Beyond Eureka: What Creators Want (Freedom, Credit, and Audiences) and How Intellectual Property Can Better Give It to Them (by Supporting, Sharing, Licensing, and Attribution)

BEYOND EUREKA: WHAT CREATORS WANT (FREEDOM, CREDIT, AND AUDIENCES) AND HOW INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CAN BETTER GIVE IT TO THEM (BY SUPPORTING, SHARING, LICENSING, AND ATTRIBUTION)THE EUREKA MYTH: CREATORS, INNOVATORS, AND EVERYDAY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. By Jessica Silbey. California: Stanford University Press. 2015. Pp. xi, 285. Cloth, $85; paper, $25.95.INTRODUCTIONI read Jessica Silbey's book, The Eureka Myth: Creators, Inventors, and Everyday Intellectual Property,1 while I was on sabbatical. The word sabbatical, like the word Sabbath,2 conjures a sense of rest and a break from the day-to-day rhythms of commerce, transactions, and, for me as a professor, teaching. My husband was on sabbatical as well, and we and our two young sons spent much of the summer in the house in Belgium where my husband grew up, enjoying late sunsets, visiting with friends, and biking through idyllic pasturelands. Summer is supposed to be a carefree time, and for me it was-at times. But not until my sons were asleep or away at school or child care programs did I have the time and space to rest, reflect, and refocus on my writing projects, including this Review-to get the work done.In the theater of the courtroom or the rough and tumble arena of intellectual property policymaking, the day-to-day lives of creators are rarely presented. We often instead see one-dimensional vignettes, for example, "the new artist or band that has just released their [sic] first single and will not be paid for its success," described on Taylor Swift's Tumblr last summer when she initially withdrew from Apple's music streaming service.3 While instructive, this description leaves out that Swiftand other artists have long relied on "free play" mediums like radio and, more recently, YouTube to develop, not cannibalize, their audiences and followers.4 Such accounts ignore both context and the complex relationship between what creators want and need and what intellectual property provides.These are a few of the reasons that Jessica Silbey's book, The Eureka Myth, is both refreshing and important. In it, she draws from over fifty interviews, completed over half a decade, with an array of creative professionals, including filmmakers, photographers, sculptors, journalists, novelists, musicians, composers, hardware and software engineers, biologists, publishers, computer scientists, and business executives.5 Silbey asked them about their work, the challenges they faced, why and how they overcame professional obstacles, joys they experienced, and what was important to them. And at the end of each interview, she asked them what they thought about intellectual property (pp. 291-92). The resulting insights are as true as they are original.Take the experiences of Joan,6 an internationally known public artist whose statements appear throughout the book. Joan is a woman who "wanted to make paintings. I wanted to publish them. But I didn't want to own them. . . . It's like having a litter of puppies and you [find] a good home for each one of them" (p. 1; omission and alteration in original). Having to maintain, store, and find "good homes" for artistic works is a practical burden- one that, unless you are a visual artist, may not be the first thing that comes to mind.7 Though placing puppies is a far cry from the fundamental purposes of intellectual property-which according to the Supreme Court include "inducing dissemination[ ]as opposed to creation"8-both creators and legal systems want to ensure the same end. Both want works to be created and disseminated to their audiences rather than kept in the minds or storage spaces of creative people.But can intellectual property help achieve this end? Does it, on net, do so? And how might intellectual property be changed to advance the shared interest of creators and policymakers in the creation and dissemination of creative works?The Eureka Myth provides authentic, if not always straightforward, answers to these questions. …