Lawence Lessig's Free Culture raises
some interesting points about copyright, public domain and creative changes vs.
plagiarism. Lessig references Walt Disney as the face of modern adaption;
citing his obvious copy of Steamboat Bill, Jr. as well as the rest of the fairy
tales he converted from dark stories to one’s full of magic,
mystery and happy endings. Copyright law
has always been difficult to sum up in just a few words; with the vast number
of exceptions, loopholes and uncertainties, it comes down to those who study
the law to enforce it. The first
copyright laws date back to 17th Century Britain, just after the
invention of the printing press and the beginning of widespread distribution of
reading material. At that time copyright
law only applied to the written word because that was the main medium of
communication and art had yet to hit mainstream status. The renaissance inevitably had a huge impact
on copyright law, with the introduction of art as wealth, music, poetry and
drama as a means of income and the general increase in knowledge, possession of
such media needed to be heavily guarded.
Authors associated with such works wanted their work to remain
unchanged, undamaged and only used at their discretion for good reason; art
became part of the social norm. As time
went on, information spread and control became necessary. Copyright law was originally designed to
prevent an individual from taking possession of the work of another and
claiming it as his own. But when
original ideas become more and more scarce, it is only inevitable that the
human population must look at what they already have and change it, rather than
trying to start something from scratch.
Adaption is necessary for progression.
One point that was brought up in class alluded to remixed songs. So many great songs originated from
completely different songs. One of my
absolute favorite songs is “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds. “Little Boxes” has been remade literally
dozens of times, each with a new twist on the beat, background music and melody,
allowing each new artist to contribute something new. If copyright laws prevented any sort of
adaption, so much of what we see as “original” would cease to exist. When it comes to bit for bit copies of media,
copyright law should be used to stop profitable distribution but without
Creative Commons and the public domain, newness would be much slower to take
hold. The rapid progress that Western
society has seen in the last 100 years would slow tremendously and life as we
know it would regress to a state of “pre-enlightenment”.
