You’d think, as a writer, that I’d be all for strict enforcement of intellectual property rights. No, actually.
I’m for *sane* enforcement.
The way things stand now, intellectual property rights are a welter of lockdowns, extortion, and exploitation long after the original creator has died. Museums hold fast to image copyrights of pieces they own*. Major corporations are probably the worst culprits. Disney is infamous for copyright extensions that underpin its entertainment empire, while profiting mercilessly on out-of-copyright stories. Monsanto puts small farmers out of business for growing corn accidentally pollinated by the agrigiant’s own patented corn plants.
I’ve been watching the battle between the Conan Doyle estate and several authors. In June, we had one breakthrough ruling. Now we have another from the same judge who, in essence, said ‘the Doyle estate is guilt of extortion’.
These kinds of battles annoy me the most. I’ll give fair value to a content creator and possibly their immediate heirs, but copyright in the US was meant to protect an income stream for a few critical years, while gently urging the creator to do more work (instead of sucking off one invention for life.) I don’t think third-generation heirs (Chris Tolkien & Co, I’m looking at you) and unrelated estate owners (the ‘Happy Birthday song’? Really?) have any business holding so tightly to copyright.
Do your own damn work, and profit from that.
Is this counter-intuitive to my love of fan fiction? Hardly. I don’t sell my fan fiction. I recognize that most art forms are fluid mixes of original inspiration, learned techniques, and borrowed ideas.
* In the case of museums, I can’t fault them for the idea of image copyright, just the implementation. In these days of falling attendance and lower (or no) government support, museums have to find funding on their own.
For me, the problem lies in images that may not be as well known as the ‘Mona Lisa’, but nevertheless are out in the public sphere through earlier publication. There’s a 15th C Dutch painting I’d love to have as a frontispiece for this blog. I first saw it in a coffee-table art book a decade ago. I’ve seen it since in many places online. But to license the image for one year (from the major museum which owns the piece) would cost considerably more than I pay to host the blog. I could pirate the image like everyone else seems to have done, but I won’t.
It’s not worth the hassle.