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shadowkatThis is the first assignment for The January Talking Meme. If you want to try your hand at coming up with a topic for me to ramble about as opposed to my normal ramblings - sign up HERE - there are still dates available.
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green_maia came up with the first question: What would be the ideal copyright law, and why?
Prior to my current gig - I was the manager of rights and permissions at a now defunct library reference publishing company (The HW Wilson Company). So I have a bit of experience in this field. Back in the 1990s, before the internet took off like a bat out of hell, I was watching two listserves, one for librarians who worried that copyright law was becoming a wee bit too stringent, and one for publishers (mainly academic journal publishers, but there were others in there too) who felt that copyright law was far too lenient.
The publisher's fear was that if someone reproduced their work - they'd lose money. And if you write or publish for a living that's a big fear. Which sort of makes sense in theory, except to the degree that you are hampering the flow of information. Taken to extremes, copyright law or intellectual property law, which is broader in its scope, could prevent the whole point of art - which is communication. If someone can't access your art or writing or article, then what was the point of writing or creating it to begin with?
Add to this another wrinkle: Part of the joy of telling stories or communicating stories to others through art is seeing what they do with them. How the other person interprets, digests, or plays with your story. If you create a law that states people are not permitted to adapt, reinterpret, play with or create new stories from your work without your express permission (meaning you have to okay whatever they decide to do and get paid for it) - you sort of chop off that communication trade-off at the knees. You may get a response - but it won't necessarily be an honest or spontaneous one.
The writer/artist's fear of someone stealing what they created and/or taking all the credit for it - thus taking away their lively hood, in effect, gets in the way of the whole reason most writers/artists did it to begin with - to share their ideas and views with others. On the other hand, it is a legitimate fear. Mrs. Fields after all took a friend's cookie recipe and made lots and lots of money off of it, leaving the friend in the lurch. Or Janet Daily copied whole sections of Nora Roberts novel Sweet Revenge - for "Notorious" and made money off of it, until a reader caught it.
Another way of looking at it, is the nervous parent who sends their kid off to kindergarten for the first time. They have created this wonderful little person, who they love to pieces, but at some point they have to let the person go - interact with other little persons and big persons, and come back an entirely different person as a result (And as time moves forward, have the opportunity to create new little persons with others.) Stories are similar - you send them out in the universe, they come back different. ( And in some cases, they create new little stories.) Once you send them out there - they are no longer just yours. But what you don't want, is for some other parent to steal your child and pass them off as their own. Anymore than a writer wants someone to steal their story and pass it off as their own.
Copyright law was originally set up to simply protect the writer or artist from someone else ripping off their work. It's become rather complicated over time, but then so has art.
I think, and I know this is a bit radical so bear with me, that the ideal copyright law would protect the artist/writer from someone ripping off their work, while at the same time permitting people to play with their work, make money off derivative works, adaptations, and new interpretations - without having to obtain the copyright holder's permission or wait until the work falls into public domain. Sort of like what people do now with Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontes, or Moby Dick. In short, the ability to write and publish fanfic without legal repercussions. Or for that matter to direct a movie adaptation of a play or book, without having to obtain "permission".
The ideal copyright law would protect the original version of the work - and protect the original creator's right to create adaptations, derivatives, or continuations unhampered by legal repercussions. Because you shouldn't have to get permission to play with what you created. But at the same time, it would not prevent others from adapting, continuing or playing with the work either - any more than a parent should protect their child from playing with other children, borrowing clothes, changing their hair style, or learning from people outside the home. Or other children borrowing their child's clothes or learning from their child.
The ideal copyright law would provide protection but not restrict interpretation, interaction or prevent discourse. People could quote from it, without being required to obtain permission. Writers could create their own original stories from it and sell those stories. Readers and viewers could create role-playing games from it and sell those games. The only thing they would be prevented from doing is recreating, plagiarizing, copying/reposting, or translating without permission. In short - they wouldn't be permitted to pass off another person's work of art as their own.
Granted to a degree, the current copyright law does permit some of these things, but with restrictions. You can't make money off fanfic. You can't mass produce it. You can't do adaptations that are commercial. Parody is permitted but within certain boundaries. And scholars can quote but only within specific constraints. I'm suggesting we remove those boundaries and constraints completely.
I propose limiting copyright law to the essential protections - in order to enhance creativity and open-up discourse. So that people can play with Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the same ways people currently play with Shakespeare and Jane Austen.
For example? How about an all male version of Buffy and an all female version of Harry Potter performed on stage?
John Le Carre once stated that a movie adaptation that did not re-interpret his work wasn't that interesting. He didn't want to see work adapted exactly from the page - he wanted to see another interpretation. Imagine what would happen if we could freely do that - without fear of copyright law? Could freely play with works of art. Each derivative, adaptation, or fanfic continuation commenting on the original, telling us something new about it, redefining and broadening it.
Sure this might restrict some of the royalties that publishers obtain. After all sub-rights is a pretty lucrative field. But it would also open up creative endeavor. And provide the writer with insight on how his/her work is being interpreted. It would also allow the writer to play with other works of art.
Right now, intellectual property law is far too restrictive, too limiting, and too expensive. Only those with money and backing can cut through the red tape and do adaptations, continuations, and derivative works. Others are restricted to underground fanfiction communities. And fanfiction is given a derogatory name - considered laughable by the mainstream. When it should be the exact opposite - for it is in truth the viewer or reader interacting with the work, reinterpreting it, playing with it, exploring ideas that the original writer may not have explored or merely threw out there.
I'm not suggesting we do away with copyright law, so much as simplify it, make it less restrictive, and take it back to the basics - where it protects the original work from being "copied" or "passed off as someone else's" and where the original creator continues to get credit for his/her work, but at the same time, their work is not suffocated, it's not locked up, or tied up. It's allowed to breath, frolic, and play with whomever happens upon it.
The lovely
green_maia came up with the first question: What would be the ideal copyright law, and why?Prior to my current gig - I was the manager of rights and permissions at a now defunct library reference publishing company (The HW Wilson Company). So I have a bit of experience in this field. Back in the 1990s, before the internet took off like a bat out of hell, I was watching two listserves, one for librarians who worried that copyright law was becoming a wee bit too stringent, and one for publishers (mainly academic journal publishers, but there were others in there too) who felt that copyright law was far too lenient.
The publisher's fear was that if someone reproduced their work - they'd lose money. And if you write or publish for a living that's a big fear. Which sort of makes sense in theory, except to the degree that you are hampering the flow of information. Taken to extremes, copyright law or intellectual property law, which is broader in its scope, could prevent the whole point of art - which is communication. If someone can't access your art or writing or article, then what was the point of writing or creating it to begin with?
Add to this another wrinkle: Part of the joy of telling stories or communicating stories to others through art is seeing what they do with them. How the other person interprets, digests, or plays with your story. If you create a law that states people are not permitted to adapt, reinterpret, play with or create new stories from your work without your express permission (meaning you have to okay whatever they decide to do and get paid for it) - you sort of chop off that communication trade-off at the knees. You may get a response - but it won't necessarily be an honest or spontaneous one.
The writer/artist's fear of someone stealing what they created and/or taking all the credit for it - thus taking away their lively hood, in effect, gets in the way of the whole reason most writers/artists did it to begin with - to share their ideas and views with others. On the other hand, it is a legitimate fear. Mrs. Fields after all took a friend's cookie recipe and made lots and lots of money off of it, leaving the friend in the lurch. Or Janet Daily copied whole sections of Nora Roberts novel Sweet Revenge - for "Notorious" and made money off of it, until a reader caught it.
Another way of looking at it, is the nervous parent who sends their kid off to kindergarten for the first time. They have created this wonderful little person, who they love to pieces, but at some point they have to let the person go - interact with other little persons and big persons, and come back an entirely different person as a result (And as time moves forward, have the opportunity to create new little persons with others.) Stories are similar - you send them out in the universe, they come back different. ( And in some cases, they create new little stories.) Once you send them out there - they are no longer just yours. But what you don't want, is for some other parent to steal your child and pass them off as their own. Anymore than a writer wants someone to steal their story and pass it off as their own.
Copyright law was originally set up to simply protect the writer or artist from someone else ripping off their work. It's become rather complicated over time, but then so has art.
I think, and I know this is a bit radical so bear with me, that the ideal copyright law would protect the artist/writer from someone ripping off their work, while at the same time permitting people to play with their work, make money off derivative works, adaptations, and new interpretations - without having to obtain the copyright holder's permission or wait until the work falls into public domain. Sort of like what people do now with Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontes, or Moby Dick. In short, the ability to write and publish fanfic without legal repercussions. Or for that matter to direct a movie adaptation of a play or book, without having to obtain "permission".
The ideal copyright law would protect the original version of the work - and protect the original creator's right to create adaptations, derivatives, or continuations unhampered by legal repercussions. Because you shouldn't have to get permission to play with what you created. But at the same time, it would not prevent others from adapting, continuing or playing with the work either - any more than a parent should protect their child from playing with other children, borrowing clothes, changing their hair style, or learning from people outside the home. Or other children borrowing their child's clothes or learning from their child.
The ideal copyright law would provide protection but not restrict interpretation, interaction or prevent discourse. People could quote from it, without being required to obtain permission. Writers could create their own original stories from it and sell those stories. Readers and viewers could create role-playing games from it and sell those games. The only thing they would be prevented from doing is recreating, plagiarizing, copying/reposting, or translating without permission. In short - they wouldn't be permitted to pass off another person's work of art as their own.
Granted to a degree, the current copyright law does permit some of these things, but with restrictions. You can't make money off fanfic. You can't mass produce it. You can't do adaptations that are commercial. Parody is permitted but within certain boundaries. And scholars can quote but only within specific constraints. I'm suggesting we remove those boundaries and constraints completely.
I propose limiting copyright law to the essential protections - in order to enhance creativity and open-up discourse. So that people can play with Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the same ways people currently play with Shakespeare and Jane Austen.
For example? How about an all male version of Buffy and an all female version of Harry Potter performed on stage?
John Le Carre once stated that a movie adaptation that did not re-interpret his work wasn't that interesting. He didn't want to see work adapted exactly from the page - he wanted to see another interpretation. Imagine what would happen if we could freely do that - without fear of copyright law? Could freely play with works of art. Each derivative, adaptation, or fanfic continuation commenting on the original, telling us something new about it, redefining and broadening it.
Sure this might restrict some of the royalties that publishers obtain. After all sub-rights is a pretty lucrative field. But it would also open up creative endeavor. And provide the writer with insight on how his/her work is being interpreted. It would also allow the writer to play with other works of art.
Right now, intellectual property law is far too restrictive, too limiting, and too expensive. Only those with money and backing can cut through the red tape and do adaptations, continuations, and derivative works. Others are restricted to underground fanfiction communities. And fanfiction is given a derogatory name - considered laughable by the mainstream. When it should be the exact opposite - for it is in truth the viewer or reader interacting with the work, reinterpreting it, playing with it, exploring ideas that the original writer may not have explored or merely threw out there.
I'm not suggesting we do away with copyright law, so much as simplify it, make it less restrictive, and take it back to the basics - where it protects the original work from being "copied" or "passed off as someone else's" and where the original creator continues to get credit for his/her work, but at the same time, their work is not suffocated, it's not locked up, or tied up. It's allowed to breath, frolic, and play with whomever happens upon it.
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 10:26 am (UTC)That said, when there's money changing hands and the creator is still around, I still think it would be blatantly unfair if the original creator didn't receive compensation, at the very least; most of the time, that's not about punishing the plucky little everypeople who want to create something of their own, but rather about protecting the creator from having others steal and profit off their work. If someone e.g. makes a movie of a novel or remakes another movie, or if a famous artist covers a song by a less successful one, they deserve to get paid for it. Same with translation rights, obviously (though translations are even trickier, since they're expected to be an exact copy of the original work except in another language, which everyone knows is more or less impossible, but still expect... with very varying results.)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 02:55 pm (UTC)All of that would of course be covered. Remaking a movie is sort of the same thing as copying it. OR rewriting a book. I'm saying derivative works (new medium), or a story based on the original but clearly not the original.
Example? Death Comes to Pemberly - is a continuation of Pride and Prejudice, but an original work. That shouldn't require permission. (Doesn't now, because public domain).
Or...say, the Buffy comics. IDW and Dark Horse should be permitted to do that without requesting permission from Fox. Different medium. Derivative work.
Or...Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings? Again it's a derivative work or adaptation.
Or...a play based on Bringing Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall. I don't think you should have to pay the original creator for adapting it.
Unless, of course the original writer is actively involved and writing the script or adapting it.
Music is harder. Because you really can't play a song - without it being that song. Just as you can't say a poem without it being that poem. You had have to add something new to it - for it to be a derivative work.
Using the Shakespeare example? Much Ado About Nothing directed by Whedon - is arguably a new version, it varies from the original. Uses some not all of the words. Or say, the all female take on Julius Cesar - that's playing a bit with the original. But it isn't a copy.
What I want to get away from is paying the creator every time you use any bit of it - that's silly and far too restrictive.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 05:44 pm (UTC)Unless, of course the original writer is actively involved and writing the script or adapting it.
Then we definitely disagree on that point, because IMO, if you make money off someone else's work, then you owe that person a cut. The same principle applies whether you're pasteurizing and packaging a farmer's milk, or if you're producing a play based on an author's novel. Granted, Wolf Hall is a bit of a tricky case since it's based on actual historical events; someone could probably write a play about the court of Henry VIII that explored the same themes as Hilary Mantel without ever actually openly referring to her novels, and she'd have a hard time proving in court that it's based on her work. But if they stage a play (or a multi-million-dollar movie) called Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" and charge people money to see it, then she should absolutely get paid. That's her work and her name being sold, even if someone else has added to it as well.
Music is harder. Because you really can't play a song - without it being that song.
Kind of, but the song (as opposed to the sheet music) when played is always an interpretation. Joni Mitchell got paid when Janet Jackson lifted the chorus from "Big Yellow Taxi" for "Got 'Til It's Gone", even though the rest of it is a different song. Richard Rodgers got paid when John Coltrane turned "My Favourite Things" into an entirely different song. Willie Dixon eventually got paid when Led Zeppelin covered one of his songs and renamed it "Whole Lotta Love", even if he had to go to court. If you could get away with just changing a word or a chord here and there and claim it's not the same song but just a derivative work, no songwriter would ever see a single dollar except from their own recordings. (And the way the world looks right now, I don't think we need to make it harder for artists, writers and film-makers to make money off their work.)
I don't necessarily think it's restrictive. It doesn't stop film studios from adapting novels or musicians from covering each other today. And I agree that people should have the right to reinterpret other people's works, I think that's a great idea. (Fanfiction has really moved into the mainstream in the past few years, and I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon.) But as soon as they profit off it, then part of (not the entirety of) those profits belong to the person whose work they're incorporating.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 09:21 pm (UTC)Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has sold more copies in recent times that it did prior to her death - because people have played with it.
When someone adapts your novel into a movie or play - a lot of people decide they must read the book first. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo took off in sales when a movie was made of it. And I know more people have read and wanted to read the Lord of the Rings because of the movies. Same is true with Shakespeare - do you honestly think we'd know who he was - if people couldn't play with his works?
And in regards to songs - sometimes playing a cover of a song gives it more exposure. Sure, I can see preventing JC Penny from using your song to sell JC PENNY. That I'd want a cut of - just to make it harder for them. But I would consider Guns and Roses singing a cover of Live and Let Die - a compliment, it plays with the song.
I can see it being an issue - if as with trademarks, you are taking away sales, or diluting the original work. But if you are just providing a new interpretation, playing with it, and in effect making more people aware of it - shouldn't the original creator encourage that? Instead of being greedy and asking for a cut?
I think part of the problem here - with copyright, is the owner isn't the author or creator but a publishing company or movie studio who doesn't care about art, just the money. I'd like to get back to the relationship between the artist and the viewer, kick out the middle men.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 11:03 pm (UTC)Plus I get this a lot in my job already, so I get a bunch of old arguments in my head whenever this subject comes up and end up trying to address them all... Basically, the entire business model in publishing is a HUGE clusterfuck, and anything that looks like a simple solution inevitably has a bunch of consequences. Sorry if I took that out on you.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 01:29 am (UTC)I was deliberately taking a radical approach, mainly because in the past I did the opposite. Curious to see if I got any reactions. LOL! [Also..sigh, I hate intellectual property law. Hated it in law school and hated it the five-six years I did it. Contradictory and stupid in so many places. But it was fun watching the libriarians and publishers fight over it.]
It's like most laws - they want to please everyone and end up pleasing no one. And cause all sorts of clusterfoks and red tape as a result.
The internet has just made it even more complicated, because not all countries have the same copyright laws. China is notoriously lax, with almost no protections. (IT is a communist country - so...there is that.) And cultural attitudes towards property ownership vastly differ.
I do tend to agree with you...it's not possible to do a simple solution and I honestly don't believe there is such a thing as an ideal copyright law. In order to be ideal you'd have to please everyone and that's just not possible. The best approach is create some sort of compromise, the only question is who you want to get the most out of it - the copyright holder or the artist. They aren't, unfortunately, always the same. Actually a good percentage of the time they aren't. At least not in the US. (ex: Whedon doesn't own the copyright to Buffy, any more than the Beatles owned the rights to their own songs - well until Michael Jackson gave the rights back to them (or at least I think he did, honestly can't remember.) And most of the writers in comics don't own anything they create. Only the people who own Marvel do. The guys who created Superman - didn't own it, DC did. )
So sure, the artist should have some control and some ability to control it - but I think the Sony Bono Act and various others have stretched it too far. I'd sort of like to do the opposite - throw it in the opposite direction, just to see what happens. (grins fiendishly)
But I do realize that's impractical.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 02:40 am (UTC)A band who does a derivative version of a Rebel King's rap song wants to sue a major Network who is making 2.3 million dollars off of their derivative version. Do they have a case? That's the case of the week.
Copyright law amuses me because it is so wackadoodle.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 10:59 pm (UTC)Because it's their work and their name is often used to sell it. Why shouldn't they get paid for that? I get paid when my employer sells the result of my work.
In some respects you are giving them free advertising and keeping that work in print.
Free advertising only helps if people go on to actually pay you. How many people who go to see a huge Hollywood blockbuster actually read the novel? How many people bought omnibuses of Stan Lee's work after seeing the latest Spiderman? How many people who go to see a modern play - not Shakespeare - buy the playwright's collected works? Why should the guy who adapts the screenplay to World War Z get paid, and the director, and all the hundreds of studio execs and marketers, and the guy who brought Brad Pitt donuts, but not the one who actually came up with the whole thing and whose title they used to sell the movie to a fanbase he created?
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has sold more copies in recent times that it did prior to her death - because people have played with it.
That's part of it, but people have played with it because it already is a well-known novel that's been read on its own terms for 200 years, long before PD James and Seth Grahame-Smith. Same with Shakespeare; Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead rests on the assumption that people know Hamlet by heart, not the other way around. They are quite literally public domain.
And in regards to songs - sometimes playing a cover of a song gives it more exposure.
Sure, but that rarely translates to sales. Most of the time, the money a songwriter makes from a successful cover comes from the royalties, not from their own recording (assuming they're a recording artist in the first place). Take Karl Wallinger of the band World Party. Around 1999-2000, two things happened to him: 1) Robbie Williams did a note-for-note cover of one of his songs, "She's The One (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsErzVYKUis)", which outsold World Party's version by about a million to one; none of Williams' fans cared if there was a previous version. 2) He had a stroke and couldn't work for two years. He was able to keep his home, and eventually return to songwriting, thanks to the royalties from Robbie Williams' version of his song. The Paul McCartneys of the world will always survive. But there are a lot of people who don't make millions off their work, and refusing to pay them (as Williams reportedly tried to do, calling Wallinger "ungrateful") just rubs me the wrong way.
with copyright, is the owner isn't the author or creator but a publishing company or movie studio who doesn't care about art, just the money.
That can happen, true, but then the original creator has a deal with them and gets paid. Which is why I don't see why the original author should be the one getting squeezed out rather than all the people in between. Also, the big blockbusters make an obscene amount of cash, true. But most movies (and almost all movies made outside the US) don't make a fraction of that for their creators. The vast majority of novelists can't live off their writing, period. And I don't think you solve that by effectively giving the big boys a license to screw the authors even more. The authors are not the problem.
...Can you tell this is a topic I feel strongly about? Sorry. Work bleeds through. :)
I do agree that there are definitely situations where it gets ridiculous. Girl With A Dragon Tattoo is a good example; recently, Stieg Larsson's estranged family, who own the rights to it, hired a writer to write part 4 of that series. So they're going to make a lot of money off it, without any input whatsoever from the original author, while his girlfriend of 20 years gets zip.
And then there's the guy who's been suing Peter Jackson (http://www.conlanpress.com/youcanhelp/) for ten years because he once did some work on an entirely different screenplay for an entirely different adaptation of LOTR and therefore thinks he owns the rights to Tolkien's work...
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 08:08 pm (UTC)(I can see both your point of view and
Thank you for posting!!!!
ETA: Would you mind if I link to this?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 08:51 pm (UTC)