– fordi tiden kræver et MODSPIL

13. Jul 2005

Traditionel ophavsret på vej ud?

 
... og betyder det især, at plade- og filmselskaberne samt de store forlag vil holde op med at lyve om, at selvsamme traditionelle ophavsret "garanterer" kunstnerne, samtidig med, at de selv stjæler fra dem med arme og ben?

Interessant artikel af Sam Vaknin i Global Politician:
Eight years ago I published a book of short stories in Israel. The publishing house belongs to Israel's leading (and exceedingly wealthy) newspaper. I signed a contract which stated that I am entitled to receive 8% of the income from the sales of the book after commissions payable to distributors, shops, etc. A few months later (1997), I won the coveted Prize of the Ministry of Education (for short prose). The prize money (a few thousand DMs) was snatched by the publishing house on the (dubious) legal grounds that all the money generated by the book belongs to them because they own the copyright.

In the mythology generated by capitalism to pacify the masses, the myth of intellectual property stands out. It goes like this: if the rights to intellectual property were not defined and enforced, commercial entrepreneurs would not have taken on the risks associated with publishing books, recording records, and preparing multimedia products. As a result, creative people will have suffered because they will have found no way to make their works accessible to the public. Ultimately, it is the public which pays the price of piracy, goes the refrain.

But this is factually untrue. In the USA there is a very limited group of authors who actually live by their pen. Only select musicians eke out a living from their noisy vocation (most of them rock stars who own their labels - George Michael had to fight Sony to do just that) and very few actors come close to deriving subsistence level income from their profession. All these can no longer be thought of as mostly creative people. Forced to defend their intellectual property rights and the interests of Big Money, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Schwarzenegger and Grisham are businessmen at least as much as they are artists.
Og ja: En hovedpointe er, at den moderne teknologi gør såvel fremstilling som distribution så langt billigere og nemmere end før, at man vil finde andre produktionsformer; kunstnerne vil ikke leve dårligere end før (næppe heller meget bedre, men de vil få flere og bedre muligheder), men der vil blive mindre brug for mellemmænd i form af forlag og pladeselskaber.

Måske det er derfor, disse selvsamme har så travlt med at skrue Intellectual Property-bissen på: De ved, de taber på det lange sigt, og kæmper derfor alt, hvad de kan, på det korte.

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