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"I never expected a money success," said Tolkien, pacing the room, as he does constantly when he speaks. "In fact, I never even thought of commercial publication when I wrote The Hobbit back in the Thirties.
"It all began when I was reading exam papers to earn a bit of extra money. That was agony. One of the tragedies of the underpaid professor is that he has to do menial jobs. He is expected to maintain a certain position and to send his children to good schools. Well, one day I came to a blank page in an exam book and I scribbled on it. 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
The piece is a pleasant read about the greatest fantasy writer of all time.
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JRR Tolkien: 'I Never Expected a Money Success'
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It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @12:10AM
>"It's high past time that all intellectual so-called "property" be outlawed, and everything instead made a simple work for hire."
You are going from one extreme to another. I don't think a system where intellectual property is not recognized would promote the production of art. Think about it - why would someone pay much for a "work for hire" if it did not constitute some intellectual property that they could then monetize? Such a system would greatly reduce artistic productivity, because there would be very little compensation for producing art. The current problem is that intellectual property rights are overdone. A reasonable period for copyright might be something like twenty to thirty years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @12:43AM
Well, people may offer work for hire because something needs to be done?
You seem to imply they people will not commission art in the absence of Copyright. I find that hard to believe. If art truly improves our lives, there will be demand for it.
You also conflate Industrial Protectionism with art. The "IP" term traditionally covers other things like Trademarks (designed to reduce confusion in the marketplace) and Patents (designed to encourage the disclosure of inventions) as well.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Thursday October 29 2015, @12:57AM
They will commission it, but any artist that can't find a patron has to produce the works on their own and for no pay at all. What's worse, once they produce the work, they then have no control over it. So, the work can be appropriated by obnoxious politicians or used to promote causes the artist doesn't support or be used to advertise commercial products.
Copyright has some issues in terms of the length and the easy of filing questionable take down notices, but on the whole we're much better off because it exists. Copyrights don't just protect corporate interests, but they also protect the little guy from being taken advantage of by corporations. A well documented claim can be worth more than enough money to get attorneys willing to work on contingency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:36AM
The concept of "moral rights" are independent of copyright. "Moral rights" deal with things like the right to attribution and preserving the integrity of the work.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Thursday October 29 2015, @12:53AM
Oh, that's trivial. The problem was solved literally centuries ago. Institutions or patrons would commission or hire or otherwise pay an artist to create something. The artist did so. Done.
Everything Bach wrote worked like that. That's how we got the Sistine Chapel. Handel couldn't write fast enough to keep up with demand.
It doesn't have to be some wealthy heir or big institution who pays, either. You want to know what happens in the next installment after the hero was left dangling over the side of the cliff on his way to rescue the damsel in distress? Well, better fork up the dough to pay for somebody to write it, and hope enough others do so the writer doesn't have to settle for that job writing software manuals. You want your party to be the talk of the town? Hire the latest teen heartthrob to write a new song just for you and premiere it at the party. You want to be remembered for centuries? Commission John Adams to write an opera about the War on Terror -- and you won't even have to spend any money for its premiere performance, because the Metropolitan Opera Company would pay for it themselves, no questions asked.
Or, circling back to the cliffhanger...you could just write the next episode, yourself, and see if you can convince people to sponsor your take on the series instead of or in addition to the original author's.
That's the real question you should be asking. How much art, great or otherwise, are we missing out on that people would have created, for profit or just the love of creating it, had they not been stymied in their efforts because some asshole threatened to sic the MAFIAA on them?
I can give you a very personal example. I've played with a lot of community orchestras, groups with no budgets at all or budgets under $1000 for the year, which would have leapt at the chance to perform lots of Stravinsky and Bartok and Bernstein and other great works by dead white guys...but we simply can't because just the rental fee for the parts, excluding the license to actually play the music, for just one work, is more than the organization's entire budget for multiple years. That's an awful lot of concerts I've missed playing and many audiences have missed listening to, just because we can't afford to pay Boosey & Hawkes their Danegeld.
Copyright doesn't encourage creation. Indeed, copyright is perhaps the greatest inhibition to creation ever created....
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gman003 on Thursday October 29 2015, @03:29AM
I wish to point out that the system you propose, while economically sound, would have sociological implications as well. It would place a yet larger amount of power over culture in the hands of the wealthy and the established institutions, as they would become the primary arbiters of what gets funded. The obvious counterargument, crowdfunding, also has problems - namely, it does not handle new talent well, and tends to fund the continued work of established artists far above that of the new.
The only things wrong with copyright are the term length and the draconian presumed-guilty enforcement. Cut copyright down to 20 years from date first published, and either scrap automated takedown systems or provide real penalties for abuse, and it will work just fine.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 29 2015, @06:09AM
"primary arbiters of what gets funded"
And, I counter that this is precisely the situation we've had since about - 1960? The record labels have basically determined what is acceptable. Some upstart labels have made things available that the established labels wouldn't touch, like Motown. But, collectively, the labels are in the driver's seat.
Things were much more open and free when jazz and the blues were created, than they were all through the '60's up to about 2000. Things began to open up when the internet was created, and artists seem to be opening things up as time passes. We see more and more independents reaching wider audiences today. But the major labels and publishers still have a choke hold on the industries.
I think the sociological ramifications are that the rich can sponsor what they like, but the kids in the hood can collectively sponsor as much new music and other art as the wealthy can.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 29 2015, @03:47AM
I don't know if that is a great example. First off, let me state up front that copyrights currently last a ridiculous amount of time. But copyrights aren't like patents. Nobody has a patent on music -- anybody can write music and play it their heart's content or publish it or whatever, because you can't be prevented from making your own music. Copyright might prevent using a specific piece of music, but music in and of itself, is completely open to anyone who wants to create it. In contrast, if someone patents the wheel, for 19 years nobody can make wheels, not even different wheels.
I've been using the Free Music Archive [freemusicarchive.org] for music backgrounds in various videos I make. It's one example of many sites that host permissively licensed music. Sure, I may not have the legal right to use <famousSong> but if I look around, I certainly can find a substitute I can use. Obviously, there's the slog through lots of boring stuff, but then there is the really out-there stuff that you'd never hear without that slog and which is strangely attractive. Seriously, what are the chances I'll hear some Balkan Romany Indie-Rock on my local radio station? It's kind of fun.
Anyway, instead of bemoaning the fact that certain pieces of music are off limits to your orchestra, you could be writing your own stuff and releasing under permissive copyright -- maybe others will do the same and an entire set of music will grow up around that ethos.
(Score: 2) by romlok on Thursday October 29 2015, @09:27AM
If you're creating original works, then the MAFIAA have no legal recourse against you even today. If you're creating works based on existing MAFIAA-controlled works (such as your "write the next episode yourself" example), then even without copyright you'd still have trademarks and (in some jurisdictions) moral rights to contend with.