summatus mentis

I did it. I broke down and bought a 2-year Flickr Pro account. I feel kind of gross, but that’s alright, it’s a much nicer interface than Picasa Web. I was going through the various configuration options, and there’s the option to choose which license you want to release your photos under. Basically your options are a variety of Creative Commons licenses, or maintaining all of your rights as the artist. If you’ve noticed, this blog is licensed under Creative Commons, so I licensed my photography under the Attribution Share-Alike Creative Commons license as well. That is, anyone can use, distribute, or modify my photography so long as they attribute it to me, and release it under the same license.

“Why?” you ask? Well, ultimately it comes down to ideals, and what you want others to be able to do with stuff you create. Technically, if you keep all your rights, someone owes you money every time they distribute your image. Or, if they want to use your image for something, they have to get your permission. That seems like a hassle, first off. Secondly, it just seems to make more sense.

If we look at the recording industry, for example. When an artist signs with a record label, generally the record label gets the rights to any music the artist produces within the contract period. The record label then maintains the rights to the music indefinitely. Does the artist get to do what they want with the music? Generally not. This is an excerpt taken from Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture (a book released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license)

During one of the performances, Else was shooting some stagehands
playing checkers. In one corner of the room was a television set.
Playing on the television set, while the stagehands played checkers and
the opera company played Wagner, was The Simpsons. As Else judged
95
it, this touch of cartoon helped capture the flavor of what was special
about the scene.
Years later, when he finally got funding to complete the film, Else
attempted to clear the rights for those few seconds of The Simpsons.
For of course, those few seconds are copyrighted; and of course, to use
copyrighted material you need the permission of the copyright owner,
unless “fair use” or some other privilege applies.
Else called Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s office to get permission.
Groening approved the shot. The shot was a four-and-a-half second
image on a tiny television set in the corner of the room. How
could it hurt? Groening was happy to have it in the film, but he told
Else to contact Gracie Films, the company that produces the program.
Gracie Films was okay with it, too, but they, like Groening, wanted
to be careful. So they told Else to contact Fox, Gracie’s parent company.
Else called Fox and told them about the clip in the corner of the one
room shot of the film. Matt Groening had already given permission,
Else said. He was just confirming the permission with Fox.
Then, as Else told me, “two things happened. First we discovered
. . . that Matt Groening doesn’t own his own creation—or at least
that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn’t own his own creation.” And
second, Fox “wanted ten thousand dollars as a licensing fee for us to use
this four-point-five seconds of . . . entirely unsolicited Simpsons which
was in the corner of the shot.”

I’d like you to pay attention in particular to the quote from Else

“two things happened. First we discovered
. . . that Matt Groening doesn’t own his own creation—or at least
that someone [at Fox] believes he doesn’t own his own creation.”

Yes, that’s right. The person who created The Simpsons doesn’t own The Simpsons. How is this sane? Matt Groening is unable to give permission to someone to use his own work.

This is not how things should be. First off, if the person who created the work gives permission to use the work, that should be all that’s necessary. Secondly, the people were trying to get permission to show a part of their documentary that had a 5 second clip of The Simpsons playing on a TV in the background. That shouldn’t even matter.

I’m not advocating removing any and all rights from the creator, quite the opposite. The creator should maintain rights, so long as their practical. The creator should be able to control the sale of their work, should they choose to do so. The creator should be able to give permission for someone to use their work, should they choose to do so. However, the creator shouldn’t lose rights to the producer, nor should anyone be charged $10,000 to license part of a work that is being used as a prop in another work.

Let’s think about how art happens. In any art class I’ve ever taken, we’ve spent time looking at works done by famous artists, , and then the project was to try and copy something done by this artist, be it the technique, or a similar image, or the media, or whatever. That’s how creativity works, in a sense. Many creative works are inspiring to someone (Person A), in some way. That inspiration can lead Person A to try and evoke the emotion that they’re feeling through some artistic medium. Arguably, that’s derivative work. Arguably, Person A have to pay royalty fees to the original artist (Person B). Except the original artist could be dead. That is, the original work from which this new work was derived could have been made hundreds of years ago.

Should Person A be disallowed from making art, if his or her art is in any way a derivative work (from Person B’s work, or anyone else’s)? No, that’d mean no one would be able to create anything anymore. Should a photographer have to pay royalties to some company whose logo he or she inadvertantly photographed? No, these logos are in public view. Royalties aren’t charged to people who walk by the business, why should they be charged to for people to see the logo when they’re not in the area?

The issues that surround artistic rights and creative control generally stem from trying to put what seem like intuitive ideas into a legal system with accountability. Clearly there are people who don’t believe artists should have any control over their works, and that everything should be public domain, but even if we accept this premise, it’d be difficult to legislate and put within the confines of a system. I don’t have an answer as to what the right balance is. I do know that the Creative Commons licenses seem to fit my goals as an amateur photographer and writer, and that I appreciate that others have licensed their works under Creative Commons as well.

UPDATE: Amazon released their second version of the Kindle recently. The Kindle is an e-book reader, allowing people to take books with them on the go, on one device. The Author’s Guild has said that the text-to-speech software that the Kindle has is illegal, and infringing on their rights. This is software infringing on author’s rights to provide an audiobook, according to the Author’s Guild. Audiobooks are considered derivative works, and because of the way copyright works, this software apparently is producing audiobooks. Stifling competition?  Perhaps. Author’s Guild being over-protective of their rights? Probably.

Should the author’s be able to maintain rights to produce audiobooks of their work? Probably, at least for some time. Should software be considered at fault for infringing on copyright? No. If the books were released under Creative Commons, this wouldn’t be an issue.