From: Tom McCormack (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Oct 14 2010 - 18:43:08 PDT
Anna Biller,
Objects can be owned by people, but objects are also ideas. Mickey Mouse
exists on a thousand objects, but can also be reproduced without access to
those objects. The subject of a Titian painting – same deal. You could
always steal content. You’re right that the Internet does exaggerate the
inherently reproducible nature of things, though, and that’s worth pointing
out - in fact, it seems like it’s a major point. I felt like you were
implying my tone was oppressive and coercive, but I’m not sure pointing to
the way things are and saying we need to find a way to deal with it is
either of those things. Certainly not every artist has to “want” the current
state of things (altho, I think there are aspects worth celebrating), but it
might be psychologically healthy to “accept” it.
I’m confused by your last line: “And yes, there is such a thing as ‘creative
ownership.’” Are you making that claim in a legal context? In a
philosophical or moral one? I’m just looking for clarification. What do you
consider ownership to be more generally? Is it a natural, inherent right we
have to certain things? What things? I’ll offer up this Thomas Jefferson
quote:
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea,
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession
of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar
character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other
possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives
instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at
mine, receives light without darkening me.”
Jefferson was talking specifically about inventions, which are usually
objects, but always ideas too.
-Tom
On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Fred Camper <email suppressed> wrote:
> I heard a talk by copyright lawyer Lawrence Lessig that's quote a propos
> here.
>
> When he saw that the copyright to Mickey Mouse et al. was going to get
> extended yet again, he made a proposal: to get an extension the owner
> would have to register and pay a reasonable fee. His point is that the
> fee would be immaterial to Disney and companies like it, but that
> there are millions of objects out there, and this would include the
> old newsreels and instructional films beloved of found footage users,
> for which the copyright owner cannot even be located, or doesn't care
> and wouldn't register, and that most such things could then become
> public domain. The mad dog right wing corporate whores who are our US
> congresspeople would not buy it.
>
> Unfortunately the mad dog Bush right wingers on the Supreme Court
> ignore the "original intent" of the Constitution that they say they
> follow when it comes to the rights of corporations. It's a pretty good
> guess that the framers' idea of "limited" times for copyrights did NOT
> extend to 95 years!
>
> By the way, I don't exactly think of myself as a "leftie" either. It
> just simply isn't rational to make copyrights this long, and it's
> contrary to the intent of the framers, who never intended them to
> support grandchildren.
>
> An interesting fact: if you are a publication who wants to run Martin
> Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech, you have to pay
> thousands of dollars to his estate. Thus the speech is not reproduced
> as often as it might be otherwise. WHAT???
>
> Fred Camper
>
>
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