"Intellectual Property" Does Not Exist

[NATHAN]

The idea of owning ideas is absurd and outdated. Nobody owns ideas, King Kong was created in the 1930s by Merian C. Cooper, Willis O'Brien, and many other men and women. Most, if not all, of these people are dead and yet the "intellectual property" of King Kong is owned by a company, full of people, whom had nothing to do with King Kong's creation. I don't understand why people believe this right in any way. How is it right to be able to "sell" and "purchase" ideas, when ideas aren't physical. It'd be like if I tried to sell my words to you, except that's a bad analogy because words and phrases are for sale! Names and phrases can be trademarked, bought, and sold for money. If you run a sport, you better not have your announcer say "Let's get ready to rumble!".

Companies believe that they are more righteous than 'regular people', who may want to create something with their "IP", even though they usually have little influence behind the idea. This is why I will never copyright any of the art I create, never. My art, if I'm lucky, will outlive me and carry a legacy of it's own. In my honesty, I cannot taint that with a '©' hanging above any of it. I do not believe I am above anyone who would potentially want to reuse and remix an idea that I've created or helped to create. Now, I am not saying that creators shouldn't receive any credit, all creators of that original idea should be credited, but fraud and copyright infringement are two very different things. It's one thing to take an idea and claim it's yours, it's another thing to take an idea and acknowledge its original creator whilst reusing and recycling it.

Now, maybe if these silly copyright laws didn't exist, the world would be more saturated with the same "intellectual properties" in art, film, games, novels, music, etc. but that's honestly a good thing. The world having more creations based on the same ideas would allow for four things.

1. A better chance of that original idea to survive
2. More variations of that idea to enjoy
3. A desire to create more new ideas in response to the amount of reused ideas
4. Less 'worship' of the "IP" holders (Look at how many people show up to those "D23" events)

(As an aside, many classic artworks, stories, and songs are without copyright, and yet we can point to their originators, while also enjoying different variations of them.)

I feel like I'm in the minority in this belief (If I called it an opinion it would seem like this is some preference in fashion). I'm curious to what you may think. Am I a fool for thinking this?

- NATHAN

 

[Bartc]

First of all, our copyright laws don't prohibit variations in many ways (only some limits), nor parodies, nor intellectual influence at all. They do prohibit monetizing someone else's good works, which was their intent. And many of those monetary rights have time limits that allow just one other generation of heirs to profit from their forbears' works, as they could from other aspects of the estate. I don't find anything wrong with that.

While I'm no fan of corporate capitalism on my most lenient days, "owning" your creative property and getting paid by some company to use it seems to me to be at least one way an artist can benefit. And the benefits aren't just from the immediate payment (or royalties), they're also from the marketing clout of the company that pays for it. Both of those are so damn hard to come by for artists, whether they're full or part timers.

I do see what to my non-legal eyes are abuses of the system of copyrights and trademarks, however. (Patents are widely abused in today's market, in my view.) And I don't always agree with the court decisions on these (do any of us 100% agree on any court decisions anyway?) So I'm not on board with the way these laws get used sometimes; other times when they benefit the artist him/herself, I'm all for them.

As to your contention that we do get to know historical artists by their works and their names without copyright protection, that is true. What is also true is that you only get to know a few relatively and those are ones that were "paid" for with patronage or sale and ownership and marketing too. The overwhelming amount of art that isn't "known" should belong to the creators, who can monetize them however they are pitifully able in a world that undervalues creativity.

I appreciate your thoughts, so don't get me wrong. Just have a different view, a mixed one to be sure....