are getting recognition and work from the internet without getting ripped off as much as people may think (for photographers, it has helped to remove barriers of geography, for example), and the money is coming to many more people than just the big companies–just take a read of The Long Tail to see how easier distribution is helping smaller companies become more and more successful.
-Leslie
Creative Commons is simply pre-packaged Copyrights.
To me Creative Commons is simply making Copyright law more accessible to general public. In every field of life the people who understand the fundamental rules that govern what they are doing have greater control than the people who use pre-packaged goods. I think of it as the fast food of Intellectual Property. Just as that food tastes great if you want to stay healthy you need to know what it is made up of.
Once you understand that Creative Commons is simply pre-packaged Copyrights you can assess its uses for your business more appropriately. It is neither good or bad but merely an option.
Marty:
You are right, but the trouble is that there was no reason to re-invent the wheel. All these rights and the packaging threof always was available to copyright holders. Instead, changing the terminology has resulted in the general population thinking that most work is freely availble for use without permission rather than protecting the owners’ rights. That’s why I am so opposed to CC–it causes much more harm than good.
Thanks for posting! –Leslie