> Sol wrote in response to Patricia:
> I think that's the case here. People are too hung up on possibly losing
> money that they haven't even made yet - all the artists who complain about
> this kind of thing are loaded anyway.....when it comes down to it you can't
> really own anything. You come into this world with nothing and leave with
> nothing so why hang on so tight to stuff you'll have to give up in the end.
>
But income is time. If people rip off my work, for which I am ordinarily paid,
then I have to put in more hours at other kinds of work, much of which I'm not
crazy about, and thus cannot do my work, my artwork that is. Copyright history
is quite fascinating, the arguments for and against, it's fairly recent,
actually. What I remember from accounts of the fight for copyright laws in
France is that rather well-known authors often didn't want copyright because it
would reduce their rep--fewer people around the world knowing their names--and
a large part of their incomes was derived from the fame machine (talks,
lectures, all the furniture of fame) and less from the actual sale of works,
whereas lesser-known writers who derived a larger proportion of income from
actual sales of works favored copyright. So it's been kind of a little-guy
thing. If other means of deriving income from the pursuit of music or artmaking
can be found, great. If not, do we have to hack off a few more inches from the
limbs of artists, again, so that we can all have our free music? Why are you so
attached to the few bucks you might have to spend to buy a CD? O, by the way,
CDs are much cheaper in the States. What is it about the distribution mechanism
in the UK that doubles the price?
I don't know, payment for work done seems like a pretty universal desire. Is it
so much to ask? Why are all artists and musicians expected to have either trust
funds or day jobs? Do we expect surgeons to sweep floors so they can be
privileged to indulge in their surgical avocations when they can scrape
together the time to do it? What would the quality of surgery be like if
everyone doing it had to do something else for 8 hours a day? Why does this
argument still have to be made? It kind of makes me crazy.
AK
