Terry Gross interviewed both Shepard Fairey and Mannie Garcia on her
program "Fresh Air." Both are available as podcasts on the NPR
website. Here's a link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101184444&ft=1&f=
Roger
On 28 Feb 2009, at 1:27 PM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On Sat, February 28, 2009 11:55, Emily L. Ferguson wrote:
Unfortunately,
here in the US, we have a term in our Constitution which specifies
that copyright must eventually devolve into public domain, thus
robbing heirs of the right to control usage of creations of their
elders.
This is not "unfortunate"; this is the bedrock basis of copyright in
the
first place. Extending our system to life+50 and then life+70 was a
terrible decision, I think (though harmonizing with the rest of the
world
is valuable); it's far too long.
If everything gets wrapped up in permanent copyright, then it becomes
impossible to do anything with it. Art has always been an ongoing
conversation, and this would bring it to an end. Imagine if a
photographer had to reach a contract with the architect of every
building,
the breeder and current owner of every plant, the designer of every
piece
of clothing, and so forth, that appeared in their pictures.
"Intellectual property" is a high-level abstraction, and all the
simple
analogies to other kinds of property are deeply flawed. It's its own
thing and needs its own rules, which we haven't gotten right yet.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
