My Copyright Soapbox:
Copyright. We’re all told we have to obey it, and I agree; it is the law. But rarely do we ask: is copyright ethical?
I suggest that copyright law, as currently written, is actually incredibly unethical. Copyright was originally intended to help defend the artist, to protect their creation from being stolen. It was to protect a small creator who had created something he loved from those who could steal his idea and distribute it faster, with no credit ever being given to the original creator. It was to assure that the creator would have enough time to make money off of the creation, and to encourage greater and greater ideas. Originally, within the United States, copyright law defended an item for fourteen years. If, after fourteen years, the original creator was still alive, he could file for an extension of copyright for another fourteen years. After that point, the item would enter public domain - for if something was so popular for 28 years, it certainly would have entered the dominant culture by that point.
But copyright law has shifted over the years. Ideas can be purchased from the original creator and held indefinitely by corporations, who hold the ideas back if they don’t like them, or who milk them on ad nauseum far longer than the original copyright laws would allow. Consider, for a moment, the characters of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Superman, or Darth Vader. Can we honestly say that these are not characters who have transcended a single company, and now belong to the greater culture? How are these any different from characters like Robin Hood or King Arthur - legends and folktales which culture needed to grow… and which grew alongside the culture. Robin Hood and King Arthur took elements that the culture gave them, and bits and pieces of cultural flotsam attached themselves to these legends along the way. They grew organically, and were a voice of the era from which they emerged. Current copyright law stifles that growth, locking concepts and ideas into what corporations decide are sanitized for our consumption.
Not to say that the corporations are evil. They are not. But they are motivated primarily by money - not by cultural growth or artistic expression, which is what copyright is intended to defend. Today, however, copyright defends the rights of those corporations as they make money, often at the cost of the cultural growth of our culture and society.
Do you agree? What do you think about the ethics of copyright law? Should copyright law be changed? What alternatives do we have? Do you think it's ethical? Why or why not?
I suggest that copyright law, as currently written, is actually incredibly unethical. Copyright was originally intended to help defend the artist, to protect their creation from being stolen. It was to protect a small creator who had created something he loved from those who could steal his idea and distribute it faster, with no credit ever being given to the original creator. It was to assure that the creator would have enough time to make money off of the creation, and to encourage greater and greater ideas. Originally, within the United States, copyright law defended an item for fourteen years. If, after fourteen years, the original creator was still alive, he could file for an extension of copyright for another fourteen years. After that point, the item would enter public domain - for if something was so popular for 28 years, it certainly would have entered the dominant culture by that point.
But copyright law has shifted over the years. Ideas can be purchased from the original creator and held indefinitely by corporations, who hold the ideas back if they don’t like them, or who milk them on ad nauseum far longer than the original copyright laws would allow. Consider, for a moment, the characters of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Superman, or Darth Vader. Can we honestly say that these are not characters who have transcended a single company, and now belong to the greater culture? How are these any different from characters like Robin Hood or King Arthur - legends and folktales which culture needed to grow… and which grew alongside the culture. Robin Hood and King Arthur took elements that the culture gave them, and bits and pieces of cultural flotsam attached themselves to these legends along the way. They grew organically, and were a voice of the era from which they emerged. Current copyright law stifles that growth, locking concepts and ideas into what corporations decide are sanitized for our consumption.
Not to say that the corporations are evil. They are not. But they are motivated primarily by money - not by cultural growth or artistic expression, which is what copyright is intended to defend. Today, however, copyright defends the rights of those corporations as they make money, often at the cost of the cultural growth of our culture and society.
Do you agree? What do you think about the ethics of copyright law? Should copyright law be changed? What alternatives do we have? Do you think it's ethical? Why or why not?