Some writing friends and I were recently talking about the role of copyright with today's artists and even though we all had different feelings about our work, we all also had valid points. I don't think any of my friends were worried about money, the original reason for copyright, but more of the sanctity of their work. In fact, the only issue they had with money and copyright was the fear of someone making money off of their work.
I think we have to look at what happens when you limit access to your work. Thinking copyright will protect you is wrong. Copyright can only protect big companies, like Disney. If you use a work under Disney copyright, you'll get your house taken. If Disney steals your copyright, you're really not going to be doing much of anything. You don't have the money to protect the work that helps you make money. So I think money is a non-issue.
As far as sanctity goes, I believe that it's the public's job is to protect your work. You put art out there for the public to appreciate and if you tell them "Look, but don't touch" the public will lose interest. This is also why DRM will fail, but that's another issue.
If you are a good artist and are able to properly project the message of your piece, the public will buy in to the message and protect it for you. If another artist uses your piece and people like it, I'm willing to bet that you will too. If someone uses your piece and you hate it, I'm willing to bet that your fans will hate it too, which means you have nothing to fear from it. Anyone that likes this bad piece isn't your fan anyway, so why worry?
Works of art are always talked about as children. I agree with this and postulate that you must treat them like children. If you limit them, stifle them, and smother them they will never do anything with their lives. If you raise them well and give them focus and set them free, they will go on to affect a lot of people and will make you proud.
Good works take care of themselves. Take the Mona Lisa. She has been turned into pigs, dogs, cats, whatever else. Does that make the Mona Lisa any less an amazing work of art? Of course not. Does it make Leonardo Da Vinci any less of a master? If anything it makes him more of a master. Everybody knows him, so much so that is work is iconic. The people making these copies know the Mona Lisa and all it stands for. They love this guy. They aren't trying to 'steal his intellectual property', or 'dilute his brand', they just want to be him and enjoy his art. These are the people that will stick up for him when someone denounces his work. People want to copy him and now his work is everywhere. You only know you've done your job as an artist when you're everywhere. That means you're connecting with people.
Anyone who doesn't agree with this will be forgotten. It sounds harsh, but let me explain. Why do you know about the Wizard of Oz? Many will say that it's because of the movie. Many have also read the books because of the movies. In fact, the books are everywhere. There's probably about 50 copies at your local library and you can even download it off the internet. You can buy copies for about three bucks and annotated copies and popup books. It's been translated into a million different languages, some of which Mr. Baum probably didn't even know existed. Why all this great stuff from one book?
Because the public owns it.
You can do whatever you want with it. Many people have. Some of it good, some bad. But it's not destroyed. It's thriving. There's a Wizard of Oz book that is rated as the 493rd most sold book at Amazon.com right now. Pretty good for a book whose intellectual property has been destroyed and it's brand diluted.
There has been great work based on this series too. 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' would have never been sung had this work been limited. Other great stories, like Russia's Volshebnik Izumrudnogo Goroda about a Russian girl in an alternate Oz story line, could have never been told. And Micheal Jackson could have never been a scarecrow. These stories are now in our collective minds and have reached the level of myth and parable. We have learned about ourselves from them and let them shape our thoughts and our feelings. If, as an artist, you don't want to do that, you aren't an artist.
If copyright stays on the Harry Potter books, will they ever touch us the same? If the Beatles' music is not set free for all to hear and sing and reproduce, will it still be played 300 years from now? If your work is not set free sometime in your life, where will it go when you die? If you don't know, you should be worried. Because someone else will be smothering your children then.
All of this was written because of this: Boing Boing: How copyright is killing culture. It's not really related but I couldn't pass up the synchronicity.
