Well, let's get some things out of the way. I've pirated games. I've downloaded shows, potentially illegally. I used and enjoyed services such as Ninja Video before they got taken down. Just this evening, I sussed out copies of the entire Scott Pilgrim series in anticipation of the movie, just so I could see what I was getting excited about.
(Seriously though, as an aside? I also ordered every one of the collections tonight, it's that good. Scott Pilgrim is the best love-fight-coming of age-NES era referencing comic of our generation. The original is incredibly good stuff, and the movie looks like it's going to feature a surprisingly competant Michael Cera. Plus it's by the guy who made Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. I don't believe I can say no to this movie.)
Right, copyright. I can't really say that I'm on the right side of the law. What's worse? I, for all intents and purposes, agree with copyright law.
Now, I'm not necessarily for everything it's for. Artists, authors, and creators should get money for the difficult work of creation. There is no doubt in my mind that this is true. However, current copyright law has the time limits on something like lifetime plus 75 years. That's entirely too long, in my opinion. True, the creator's family deserves some recompense. But the overall creative market could do with some fresh infusion of existing works and archetypes.
Interestingly, the internet skirts around some of the regular copyright. Most notable in these skirting attempts (that's still legal anyway) is the Creative Commons license. With it, an artist can personally pick exactly how they want their work used by the public at large. For example, Jonathan Coulton has it so that his works can be used freely, so long as he's accredited accordingly.
And honestly, I can get behind Creative Commons. Artists still get paid, and the ability to leapfrog off of existing pieces is still available. At the very least parody laws exist. And I don't want to consider an alternate universe where they don't exist, because then we'd be without this:
And that would be terrible.
No comments:
Post a Comment