2 Jul
2010
2 Jul
'10
1:47 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 4:33 AM, Joep L. Blom <jlblom(a)neuroweave.nl> wrote:
I wrote that and I don't think it is vague or a
generalization.
It is very simple, someone who has honed his skills over years and
eventually can use it for his creativity to produce something that's
worthwhile for others to hear - be it a composition, a rendering of a
composition or an improvisation (free or based on a composition) - is
entitled:
A to get recognition for his work and
B get the financial reward as valued by the audience (be it via the box
office, the record company er else).
It may come as a suprise to some, but I actually don't agree with
this. An artist, or creator of anything is not *entitled* to anything
in return for their work. I don't think that the issue is about
entitlement, its about what kind of incentives (if any) we, as a
society, want to have in place to encourage the kinds of work that
creative people do. Given that we all need certain things to stay
alive, a creative person has a choice between (a) trying to make a
living exclusively from their creativity (b) a mixture of that and
some other kind of work (c) not attempting to make a living from their
creativity at all. The question is whether we, as a society, want to
foster a situation in which (a), (b) or (c) predominates, or even what
the mixture of these choices will be. We have no obligation to reward
artists for their work. But they also have no obligation to produce it
for us. If we value what creative people do, and we want to see it
continue, then we have to weigh up the extent to which making (a)
possible (or even b, to some extent) relies on financial renumeration.
If it relies on that at all (and surely (a) *must*), then we have to
figure out how that works too.