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Luz's Comments Regarding Copyright Issues:
Talking about copyright I have mixed thoughts and feelings about this topic. First of all I personally think that human beings are born with the innate instinct of private property. Even babies defend what belongs to them. That is something intrinsic to human being essence. Any living thing (plants, animals, and humans) lives to transcend and the natural way to do it is by reproduction. Human being essence is based on its animal and rational nature. So humans like to transcend not only in a biological way but they also have a natural inclination to transcend through their acts of thought (ideas and creations). This type of transcendence comes also with a natural need of recognition. And that is where interests and many other kinds of conflicts are born.
With that being said, I would like to play Devil’s advocate and I would like to ask a couple of questions:
- Who owns an idea? Who has the right to do that? Aren’t ideas universal?
- Why only one person or a group of people can have the right to use, modify or change the version of a song, film, photography, etc.?
- How have human beings evolved through the years? Aren’t the cordless phone and the cellular phone a modified version of the original corded phone? Isn’t part of the evolution to improve or change things, ideas, and processes that already exist? Why are we limiting that, is it about respect to the first person that developed an idea or is it about control? Where is the line between recognition and control?
With all those questions in the air I would like to say that I personally feel more attracted to the creative common license philosophy that allowed creators to share their work in a frame of conditions that they could personally establish.
My Comments to Luz-
I absolutely agree that the creative commons license seems to be the "best of both world". It allows the artist the protection they need from having their unique pieces or work to be stolen out from under their feet just to have someone else make a fortune off of it, while allowing that same artist to share their ideas and their creativity with those in many other fields. As you point out this is how our society has evolved. If we never have the ability or the creativity to build off of and spring creativity from the experiences we share around us, we would remain stagnant.
I think it is important to be able to experience what others have to offer, but I also think it is important to acknowledge and give credit when the experience offered to us is directly effected and molded by the work of someone else.
The overly litigious or slap happy judicial system revolving around these issues is obviously of great concern on both the users and the creators end. But I do feel that both ends are dangerous. What if we got to a place where if you photographed or filmed a building you had to be granted permission by the architect in order to use it, or in order to sing "Happy Birthday" to your child you had to first send away and pay the fees to be able to do so. We would so quickly have our hands metaphorically cuffed behind our backs that we would be stifling the experiences of our society as a whole.
I agree with you Luz, that recognition is a large part of this. I would like to believe that that is a bigger issue than the financial gains issue, but I think that if we as artist of any kind, get into the habit of paying homage and the due respect to those around us.
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