Best ideas seem to come on sunny terraces. I had a drink yesterday with friends of mine Douglas and James who are both active in the media field in the Netherlands. We started talking about the commons movement, i.e. different projects that attempt to change the paradigms of copyright systems. The most famous of them is the Creative Commons where the author can personally and easily adjust the rights given to authors. This means that it is easier than in the standard copyright system to give others the right to use your material for instance for sampling if they mention your name.
We continued the discussion on democracy and citizenship. It is very clear that these new attempts for increased sharing would also give more rights to the authors and less to lawyers. This could also give several young or alternative artists more possibilities to get their work seen.
This discussion is happening on several arenas. However, the politicians and civil servants are not actively taking part in the discussion. I saw yesterday in the Finnish tv news that Finnish record companies are going to file law suits against peer-to-peer sharing. And the parliament is helping in this with a stricter copyright law.
Of course the copyright issue is not a black-and-white issue. I understand the concerns of the book publishers and record companies to some extent. But the core principle of the Creative Commons is really easy to accept: giving more rights to the authors and making the copyright system more transparent. A classical example of the CC movement is Jack White from The White Stripes who gave the right to sample their music to an alternative artist.
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Tekoäly taiteilijana
2 days ago
2 comments:
Päh, liian kiireessä kirjoittaakseni englanniksi. Sitä vaan, että täällä eduskunnassa monet tiukkojen tekijänoikeuksien kannattajat näkevät tekijänoikeudet ensisijaisesti taiteilijoiden toimeentuloon liittyvinä kysymyksinä. Keinona taata heille työstään edes jonkinlainen palkka.
Toisaalta, tässä kysymyksessa on erityisesti se ongelma, että tekninen kehitysa menee eteenpäin niin nopeasti, että käytännössä laki on vanhentunut ennenkuin on voimassa.
Elina says that in the Finnish Parliament copyrights are seen as a way to guarantee income for artists. I understand that view. But the idea in the Creative Commons movement is that the author could adjust the copyrights based on the nature of the product.
But this is an issue that needs more research before a final (if that is even possible) opinion can be formulated. I just find the change of paradigm hugely interesting.
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