Emily L. Ferguson writes: : The possiblity exists only because artists have signed away their : rights to the likes of Corbis, Disney, National Geographic and Getty. : Those who didn't, like Galen Rowell, and Led Zeppelin, and myriad : other artists who figured it out, are examples to the rest of us of : why it's important not to. : : They are all clear examples of why art should be not be free of copyright. some of my random thoughts. There certainly needs to be a copyright for those who want it, some however will give it up. We here in Australia 6 or 7 years back strengthened copyright protection for photographers enormously! Fantastic protection was offered, it really should have strengthened the market a lot. Sadly it steered customers away from the commercial services and photographers surrendered their rights in droves to keep the work coming in. A lot of the reforms were then dropped or repealed and now we're worse off than before. If photographers had wanted to keep the standards high they could have, but it was seen as bad for business (!?) : If something is free, then it has no value as measured by the : standard of current society. If it has no value, then why are : Corbis, Getty, National Geographic and Disney so eager to protect : their copyright and so eager to force the taking of it from the : spineless and gullible? It seems to me that in some instances, the thing they own copyright over is less valuable to them than the copyright it's self. That copyright entitles them to drag people into court and sue their butts out of existance, making themselves some dollars in the process : If you can express the value of your home and land in dollars, why : does it make sense to deny a similary valuation of a piece of art? In the example I used before, HK cinema, the viewing experience in the cinema was what people paid for and the film seemed to have little or no value. For the actors, directors, cutting houses, cinemas etc, the films had to keep rolling, new product every week if they wanted to earn their money. It was just a job, one they chose to do. Few if any ever made more than an average income. For live musicians, every performance pays the bills. Don't perform, no pay. Few get rich - it's just an income. there's no lingering benefit once the music stopped This model has been around for ever and will continue to be this way for most of the population. I sell photos by shooting what people want and selling prints - that was how I got paid. Should I have exhibitions or market my prints by distribution, I got paid. No photos, no sales, no money.. Not everyone can earn the elusive royalties that guarantees a regular paycheque though it would be nice :/ Then again there's the whole issue of idea versus a tangible 'thing'. Amazon owns 'one-click' ?? hmmmmm. : Art should be free? Artists should stay up 8 hours a day working in : Wal*Mart or at Toyota on the production line so they can spend 8 : hours of their own time creating their art for others to use for free? no way. but playing devil advocate, would it be totally unreasonable for the artist to works 8 hours a day making and selling their art to make an income? Copying will occur, but there's always a market for the 'real' thing. the apple i-phone sells. it has limited capabilities compared to the Chinese i-clone M8, it sells for a lot more than the M8, yet Apple still have a ready market for the 'real' thing <http://www.sleepyegg.com/General-News/Meizu-iClone-M8.html> Apple i-pod enthusiasts view ipods as the 'real' thing and pay a premium for what they perceive as quality. Other more capable MP3 players exist and have done so for longer, even ipod clones exist, piggybacking on the perception issue - yet the ipods still sell very well. Fake Rolex's sell, real Rolex's sell. People will scan and copy my pictures, so be it. I'd consider it a different matter entirely though if they then set themselves up selling and making a profit from my pictures! But going hostile on a customer who's overstepped the bounds is only going to alienate them and that is not a good thing Or another scenario, the photographer who's shown a print of someone elses work and asked if they can shoot in the same 'style' - I am sure this has been discussed at length here before. We can often rationalize this form of copying, especially if means money coming in k
