[LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

[Patrick Shirkey]

On 06/30/2010 10:37 PM, Dave Phillips wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> <caffeinated_rant>
> I have an observation re: this thread: People who don't hold 
> copyrights or patents typically don't understand the full significance 
> of copyright or patent laws because they never have to. Those of us 
> who do hold them regard the issue differently. My advice, try making 
> your living from royalties for a few years, then let me know how you 
> feel about watching someone else appropriate your work. Copyright 
> means literally that the holder owns the right to make copies, not you 
> or anyone else.
>
> I'm reminded of my mother's oft-repeated adage, "What part of 'NO' 
> don't you understand ?".
>
> The assertion that copyright is not an incentive to creativity is 
> correct, of course, though its assurance of payment might function as 
> a spur to take on a job and get it done. I wonder sometimes, how many 
> members of this list actually make their living as creative artists ? 
> Because unless that's what you're doing for your livelihood (i.e. 
> buying groceries and clothes for your kids, paying the rent, paying 
> the utility bills, etc) then I suggest that it's simply too easy to 
> make blanket assumptions about  the processes by which an artist 
> produces work for payment.
>
> Btw, if anyone would like to get a more realistic sense of that Better 
> World Without Copyright, I suggest you read the memoirs of Hector 
> Berlioz. And let us not forget Disney's famous appropriation of 
> Stravinsky's work. Yep, the same Disney who perverted the existing 
> copyright law, aided & abetted by Sonny Bono. If international 
> copyright law had covered Russia then Igor would have got a fair cut 
> of the royalty pie from Disney's Fantasia. As it happened, Disney 
> basically said "You're screwed" because he knew Stravinsky had no 
> legal recourse. At least Stravinsky got in a last bite: When asked if 
> he had any comment on the film he referred to it as an "imbecility". 
> I'll guess that he wouldn't have liked Snow White either.
>

In this case Disney made a clear determination of his thieving abilities 
being worth more to him than upholding the spirit of artisitic 
appropriation. He was just being a true capitalist and therefore 
American too. If you don't like that then maybe you should consider 
renouncing your American passport and moving to a country where that is 
not acceptable behaviour by law ;-)

> Yeh, yeh, yeh, artists made art before copyright. What they didn't 
> make was as much money as they now stand to make because of it. Ezra 
> Pound once wrote that knowing a little hunger isn't necessarily bad 
> for an artist, but starvation is definitely not good. Or maybe we 
> think someone makes "enough" or too much money, so we can justify the 
> theft of copyrighted material. Okay, why stop there, why not steal 
> rich people's cars ? They probably have enough of them , and they can 
> certainly afford more, so why not steal their cars ? Oh that's right, 
> cars are different from software. We can take a copy of the software 
> and the original remains, so that makes the theft okay. No, it does 
> not, and that is exactly why we have copyright law. The car *can't* be 
> copied without undue effort, the software can. The ease of 
> reproducibility calls for further protection *if* it is an agreed-upon 
> principle that the maker of the work is due the rights to its copying. 
> At this time that's the law, at least here in the US. You're welcome 
> to try to change it, but you're not welcome to break it as though it 
> doesn't exist or because you believe it's unjust. Of course we can go 
> ahead and break whatever laws we feel like breaking, whether we 
> understand and accept the consequences or not, but if we're serious 
> about changing those conditions then we ought to engage in the proper 
> process towards that end.
>

I would feel more comfortable about doing so if it was applied evenly 
across the board. But when every Tom, dick and Harry is screwing the 
system for every cent then I don't have any qualms about taking a copy 
of a piece of artisitc work and doing whatever the hell I want with it.

Of course If I have the opportunity to send some cash in the direction 
of the artists that I appreicate then I try to take that opportunity too.


> Btw, I'm not playing "holier than thou" here. I've downloaded my share 
> of copyrighted material, but I don't illude myself about its 
> ethicality. Nor do I flog myself over the deed.
> </caffeinated_rant>
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>
> "They were artists in their own right, Andrea said, intent on 
> restructuring reality, and the New Jerusalem was a fine place indeed, 
> free of overdrafts and disgruntled landlords and the need to find 
> someone to cover the evening's bill."
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-- 
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd