As a lawyer, I keep getting back to the fact that copyright, at least in this country, has nothing to do with the actual value of the work. This off the cuff reply is subject to the same rights as my professional blogging, subject to the same rights as a book I spend years researching (at least initially).
I know a number of writers and artists who make the same connection that money=respect. But this has nothing to do with respect. We give you rights so that you cna make a living, because if you couldn't control distribution, you could not afford to produce works, others could not afford to publish them, etc.
In Europe it is a bit different. Some works are entitled to unwaivable rights given to the creator, on the theory that the creator has invested him or herself in the work and therefore inherently has some permanent, non-transferable rights. But that is not the case here.
The distinction is important because it goes to policy. If we class this as about incentives and production and so forth, we get rational economic policy. We want to provide enough incentive and control to creators 9and others involved in the creative process) while not strangling fair use or locking up works for so long that the burden of maintaining the right imposes broader costs on others.
But once we make this all about respect, it is not a matter of rational policymaking. And, as I pointed out in my recent discussion of what exactly does a license to Urinetown provide, it gets very hard to say who is contributing how much to the creative process, and how do we apportion out the "reward" and "respect" for each contribution?
I'm not sure the equation holds
I know a number of writers and artists who make the same connection that money=respect. But this has nothing to do with respect. We give you rights so that you cna make a living, because if you couldn't control distribution, you could not afford to produce works, others could not afford to publish them, etc.
In Europe it is a bit different. Some works are entitled to unwaivable rights given to the creator, on the theory that the creator has invested him or herself in the work and therefore inherently has some permanent, non-transferable rights. But that is not the case here.
The distinction is important because it goes to policy. If we class this as about incentives and production and so forth, we get rational economic policy. We want to provide enough incentive and control to creators 9and others involved in the creative process) while not strangling fair use or locking up works for so long that the burden of maintaining the right imposes broader costs on others.
But once we make this all about respect, it is not a matter of rational policymaking. And, as I pointed out in my recent discussion of what exactly does a license to Urinetown provide, it gets very hard to say who is contributing how much to the creative process, and how do we apportion out the "reward" and "respect" for each contribution?