Furthermore, as suggested by Kane (2004, p. 300-5), creative play for individuals (and thus the production of culture) is proportionate to free time (and perhaps access to facilities and tools). Making culture an industry, which provides income stability for the successful, thus empowers a few with declining interest to enjoy production of culture while the majority is resigned to passive appreciation.
The arts might be better supported by something similar to academic tenure. An interesting case study in this is the Australian film industry where around 400 films were produced between 1970 and 1985. According to Cook (1996, p. 589-90), large government subsidies and rebates were the reason for the production boom. Since the reduction of these in favour of the commission, film production has declined.
The idea of a creative class who have control over culture does not appear to emerge in any of the articles sampled, but it is interesting to note that the relationship between creative and original production are not discussed in relation to copyright either.
In conclusion, intellectual property has aided the production of culture, not by empowering people and industries to create and innovate, but by maintaining status in society. By not clearly defining whether content is product or property, the status of “creative industries and technological developers is assured. The role of the media in this arrangement is to perpetuate this confusion.
Unlinked References
Doctorow, C. 2006. 'Fighting the Future' (Speech). Brisbane Ideas Festival.
Jackson, M. 2002, 'From private to public: reexamining the technological basis for copyright', Journal of Communication, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 416-33.
Unlinked Articles
Fisher, D. 2006. 'Bid to increase copyright charges angers clubs and pubs - Industry in a spin over fees,' The Courier-Mail, 6 April 06.
McBride, S. 2006, 'Online sharing evolves for Warner bros. --- Peer-to-Peer Technology, long scorned for pirating, is tapped for sales of movies', The Wall Street Journal, 9 May 06.
Primedia. 2006. 'MPAA is now suing newsgroup and P2P search sites,'Primedia Insight, 2 March 06.
Stehbens, L. 2006. 'Music fee move has the pubs reeling.' Centralian Advocate, 14 April 06.
Article comments
1 - methuselah
There are several flaws in current copyright laws, the result of an incremental creep toward monopoly control thru the efforts of corporations large enough to pay the high rates of lobbyists with good connections in compliant federal government.
1-the putative purpose of copyrights is to protect the intellectual, time and money investment of artists, partly to reward them for their efforts and partly to encourage successful artists to create more works, financed thru the royalty proceeds from earlier creations. This would be a reasonable plan, and it had worked in the past, protecting artists from exploitation by malevolent copying businesses and, to a lesser extent, casual pilfering by end-users. But this system was defeated by the great efficiency of large businesses that succeeded in discounting the future profits of artists by contracting them very early in their careers so that the corp would get the royalties and the artists would basically get day-wages for their efforts. The best known example of this is the rock music industry in which a $15 CD nets the artist less than a dollar. Where the recording company didn't have a prior contract with which to discount the artists earnings and capture it for themselves, they simply ignored the artist or used legal force and the superiority of resources to overwhelm the artist. Not only that, but as the royalty reward to authors of songs began, through enforcement, to produce revenue, unscrupulous individuals insisted that they be listed as co-authors to songs though they had cntributed nought to the composition. This was done under threat of exercising monopoly access to markets to browbeat artists into acquiescence.
2-copyright durations have been egregiously extended by a federal congress submissive to the demands of corporations eager to extend their de-facto monopolies far beyond the short time originally allocated to allow an artist to recoup his investment and make a reasonable profit.
3-the civil courts have shown consistent favoritism toward the Goliath companes against the David artists, either by outright findings against artists, or by allowing delaying tactics that had the same result: justice delayed is justice denied. Perhaps the judicial principle here is the belief that it is safer to harm a little artist with a wrong ruling than to harm a big company, many of whose stakeholders may be harmed.
2 - chancelucky
Jonathan,
I agree with your basic point. The operative word in "copyright" seems to be "copy" and technology has made copying so easy that the technology of enforcement really can't cope.
The Japanese system of declaring certain individuals "national treasures", encouraging them to teach+share their art/craft with others and also guaranteeing the master a comfortable living may make as much sense as anything these days.
As you point out, academic tenure works that way in some ways, but it also generally forces these individuals to teach which often can be a different skill entirely.