On Dec 5, 2006, at 3:18 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
On 04.12.2006 Andrew Stiller wrote:
By the same reasoning, I would argue that there should be a cap (say
$1M) on the amount a work may earn for its creator under copyright.
Anything above that, and the item goes PD. I would also argue that no
copyright should be ownable by an institution, but only by one or
more specific, named human beings. Many of the abuses being
complained of here would go away were this latter suggestion to be
enacted.
The much a socialist I may be, I honestly cannot follow any of this.
Why should other people profit from my piece of art, only because I
already made a million with it? If I decide I am not going to sell it
anymore after I earned a million or two, why should anyone stop me? To
repeat someone else's words: It _is_ mine, mine, and only mine.
That is not true of *anything.* You do not, for example, have an
absolute right to do anything you want with your house (such as burn
it down or rent it to a gang of thugs). Copyright is the provision of a
monopoly for a limited time, for the benefit of *society*, not the
creator. If your song earns you $1M, what benefit is there to society
if you earn $2M?
A work of art that earns over a million bucks for its creator(s) can
only do so by becoming an integral part of the culture that so rewarded
it. Novelists, especially, have understood for centuries that a
fictional work or character can acquire a life of its own over which
the author has no control. The immense number of purchasers represented
by a million dollar profit is in itself a signal that the creation has
outgrown its creator. A piece of music can only be said to be "mine,
mine and only mine" if it is neither performed nor shown to anyone (and
even then: did you make the paper, the ink yourself, using your own
recipes and unowned materials?). Once I hear it, it is in *my* head
too, and you can't make me give it back, nor can you stop me
describing it to others or whistling the themes or publishing an
analysis. If it gets into the heads of millions, then there is a meme
out there with your work's name on it, that you neither own nor can
control, regardless of the law. If the law does not recognize that
reality (as indeed it currently does not), then "the law is a ass," as
the Dickens character said when informed that he was responsible for
his wife's debts.
Everything humans do is socially constructed because, as primates,
that's the way we are (were we cats, it would be different!) The idea
that a thing may be absolutely owned is both false-to-fact and
incongruent with human nature. I do not absolutely own this email.
If you write a novel, and it sells well, would you want Hollywood to
make a big blockbuster movie out of it, make a fortune, and not give
you a penny, just because the book sold well? Sorry, you already had
your million, now we make billions with your work.
If I write a novel and it sells merely "well," that will not amount to
anything close to $1M. If it sells for $20 and I have the usual 10%
royalty, that means that in order to earn $1M, 500,000 copies would
have to be sold. If a hypothetical hit movie were made after that, it
would itself go into the public domain in about 2 weeks. No billions
there--not for any single entity.
Nor, of course, would my publishing contract be voided just because my
book went PD. It would continue to sell and earn me bucks (now marketed
as the "only authentic edition") for as long as people kept buying the
thing--which might well be forever.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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