Comment

Big Brother Amazon? Not Really

317
SixDegrees7/20/2009 3:52:29 pm PDT

re: #268 jackflash

“You clearly are not a writer, or anyone else who cares about copyright.”

Well, of course, Dianna, if I depended on my writing for my income I’d be thrilled with having a copyright that gave me monopoly profits for 18 or 36 or 60 years. All monopolists love making monopoly profits, of course. We have laws preventing monopoly in the other sectors of the economy, however, because such market structures are bad for the rest of us and destructive for the economy. I think it’s pretty lame to suggest that copyrights this long are in any way needed to reward creativity and innovation. Maybe 5 years is the wrong length, and I just pulled 5 years out of the air, but 18 years is clearly wrong, too. Writers should stop whining and just increase their productivity. I would argue that a copyright, in the cases that it has significant value, might discourage creativity because the writer gets an income without concomitant additional contribution to the creative process. What are Huxley’s heirs doing to deserve this ongoing income stream?

Copyright applies not only to particular works, but to derivative works as well. J.K. Rowling has successfully prevented several other authors from using characters and settings clearly derived directly from her Harry Potter series. Just last month, J.D. Salinger brought suit against an author who published a novel detailing the life of Holden Caulfield in middle age for copyright infringement of Catcher in the Ryel there is little doubt that Salinger will prevail, because the appropriation of another artist’s intellectual property extends beyond a particular work and protects future work as well. Rowling holds exclusive rights not only to what she has already published, but to any additional works she may publish making use of the same characters, settings and themes.

In short, it’s your work, you own it, and possession of a copyright on it legally entitles you to sue anyone who attempts to steal it and use it for their own purposes without your express permission. Analogies with home ownership are perfectly apt here; there’s no difference between physical, tangible property like a home or a boat or a diamond necklace, and intellectual property like a novel or a song or a painting.

To be even shorter, there is no one on the planet of any significance whatsoever who shares your opinion on this matter.