arts science censorship ip digital freedoms access knowledge house believes all

There are many ways to correct for the dearth of some works on the market such as orphan works. By simplifying copyright law, reducing lengths of copyright and more robust searches for legal provenance can all help correct for the shortfalls without eroding an important part of law and material rights. Or indeed the law might be revised simply to free works that have unclear ownership from copyright by default. Creators should retain, no matter how annoying it may be to would-be enjoyers of their work, control over their artistic output. Artists’ creations are fundamentally their own, not the property of the state or society.

Choosing to release one’s work into the viral market may be a shrewd business and artistic move, or it might not. All of this depends on the individual artist and the individual work. Nine Inch Nails both has the money that they can afford to take the risk and the name recognition that means they can be sure some fans will purchase the music, this is not the case with most artists. Thus the decision can really only be made effectively and fairly by the artists themselves. Trying to usurp that choice through a state mandate only serves to undermine the artist’s creative vision of how he or she wishes to portray and distribute their work to the world.

Although ideas are not tangible intellectual property generally, and copyright in particular, is far from a fiction. Rather it is a realization of the hard work and demiurgic force that sparks the generation and fulfilment of artistic endeavour. The property right assigned over these things to their creators is a very real one that recognizes their fundamental right over these works as owners, and the right to profit from them. The artist must have the right to prevent even non-commercial use of the idea if it is to maintain its value and so retain for the creator the ability to commercialise it. These protections are critical to the moral understanding of all property and must be rigorously protected, not eroded for the benefit of some nebulous notion of social good.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Few artists ever see much profit from their work anyway, many choosing the life of bohemian squalor in order to keep producing art rather than taking up more profitable pursuits. Vincent van Gogh sold almost nothing, but his drive to create never abated. No doubt the true artists will continue to feel the urge to create under this policy, and the loss of a few marginal cases must be weighed against the massive losses to art in general, such as the huge curtailment of exploration of and response to existing works, which are often artistically meritorious in their own right, and also the rendering unavailable of much of the artistic output of the world.

People deserve recompense for their work, but the stifling force of current copyright prevents the proper sharing and expansion of the artistic canon, to the intellectual and spiritual impoverishment of all. Creative commons licenses strike an important balance, by leaving artists with the power over commercial uses of their work, including selling it themselves, while permitting it to permeate the public sphere through non-commercial channels. This is the best way to weigh these competing needs in a complex society. It is not preventing the creator from profiting from his work. It is not a total abrogation of people’s rights, but a giving over of some rights for the benefit of all.

Artists rarely make all that much money in the first place, and a great many only work as an artist part time. More importantly, they can still profit from their art, since they retain exclusive commercial rights to their work. Oftentimes they will actually benefit from operation under a creative commons license because it provides wider dispersal of their work, which builds a broader name and market for their work.

Upon entering the public arena works of art take on characters of their own, often far different than their original creators did, or could have, imagined. The art is consumed, absorbed, and reimagined and takes on its own identity that the artist cannot claim full ownership over. It is important that art as a whole be able to thrive in society, but this is only possible when artists are able to make use of, and actively reinterpret and utilize existing works. That art does, due to its origination belong more to the people, who should have access, even if the artist, like Beckett has bizarrely rigorous feelings about the work.