Thinking...thinking...
Feb. 24th, 2006 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithI read this, and I ponder. Especially this statement by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tnh in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
makinglight:
It is right that what's new and unique in a writer's work be recognized as peculiarly their own. That's fine. But copyright is not a statement of inalienable natural right. It's a social convention, intended to reward (and thus encourage) writers and publishers to produce more books. To pervert it into a claim of perpetual ownership, especially when that claim is being forwarded by large entertainment conglomerates, is the moral equivalent of driving a fence around the commons.
I will admit that I do not currently make a bulk of my income from my copyrights. I would be interested in hearing how someone who does feels about some of these discussions.
Do I, or my heirs/assignees, have the right to own the rights in perpetuity of a work of entertainment that I have written? If we were talking about a company, a family fortune, or other property, the answer would be, with some limits, yes. I/they would own these rights/things/companies until we ran them into the ground/spent it all/outlived our commercial usefulness/whatever. It seems to me that the willingness on the part of some to restrict these rights is in inverse proportion to the income they derive from these or similar rights. I could be missing something here, of course. But I get edgy when I see the copyright as social convention argument, as though only good manners is standing between Jani Kilian and public domain.
I will admit that my kneejerk reaction to the issue is "It's my fuckin' book. My fuckin' characters. I wrote it as no one else would. It is a work of entertainment, an option, like the chocolate cookie or the tiramisu. No one needs it to live. No one's freedoms will be infringed if it is not available to be read. It is not a new method of sorting information, or a vaccine. It is a luxury of life, not a necessity. Not a right.
tnh in makinglight:It is right that what's new and unique in a writer's work be recognized as peculiarly their own. That's fine. But copyright is not a statement of inalienable natural right. It's a social convention, intended to reward (and thus encourage) writers and publishers to produce more books. To pervert it into a claim of perpetual ownership, especially when that claim is being forwarded by large entertainment conglomerates, is the moral equivalent of driving a fence around the commons.
I will admit that I do not currently make a bulk of my income from my copyrights. I would be interested in hearing how someone who does feels about some of these discussions.
Do I, or my heirs/assignees, have the right to own the rights in perpetuity of a work of entertainment that I have written? If we were talking about a company, a family fortune, or other property, the answer would be, with some limits, yes. I/they would own these rights/things/companies until we ran them into the ground/spent it all/outlived our commercial usefulness/whatever. It seems to me that the willingness on the part of some to restrict these rights is in inverse proportion to the income they derive from these or similar rights. I could be missing something here, of course. But I get edgy when I see the copyright as social convention argument, as though only good manners is standing between Jani Kilian and public domain.
I will admit that my kneejerk reaction to the issue is "It's my fuckin' book. My fuckin' characters. I wrote it as no one else would. It is a work of entertainment, an option, like the chocolate cookie or the tiramisu. No one needs it to live. No one's freedoms will be infringed if it is not available to be read. It is not a new method of sorting information, or a vaccine. It is a luxury of life, not a necessity. Not a right.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-25 08:01 pm (UTC)It's my understanding that copyrights can be treated as assets during the life of the creator. If a writer gets divorced, or goes bankrupt, copyrights are treated as property to be divided, or as assets included in net worth. Then, at some point after the death of the creator, those assets, which may still be worth something, are taken away because of the implied copyright agreement, which is, as
And part of me isn't comfortable with this. If it were another type of asset, stock certs or a painting or something of a more traditionally concrete nature, my heirs, or whom/whatever I willed my estate, would have it for as long as they wished. Yes, they might sell those rights to a corporation, or they might not. And future readers may lose out, or they may not. I know it's messy, but messy has been ironed out before, and part of me just gets my back up when I think that total strangers have a greater right to possess something I've worked to create than someone I feel merits it.
And imho, the attitude that heirs/assignees should get real jobs is part of the reason why writers will always be the ones having it done to, and not the ones doing. Because we don't take the long view necessary to build a power base and change attitudes.
And I don't mean to sound shirty, but when I read that on one hand, copyrights really aren't going to be worth anything someday anyway while on the other hand, corporate entities are battling to keep the rights they have...some of which used to belong to artists with heirs...I can't help but feel that the artists in the middle are going to get screwed again and folks on both sides of the battle are going to tell us to bend over and get used to it.
And I have no answers. I do feel that if it ever reaches the point where once something is written, it's Out There, I may stop writing fiction.
I tend to think that a little commodification of the operation might help writers more than hurt them. Especially since we are reaching the point where it's every person for their economic self anyway.