I went ahead and wrote about Lawrence Lessig's piece on Free Culture for this week's blog post. I hope this is acceptable.
The dramatic shift from a ‘“free culture’” as described by Lawrence Lessig to one dominated by fear, in which everyone is afraid of being sued for accidentally ‘copying’ another’s patented material in their artworks/inventions, reveals a flaw in today’s definition of piracy. Lessig’s initial example of how the ‘who owns what?’ issue (in which the Causby’s argued the Wright brother’s airplanes were trespassing on their airspace, causing their chickens to die) was resolved in favor of the airplane creators. However, it's clear that those who violate some established societal norms with their creativity are increasingly on the receiving end of punishment, which clearly points to the deterioration of our “free culture”.
As mentioned by Lessig in his later chapters, the world-famous character Mickey Mouse was actually copied from the show Steamboat Bill Jr. Walt Disney, fascinated by the success of the film, created a direct parody of it in what was later called ‘Steamboat Willie.’ As this film became a success, Disney reaped profits off of more tales he didn’t create - reinventing the stories from the Brother’s Grimm with happy endings; today’s disney classics. Ironically, the copyright for Mickey Mouse and his friends is still enforced today. Every 20 or so years when the copyright is about to expire, Walt Disney lobbies Congress to lengthen the number of years a character can be copyrighted. Mickey Mouse is now over 80 years old! Corporate greed dominates a culture to the extend that one cannot recreate the world’s most beloved character without facing penalties for copyright infringement.
Other horror stories exist, such as copyrights on songs that are now integral to our culture, including “Happy Birthday to You”. Piracy seems to harm all aspects of creativity- one can not create a song without being sued for ‘copying’ a series of chords (as Coldplay was sued for Viva la Vida), one cannot invent more efficient equipment without being smothered by a dominant company (as Armstrong was nailed by the RCA for inventing FM radio), one cannot create characters in a book without being questioned (J.K. Rowling was sued for Harry Potter). It appears that the idea of ‘piracy’ has been used too much to stifle creativity; it has become a misnomer in todays society.
I believe that the problem of excessive accusations of piracy is not in itself a problem but a symptom of a few more general social ills, particularly excessive greed. Whether it is a large corporation smashing an upstart company or a lone individual suing a conglomerate, selfish desires seem to often play larger roles than honest and logical reasoning. Although the system of copyrights were first developed to promote creativity by allowing original things to be profitable to the creator, people try to abuse the laws in their favor.
ReplyDeleteGood post and comment. To play devil's advocate, though I personally find current copyright enforcement distasteful, copyright can protect artist's rights and work. The question tends to stall over the appropriate scale for this protection, particularly temporally. In the short term, an artist is more likely to produce work if she feels that her work will not be "stolen" or "copied" unfairly as soon as she releases it. However, if the artist is allowed to rest on the royalties from one very successful work for his or her lifetime, would you say that artistic work is being encouraged, or stifled? Many would say that such long-lasting protection would prevent some from pursuing new ideas.
ReplyDelete"Every 20 or so years when the copyright is about to expire, Walt Disney lobbies Congress to lengthen the number of years a character can be copyrighted. Mickey Mouse is now over 80 years old!"
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely what I'm really annoyed at, and I took it up briefly in my paper about copyright. It feels so fallacious when Disney decide to influence the law (just like Lessig talks about in his paper) by moving the goalpost as necessary.
In my opinion, copyright should be strongly reduced in length, at least for computer software and computer-created art. 5-10 years is much more approperiate and will force corporations to come up with new, original works instead of reaping benefits from recycled characters.
I agree with Jonah's comment of reducing the length of copyright. I think people need to be pushed into their creativity sometimes. If you were getting paid millions of dollars for something you made years ago, why would you want to work on something else? A little competition never hurt anyone. However, the lack of competition hurts us. The only argument for copyright that I agree with is to protect music. But even then, I think it is wrong to prosecute someone for downloading the music to listen to. We get it for free on the radio. I think copyright is sometimes abused and that it needs to be changed to be more precise depending on the medium for which it is based.
ReplyDeleteAs stated above by Andrew and Jonah, Copyright laws are getting quite ridiculous. Copyrights, just like patents, are intended to initially protect the innovative mind from being exploited by mass conglomerates (unless you work for one!). Yet, within due time, the copyrights, much like patents should expire in order to allow manufacturers to produce the same good. Finding out that something like mickey mouse still doesnt have an expired copyright is beyond belief for me since its sooooooo old! these things should not be fought over at such great expenses..
ReplyDeleteAlso, unlike patents, which are pretty specific ways to manufacture a machine or make a drug, copyright and "intellectual property" is a little fuzzy. I think copyright not only has the problem of being extended too long, but also that it's not clear enough. If I came out with something exactly like mickey mouse, then yes, I am infringing copyright. But where do we draw the line? Can I commercially gain from a cat with big ears? An animal that talks? I think the problem with copyright is not only in that they have been extended too long, but also that these big companies like Disney have powerful lawyers who try to claim anything remotely close to Disney characters is a violation of copyright. Who knows, if the copyright for mickey mouse expired long ago, we may have some new character now...
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