Several months ago I posted, Why Do We Watch Sports?
reflecting upon how we live vicariously through our athletic heroes. The
tragic death of Michael Jackson reminds me that we live vicariously
through idols in music and film as well. Even prior to the 'talkies',
Hollywood had matinee idols who were followed and adored by their
fans. I wonder if we had more productive and engaging lives if we
would still seek to live vicariously through our idols? Or do we seek
something that is completely unattainable? An opinion piece in the
London Times articulates the damage that adoring fans inflict upon
their idols. I encourage you to read The fans killed their idol. They always do. She writes extremely well.
A
copyright issue has been troubling me. Forgive me if I do not
articulate it quite right (or if it sounds half-baked) - I am still collecting my thoughts. The
issue is described in Famous Oz rock song 'Down Under' accused of plagiarism. A lawsuit claims that the flute solo in the Australian band, Men At Work, steals from a song you probably remember from elementary school, Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.
If you remember the song, the flute solo in Down Under
is a nice touch. What troubles me is that intellectual property is
being locked up for all time under copyright law. A school teacher in
1934 was the first to register a series of musical notes and from that
time forward, the rest of humanity must pay royalties because she was born
earlier. Doesn't this sound intellectually stifling? Why does Marion
Sinclair own a piece of mankind's intellectual property? (Actually Girl Guides Australia owns the copyright.)
I believe this demonstrates the problem with copyright law. Men at Work are not accused of copying the entire piece - just a riff from the song. Today someone can independently plunk out those notes on the piano (or flute) and be prohibited from using their own creative thought because someone 75 years ago copyrighted it?
It
is also not much of a stretch to ask, why after 75 years is the whole
piece protected? There are a finite number of melodies and rhythms
that are pleasing to the human ear, and why is someone granted
ownership of it? The real reason that those notes and rhythms work is
because of our humanness - dogs and cats are indifferent to it. So why
do we permit ownership of our humanness?
This discussion has been focused upon music, but I believe it extends to other copyrighted works such as software and print. In application, I detect little distinction between copyright and patents. This is undoubtedly heresy, but I think copyright protection needs to be limited to perhaps a decade. Artists and other creators should receive protection from governments for their work. In exchange for that protection, after a limited time, the world has free use of that creation. Otherwise we will be stifling human creativity and simultaneously making lawyers wealthy.
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