Taking Money From Our Pockets

[mabfan]

Folks who read here regularly know that I have a strong belief in upholding copyright law. Part of it is, admittedly, in my own self interest, as I've created works that have some value to them (or so I'd like to think). I would say that anyone who makes money off their creativity has some vested interest in maintaining certain rights over their work, no matter what they may say aloud.

There's also a certain level of respect for the creator that copyright should imply, but that doesn't always come along with it. A few years back, a man approached me about reprinting "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" for distribution to synagogues during Yom Ha'Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). In his very first email to me, he said that he was offering no money, but that the exposure would be good for me. I pointed out to him that I earn part of my living off of my writing – in fact, there was a time when I had no other source of income – and I suggested that he pay me $100. His response was to say forget it. The irony was that if he had approached me from the start by asking how much I would charge him for the reprint rights, I would have offered the story for free. (A lesson to everyone.) But approaching me as if my work was valuable enough for reprinting and sharing, but not valuable enough to give me recompense, rubbed me the wrong way.

Of course, it could have been worse. He could have run off copies without ever telling me.

The real difficulty comes when people are either ignorant or clueless about copyright. Eric Berlin, who is a playwright among many other things, just shared an incident under the blog post title Dusting off my playwright hat for a moment. A woman who is part of a group putting on his play has invited him to attend the performance. The only problem is, it appears that the group might not have bothered to license the rights. I say "might not" because Berlin notes the possibility that they might have tried to secure the rights but failed, due to the disorganization that exists at Samuel French.

However, assuming the group did in fact not bother securing rights, it puts Berlin in an interesting situation. The young woman who is playing the lead has praised the play very strongly, and any writer would love to hear his words praised in that fashion. But...but. If we don't pay our creative class for their work – if in fact we remain ignorant to the financial value their work should have to them – then what are we as a society saying to them?

Copyright © Michael A. Burstein

Comments

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

Well, there's software, too, and certain components of graphic design (which you may consider art). This is just a theory, but I think it may have to do with the tangible vs. intangible divide. I can touch a shoe, or a car, or a widget, and most people would have second thoughts about transporting any of those out of a sales location without payment. But then some people will turn around and think that if they're able to duplicate software, or rely on someone else's biography research, or play a videotape/DVD of a movie and charge 30 people to attend in order to fund their student group, or play commercial music over the school sound system instead of ringing bells to signal class changes ... why should they have to pay for any of that? They aren't stealing a physical software DVD, or the actual written biography, or the videotape/DVD, or the music CD, so they aren't doing anything wrong, right? There's a systemic lack of regard for intellectual (or any non-physical) labor or property. Many people are very stubborn in their refusal to accept that if they did not create it, they don't automatically own all rights to use it; or that if they buy one format, they don't automatically have all rights to all uses of that format, even those that involve duplication and propagation, even those that reap monetary benefits.

And in (over?)reaction, some companies try to shut down all forms of fair use, and other companies patent genes to ensure they can make money off their research related to the genes ....

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

Good point--the more I think about that divide angle, the more it makes sense.
(And I should have thought of software too, considering that I have friends in the industry who complain about this from time to time.)

Not that I would ever want to give up libraries, but I suppose this idea is also encouraged by the fact that we can check out books and videos (and in some places CDs) for free, and that so many books, etc. and so much software is available for free online.