$12256 / $11500
I just read a post on Slashdot that linked to a blog entry by composer Jason Robert Brown. It's an interesting read, and anyone with any interest in copyright ought to read it. The response on Slashdot was surprisingly hostile, which is why I'm posting my own response here, since people can't downmod me on my own blog. :)
The TL;DR version of the blog post is as follows:
First off, I agree with Mr. Brown. While he uses the word "stealing" the same way the RIAA does (I would personally refer to the act in question as piracy and equate stealing with plagiarism), he is fundamentally correct. An artist should without question, for a limited time, have control over how their work is distributed (making allowances for fair use and the like).
Now, I see a lot of arguments out there that attempt to draw an exact parallel between intellectual property and material goods, and I believe these arguments are counterproductive. When I produce a material good, I have to pay for the materials that go into each item that I make. By contrast, if I write a song, distributing that song digitally costs essentially nothing. Any attempt to ignore that disctinction is utterly transparent -- we all know intuitively that material goods and intellectual property are not the same thing.
On the other hand, the issue of design costs exists in both cases. If I'm going to create a product, I first have to design that product. I may hire one designer or many, or I may even design it myself. Regardless, the time spent designing that product has value. By the same token, if you write a song, even if it's possible to make a gazillion copies of that song for free, it still took time and effort to bring that song into existence. In terms relevant to OGA and the Creative Commons, when an artist decides to release a work for free, that doesn't mean that the work has no value, it simply means that they have chosen to donate their time to the community.
But, back to Elanor. Elanor made the point that, given her current situation, she was completely unable to actually pay for a copy of the sheet music she wanted. We'll assume, for the sake of argument, that she's telling the truth. It's not a big stretch, really. As a teenager, I found myself in exactly that situation quite frequently, and I did exactly what she did (albeit with computer games). Logically, since I didn't have enough money to pay for the games I wanted, I wasn't really a lost sale, so I pirated games. Even though I regret it now, I didn't feel particularly bad about it at the time.
And why should I have? It's true, isn't it? If I don't have the money to buy the game, the publisher is never going to see that money from me anyway, so the act of pirating the game doesn't affect them at all. If we assume that I'm being trusthful and that I really don't have the money (which is, again, entirely possible as a teenager), then the argument is demonstrably true -- that is, my having that copy literally did no harm to the publisher. In fact, it's also entirely plausible that my having those games might have caused someone else to like them and go out and buy them, resulting in additional revenue for the publisher. Man, it all sounds so easy!
Of course, much like everything else, it's difficult to reduce things down to such simple points without missing key information. Clearly, even if I have absolutely no money to spend on games, I'm not the only potential game consumer. People buy computer games all the time -- it's a huge industry, so clearly there are plenty of customers out there who can afford to pay for them. For an example of this, we'll skip a few years ahead to when I'm was in college. I wasn't particularly well to do, but it's safe to say that I could afford to purchase games and music from time to time. Back when Napster was in its heyday, I would sometimes search it for some obscure song and not turn up any results. I'd search around the web and not find the song I was looking for, so I'd reluctantly go out and buy it (or perhaps order it online). In this case, had that music been available via pirate channels, it would have been a lost sale.
My point? A few teenagers making pirated copies of things they can't afford to pay for doesn't in itself equate to lost revenue. However, the availablility of pirated copies of games and media can absolutely result in lost sales, because not all people who pirate media can't afford to pay for it. Do these lost sales add up to more than the revenue gained through the free advertising of having one's work available for free on line? I have no idea, but I would imagine that it varies depending on the situation. Regardless, artists, game designers, musicians, and other creative people have a right to decide how their work is distributed, no matter how wrong-headed some people may believe it may be.
As an endnote, before anyone goes and assumes that I support the RIAA's and ASCAP's heavy-handed lawsuits and lobbying, I want to point out that this is absolutely not the case. I decided some years ago that the RIAA would never see another cent from me until they took a more reasonable stance about their copyrights, partcularly pertaining to DRM and Fair Use, and laid off of the lawsuits where they ask for $700 to $150,000 in damages per song. How, you ask, am I doing this without pirating their music? Simple. I listen to it on the radio, I borrow it from my friends, I go to concerts, or I don't listen to it at all. There's plenty of excellent free music out there by talented artists, much of which is Creative Commons licensed. There is also music published for profit by companies who are not RIAA members. The important thing to remember is that you don't need a particular piece of media (be it art, music, game, or something else). If you find that it's not worth the asking price, then don't use it at all.
This concludes my longest blog post ever. It's 3 AM, so if it needs any spelling or grammar corrections, please point them out. :)
Peace,
Bart
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Comments
"An artist should without question, for a limited time, have control over how their work is distributed (making allowances for fair use and the like)."
Life + 70 is a preposterously high "limit", if you can even call it that. I think that a lot of people feel that the current copyright legislation is way to restrictive in favor of authors, and therefore largely ignore it (as bad laws are wont to be).
Opening up copyright law might be a good first step towards making it legitimate and justified in the eyes of the people.
This is an really old discussion (old in internet terms I have to admit ;) ), and while you made a good write up on it (which I guess few people would disagree with) it doesn't really add to the debate :p
I personally think that copyright law is in a sense an outdated and lacking version of patent law, which deals exactly with what you call design costs, but in the technical realm. Now don't get me wrong... there is still a lot that could be improved about patent law, and especially those crazy software patents of late are not much else than a return to what is similar to copyright law (due to patent granters who did not fully understand software yet).
But lets have a short look on what is actually different about patent law compared to copyright and why I think it is much superior:
1. It expires much quicker (but can be extended for a limited amount if the creator wishes so), so after 20 years (which I think is too long for some type of products, but that is only a minor issue) it will become public domain.
2. It forces the inventor to make the "source" available for everyone at a (usually) fair price, and after 20 years there is a good "source" available freely.
3. Only those ideas that the creator actually deemed worth of being protected (e.g. went to the trouble of registering a patent) are protected, no automatic protection of every small insignificant piece like in copyright law (but the current costs for registering a patent are too high, and should scale depending on the product/idea).
4. Only works of significant complexity and novelty are protected, thus again making small pieces of ideas free for everyone to use (and discouraging cheap copies ;) ).
5. It doesn't even pretend to make the analogy to real world goods ;)
So vote for me in the next general elections and I will make the world a better place :p
I'll address your thoughts one by one:
1. I agree that 20 years is a much better copyright term than the current one, which is horribly excessive. In fact, if copyright is meant to promote the creation of art, 20 years is about the point where it starts accomplishing the exact opposite of that. If people are going to the movie theater in droves to see a re-release of a 20-year-old movie, then that movie is part of our shared culture and ought to be in the public domain now.
2. Requiring source for copyright puts too much of an onus on the creator, who may not want to keep the source around. It sounds nice in theory, but in practice it's too much of a burden on the artist, to say nothing of what constitutes the "source" of a work of art.
3. Forcing all copyrights to be registered takes power out of the hands of individual artists and places it into the hands of the copyright industry, who have the time, money, and inclination to do this.
4. Setting a standard for "sufficient complexity" is murky at best.
5. That's good, because equating intellectual property to physical goods is silly. :)
Well, in regard to point 2: Just like patents keeping the "source" would be not done by the artist himself but by the patent/copyright office. Of course the question is what is actually the source, but I think a reasonable solution can be found. In the case of patents it's a good short description of what your idea is about, is case of art it should be a easily accessible format, or something else that can be stored well by the office which includes all the essential parts of what make up the work.
As an added side benefit one would get a incredibly good collection of public domain works all though the servers of the patent/copyright office, or though mirrors of it, as it is the case with Google patents nowadays already.
Concerning 3 and 4: Well one might disagree on this, but if the application is sufficiently simple (for example web-based) and cheap, I don't see a problem there. In fact I would prefer if works where the original author does not even bother to do these simple steps would be automatically public domain. The author does not really loose anything by this (as expressed by his unwillingness to do a simple copyright registration), but all those millions of cases where something can not be used due to automatic copyright would be dealt with for everyones benefit.
In the end (and this refers to point 4) this would also automatically result in a selection of works with sufficient complexity, as for other works nearly no one will bother to register those. In praxis much more in detail checks (as done in the patent system) will be too expensive for registraion prices to be low enough anyways, thus this will only weed out very obvious examples, or cases of pure plagiarisms (which everyone will agree is a good thing ;) ).
I know you're an artist yourself, so it's not my place to tell you what artists want, but I think it's safe to say that there are a wide variety of opinions among artists about how their works should be used (hence the massive proliferation of licenses). I'm an artist myself (sort of, anyway -- I dabble from time to time) and I tend to release my work under a license that's proportional to the amount of time I spent on it. GPL/CC-BY-SA if it's something that took a major effort, CC-BY if the effort was moderate, and CC0 if it's just a little thing.
But let's take the popular CC-BY license, for example. There are a lot of artists out there who are happy to have their work used for free, for any purpose, provided that they are given credit for it. One thing that's nice about the GPL and the CC licenses is that they're easy to apply. You pretty much just say "I'm releasing this work under the terms of CC-BY 3.0," and you're good to go. The fact that this is so easy and so well standardized is a boon to both artists and people who are looking for art to use in their projects. For artists, it's nice because of the simplicity -- there's no fee and no form to fill out. For the rest of us, it's nice because that simplicity encourages people to put their work out there for our use.
My point is, if people had to go through a rigmarole (and pay a fee) to get their art copyrighted just to ensure that their work will be properly credited, a large number of artists (myself included, and perhaps even a vast majority) who currently release CC-BY works wouldn't do so at all, and we'd have a lot less content available.
I agree with you on your licensing policy (in the current system), and you could still easily license your works after registration under conditions like the creative commons licenses.
I for example license my good works under the GPL/CC-BY-SA to ensure that they stay(!) in a space somewhat like public domain for everyones benefit (e.g. the concept of copyleft). This would be the case in a "patent" system more or less also since works based on public domain works (without significantly improving on them) will be classified as "prior art" and thus not "patentable".
And while I also agree that initially this patent based system might lower contributions by license aware artists, most artwork produced is not put under an license at all (unless sold).
If all those works would automatically go to the public domain (unless the artist would actually interfere with that) that would be a tremendous increase of public good (in the national economics sense).
And in fact if you do not plan to profit (make a living) from your art, then why not place it in the public domain? Sure there are plenty of fears ("someone will benefit from MY work"), or basically pet peeves ("I HAVE to be attributed"), but when you really look at those logically they do not apply to works you are not going to "use" anyways. Besides most people will give you credit for you work, even though it is not legally required (the GPL btw specifically states that attribution is not required).
At least those concerns do not out weight the benefits to the public good in my opinion (and of course everyone is free to register his work for a small fee), and once such a system of a free exchange of public domain "designs" is tightly establish, most artists would probably have a hard time even imagining going back to the old restrictive system we have right now.
What such a system would establish in praxis is that all non commercial (e.g. unregistered or expired) art can be freely traded, build upon, modified, remixed automatically, without the tremendous effort it is currently to convince artists to place their works under a free license.
And in fact there are three types of artists (four if you count the commercial ones) out there right now. Those convinced to used free licenses (a tiny minority), those stuck in the current intellectual property regime who do not allow use anyways (and would also register works if necessary; a medium sized population), and those (by my experience a large majority) who I even have a hard time explaining why their works even need a license ("yeah, sure use that stuff... would be nice if you mention me somewhere for it though").
On the other hand such a "patent" system would provide sensible protection to those artists that actually do want to make a living from their artworks, and also encourage investing time an money into "designs", without demanding overly difficult or expensive measures to ensure that protection.
For me at least such a system makes sense, much more so than the current one for sure. And I think most people would agree once they would have actually experienced the benefits of such a system.
(interesting discussion though ;) )
You make a good point about the GPL not requiring by default that the author be attributed, however, it is an optional requirement as detailed in section 7 (Additional Terms).
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
To clarify this, I've added a FAQ question that states that you should assume all of the GPLed work on this site requires attribution to the listed author(s) unless they specifically state otherwise.
As for your other point, I think what you're saying is that you'd prefer a system that defaults "open" instead of "closed". Right now, when a work is created, the assumption is that the author reserves all rights unless stated otherwise, and you're advocating that instead the default should be that the author reserves *no* rights, unless stated otherwise. So if someone wanted to post art on the internet the way it works right now, they'd have to specifically say "all rights reserved" or somesuch, to specify that people aren't allowed to use and distribute it without specific permission. Otherwise, it would be assumed that the work goes into the public domain. Is that correct?
Concerning the GPL: As far as I understood, it says that you should not misrepresent the original creator, which is similar to an attribution clause, but is for works with hundreds of different authors more convinient in praxis. And for me that is good enough for sure. ;)
Otherwise... well yes that is part of it, and probably the one that will have the most practical impact.
But having an agency (or several ones) that gets payed for storing, protecting, but also ensuring the novelty of a creation sounds like a good addition to the current system.
In fact I can imagine a system where you pay for example a small extra to make a "copyright" insurance on your work, and then the agency will make sure that your registered work is not copied or distributed against your license terms.
Because right now a copyright of a "small" artist is basically worth nothing, since it would be way out of his or her financial capability to actually enforce it in court (that's why the GPL is more or less a toothless tiger).
Besides that... the patent system, while far from perfect, has worked very well for more than hundred of years now, while it is becoming quite clear that the copyright system in its current incarnation is simply not working anymore (and for sure contrary to the public good).
Regardless, artists, game designers, musicians, and other creative people have a right to decide how their work is distributed, no matter how wrong-headed some people may believe it may be.
What I object against is the very notion of "their work" ever existing. Most of the time a piece of work is "merely" the outcome of whatever shaped it's "creator".
Let' say I hire an artist to do art for a card game. I give him instructions, I pay for his work, and I get the piece delivered. So, who is the creator? Am I it, since I paid? And gave instructions? I mean, if it wasn't for me that very piece would never be created, at least not in that way.
Vice versa can be said - the artist I hired added something unique, and so on. Is the creator of a work the person that is connected to the body that is connected to the hand that created it? Is it that simplistic?
I'd suggest it leans that way. To most people pointing out an author/creator/artist is a very physical matter. You just check who - in a physical sense - performed what, more or less, in most cases. It is so because we believe in and build our world around notions of causality: We believe in cause & effect.
Ms x did something (caused) that gave birth to y (the effect of what she did), hence Ms. x is y's creator. (Let's keep this simple and only keep it to creation of visual art and music). For some bizarre reason (actually not bizarre at all, it's linked to economic models that run society..) we only give credit to the last cause, i.e. Ms. x in this case.
I personally don't see anything that can justify that sort of interruption of coherency in the "copyright logic". Why and how do we reach the conlsuion that the last effect is somehow more relevant or should be more attributed/praised/deserving compared with the "middle" or "first" effect?
Surely, y (whatever Ms. x created) is not caused by Ms. x alone in 99% of the imaginable realistic cases today. It is not, since there are a million trillion other causality chain links that preceded the moment(s) of y's creation, and Ms x herself, and all or some of them had just as vital role on y:s creation as Ms x had.
In this particular case, Ms x style would never have existed if it wasn't because she was heavily and perhaps even intentionally influenced by artists a b and c. And these artists in return have influences and causality chains/effects that go way back. (Actually, to the start of the universe, but let's not get into that and make it all to entertaining for me, especially since nobody will read this anyway..)
Let us forget all of this for a brief moment for a little while and reconnect with reality. Currently some kind of crap is taking place in the real world. There is a soccer world championship going on & TV displays this glorious and important event on all channels.
I have noticed that in sports, journalists and virtually everyone I've ever met, believe that a soccer player can "decide the outcome of the game". The best example of this is when a game result is tied up in soccer. In the last minute of the game, Ms. x makes a goal. In sports media she is bound to be described as the "victorer", as the "hero" or "deciding factor", as the one that we have to thank for the outcome of the game - our favourite team winning.
That very notion is of course utter nonsense. Only a moron would come to the conclusion that she was a decisive factor in that game in a matter that is somehow more relevant or important than anyone else on that soccer field during all of the time that the game took place, from start to finish. Needless to say, whatever happens in a soccer game, or any sport game for that matter, and what the final outcome becomes of the game, is only a result of hundreds or thousands of cause and effects during the game.
Every person on that field is totally and utterly just as responsible for her making the goal (arguably maybe even if they were at the bench with a broken bone and never got to play) as she is. The moment she made the goal, for it to even take place, for all players to be in that very position, as tired as they were, as sweaty and battered, dislocated etc, for all that to happen for sure everything that happened up until that point had to happen. Without one or more of whatever happens in a soccer game the first and second period, without the other teams coach having a bad divorce a month ago that still unsettled him and contributed to bad leadership etc, without all of that stuff we could not guarantee that Ms. x would have done that goal.
Please don't misread this: I don't claim she would not have made a goal if that day and the days before it looked differently. Maybe she would have made a goal, or more than one. We can never know. My point is simply that she is not the "decisive" factor. She is not the producer of the goal. She is not the creator of it. She is merely an instrument of the universe, of cause and effect. She is one of many overly obvious necessary factors to facilitate the goal.
Let's get back to Ms x as artist. I'd say same thing goes for her. She hasn't created anything. She + others that had various influence on her created the work she just wrapped up. Without them or whatever it was that influenced her or made the moment possible, there would be no artwork.
Logically it's simply just false to call her the "creator" of the artwork. At least if we use a logical definition of creator i.e. "being x's cause, making x the effect of what you did".
Here comes the sexist part and what makes all of this worth reading:
If we call Ms x the creator, we will in most scenarios omit exactly what you advocate in your text:
...creative people have a right to decide how their work is distributed,
The "creative people's work" can reasonably not be understood as an end product confined to a paper, JPG, MP3, CD or sheets of notes.
Da Vinci's "creative work" as a painter is not in any way only his paintings and whatever more he was painting on (roofs etc).
While it is true Da Vinci was a component in creating those works, arguably one of many other vital ones, Da Vinci's work must be understood in terms of his legacy as well as the physical paintings that contributed to cause it. Why?
Simple: If we believe that something is created as a result of an artist creating it (cause and effect) and we, because of that, accept that the artist has some kind of rights to/over that work (the effect), then by the same logic and on the same rational grounds, we must extend this to be applicable on other effects as well.
Why should we discriminate? Why do we respect Mr Da Vinci and understand he has rights over material works he crafted with his hand with the argument that he was the crafted objects cause, but at the same time deny him the same rights when he is something else's cause (or a part of it anyway)? Since when is "a work" (i.e. an effect) only understood in terms of "material output" as paper, paintings, scribblings on a wall etc? Why, and more interesting - what argument can show us that some of Da Vinci's effects should belong to him, while the masses can rob him of all the others? By what standards do we decide when an effect is a work or not: We seem to understand that Da Vinci would react if somebody stole his original painting, we are supposed to undestand that he reacts if we copy it illegaly and hand it out in the net, but, we are not capable of understanding that people copy his whole style, his ideas, his effects in whatever shape or form or lack of it they may have.
(Irrelevant sidenote: And truth be told: What is worse, when it comes to copying? Is it to copy the "soul", the "style", to replicate as many as possible of the Kung-Fu moves and run to another dojo and then claim own and exclusive rights (this is what all of the world is doing right now), or is it worse to just blatantluy copy the Kung Fu handbook and place it on the net, with credits and all, free for all to read? If we for some reason would have to choose between the two scenarios, which is worse off? Actuallu, nevermind, forget this part, it doesn't matter much what one answers here as it has little meaning for the argument in the end..)
The alert reader will react at the above passages.He/she will say "Wait a minute, didn't you previously state that nobody can create anything alone, and because of that nobody should get exclusive rights over the creation? Doesn't this apply to Da Vinci?"
Yes, it does. Point being, Da Vinci, even if he is a trend setter or great influence, at least greater to the world than most of us will ever be, he is not an exception to humanity, the order of the universe or the causality that might exist within it on some levels. No "creative people's work" can magically be the work of a sole cause (i.e. the lonesome individual).
If not, then why should we act as if it was so? That is what copyright law does: It steals from humanity, rewarding the thief - the copyright holder - with exclusive rights because he/she was the most recent individual to combine stolen parts, in best case scenario also adding somethign new. Please don't take the "stealing" metaphore to serious - it would perhaps be more proper to talk about piggybacking and locking out humanity.
While I studied sociology this wasn't controversial. While I lived with an artist and art science student, this wasn't controversial. Neither is it contoversial among the philosophers at my uni. Actually, the only time I've ever met someone that has reacted on all of this in some disagreeing way was when I studied some economy (oh lord, what a surprise here... I feel like Poirot..) and when I've met artists that believe their lives would be very peachy if it wasn't for piracy etc. Now, other people's reactions don't prove anything. I would be the last on earth suggesting that. I'm only getting at this being a fairly easy concept to grasp and that it seems to upset nobody except those that believe there are economical incentives to keep copyright as it is. And those people are many times the least credible group since they are corrupted by their self interest and tend to have a clouded judgement: Having to eat, pay rent etc does that to us ;) (Here I'm tempted to go into other topics, but I'll spare you all) and I understand their pragmatic stance, even if I maintain they can't explain away the irrationality in the copyright.
Sure, there maybe practical reasons for us not being rational and all time logical etc, but that's not the question at hand here, and many such obstacles could surely be resolved in various degrees if we truly wanted to change the world order (saying, even if we can't track all influences and relations of causes and effects, it doesn't entail that we should ignore those we can clearly track.)
If we would be honest, rational and coherent and all are as frakked up as I am we must make an addition to your statement:
Creative people only have the exclusive right to control their work when they are it's sole cause. Why? Bevause, if they have exclusive rights of a work that is not only a cause of them, then they are likely to be violating other people's rights.
So, as far as this discussion goes, I personally have no hard feelings about people imagining they created something them self. It's okey if they are, from my perspective, delusional and have an unreal perception of what's real or not. It's safe to say we don't interpret how society, and effects and chain of events etc, impacts the individual the same way, thus we would seldom come to the same conclusions.
I do appreciate all "creative people" out there. They make my life interesting and give me a lot. They enrich society in too numerous ways to list in this already too long comment. I applaud them, if such an act would show my gratitude and appreciation. I even consider myself being one of the creative people: I create games, poetry, flyers, php-powerd sites, debates, activist groups and plenty of other things. It maybe isn't two kissing elves, but heck yeah, I'm a creative person. :P
With that said, I don't see why a soccer player, or artist, or anyone else including myself, should get magical rights that can't be rationally explained unless we start oversimplifying the matter in order to fit them into the frameworks of certain interests or agendas, ideological or not.
I don't buy the illusion that I am the only cause/the only creator of this comment. I know that whoever I am today, and whatever made me write this, is just a vast chain of cause and effects, where I typing this, am acting as I do because of several reasons (causes / effects). I even know and can name several of those reasons and people that have influenced and/or affected me greatly in numerous ways that made this "amazing and creative work/comment" (yeah, I have a sense of humor, figure that ;)) what it is. If it wasn't for them and me, I could never have written this. I didn't crete. We did. I was just the final tool, totally impossible without them.
That's why I claim that I don't have any, pardon my french, exclusive bullshit rights associated to my work, no matter what the law says, as the law is not based on logic or anything scientifically sound. I would not contest the fact that the law claims I do have rights. I'd just point out that those would be legal rights. That reason alone makes them totally irrelevant to me if I want to make a constructive and rational post about rights. Nobody in philosophical academia gives a crap about the law - it's even a laughing matter, at least at the universities in Sweden.
My personal thought is that we, if we are serious about copyright etc, either try to locate and give the rights and shares of the rewards to as many as possible that actually contributed to x, and that it most often will be more than one person, or, that we find better systems altogether.
(As a utilitarian I'd go with the last option any time. And yeah, I know there are a lot of practical issues with much of what I write. A solution to them is however not necessary to test my main points, as this is not a comment about law, technology, psychology or something else that's practical in that sense: It's one about ethics and how we conclude that certain values can be justified better than others, and from what and how we drive so called rights.)
Although I'd love to discuss this in greater detail and answer questions and whatnot, I won't due to time restrictions. Please consider that if/when replying to any of my ramblings. I'd also like to add that you can all feel safe: I respect everyones licenses in here. Not because I believe all of them to be "correct" or "good", but because it's pragmatic and the law forces me to since it would spank me if I broke it - even if it is irrational. ;)
On a sidenote: I suspect my popularity went through the roof just now and that I made many friends in here ;)
*runs fast towards the exit*
Phew, I actually read all that wall of text ;) And believe it or not, the same line of reasoning (e.g. that everything belongs to everybody, since there can not be a "sole" creator) has been applied to property in general, by the anarchist Piotr Kropotkin over a 100 years ago :p
For all practical purposes however, like it or not, there has to be someone who does the "final step", or collection, remix... hell maybe just the final nail to fit it all together. But without him the final work would not exists!
Thus to foster the creation of "final works" one should give that last contributor a compensation for his efforts, which is most practically a limited copyright term on the work.
In a sense (and purely theoretically) you are of course right, that he isn't really entitled to that (or at least only to an insignificantly small part), but if you agree that the creation of the work was a good thing, and you would like to encourage him and others to create more nice works, then this is a practical way of doing it.
The rest of humanity can then have it as public domain a few years later :p
WTactics: An interesting post. Here's my response.
Intellectual property, like all property, is a construct of the human mind. The universe itself has no fundamental concepts of money or property -- those are things that we came up with because they make the world run better.
One thing that people as artists (and consumers of art) have to accept is the idea that we are, as Einstein put it, "standing on the shoulders of giants." There's no denying that Einstein and his compatriots made some huge discoveries. However, he himself readily admitted that he never would have made those discoveries had the multitudes of scientists and philosophers who came before him not made discoveries of their own. In other words, Einstein didn't invent physics from the ground up -- he was building on things that we already knew.
This does not in any way diminish his accomplishment, however. Einstein took old knowledge, built on it, arranged it in a new way, and came up with new knowledge. Were someone to repeat Einstein's discoveries and claim them as their own, they'd be laughed at. On the other hand, people commonly build upon his theories and reach new and interesting conclusions. And much like Einstein, the fact that they're building on his knowledge doesn't diminish their accomplishments.
Art is the same way, really. If you copy a work verbatim, then it's not your work. If you take a tiny step by copying someone's style but not the content of their work, that tiny step is your own. You won't get a lot of recognition for it, but you've earned the right to be credited, much as the artists who came before you were credited for *their* work. No one should be expected to invent art and style from scratch.
Furthermore, the question of whose work something is if person A has an idea and hires person B to bring that idea to life is something that person A and person B have to talk about when they write up their contract. It's completely within their rights to say that it's the work of the person who commissioned the art, provided they agree on that beforehand. When I hire artists to do work for OGA, they maintain the copyright on their work -- the condition is that they *also* release their art under a license of my choosing. Some people might pay an artist for a work and give them more money on the condition that they be allowed to take credit for it. There's nothing wrong with this, provided that both parties agree.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. :)
I side with the composer in this... mostly. He didn't demand that people stop pirating his property, he simply asked them. Of course, that might have changed had they refused to comply, but we'll never know that. I believe he was within his rights to request that people stop using his music illegally, and I think that the girl's logic is flawed. Even if she didn't have the money to buy the music, she would have bought it if she did have sufficient funds (and I'm sure she would have had them eventually). If you want something, you must place at least some value on it. If it has value, it is worth something. Hence, if you pay nothing for it, that is effectively getting something that is worth something for free... without the owner's consent. Which is the definition of theft. And then she has the nerve to blame him for making it difficult to obtain illegal copies of his work, and also demands to know what he's going to do about her 'problem'.
That's my take on the matter.