>So you refuse to get paid for your work? If you publish a book or make a
>record of songs you wrote and learned to make beautiful, I and all others
>can copy it for free or just plain steal it? Pretty amazing altruism! Or
>is it conservatism -- i.e., sacrificing of others welfare for your
>principles?
>
>What claim, then, do "ordinary" workers have to wages and a proportionate
>say over surpluses? Hey, we're all just channeling what others taught us,
>and you might say your labor input creates some rights for you, but I say it
>doesn't. Anarchy, man -- and capitalism, too!
>
>And, if your labor creates no special claims, as it's only "your" labor
>because of what you borrowed from others, then what's wrong with plagiarism?
>Isn't that just another way of borrowing? Why should anybody get credit for
>their work at all?
>
>Michael Dawson
Of course I get paid for my work. I don't give it away. Well I do on occasion but I do charge for my work. That is not the same thing as saying that now that I have rendered this image on canvas, or paper or whatever that image is mine exclusively for all time or even for some specific period into the future. This is what copyright is about. Limiting the distribution of specific images, ideas to paying customers only. Do you think I care if someone makes an exact copy of one of my paintings and sells it? I don't in case your wondering. Copyrighting an image makes as much sense as saying that once I paint a picture every time that painting is sold a portion of that sale should continue to come to me or my offspring should I have any. I should add that I'm much of a working artist these days. That belonged to the past but with recent events going the way they have I may find it my vocation again in the near future. Disney doesn't own Mickey any more than someone owns the Mona Lisa. I can freely incorporate the Mona Lisa into some specific piece of advertising work and no one cares but if I include an image of Mickey in the same piece I am in trouble. The copyright on Mickey is just an attempt to extract a perpetual income flow from an image with no additional labor on the part of Disney. Just kick back and let the money keep rolling in. No design work or originality necessary to continue to suckle on Mickeys teat. Is Bill Wattersons income stream somehow diminished because of multiple stupid images of his cartoon character pissing on any number of things? Do you know who the character is and give the designer credit without his being financially remunerated for those images? Could you picture what a stink Disney would create if people did that with an image of Mickey? When employees build something they get paid by the hour or by the piece in a manner similar to an artist who gets paid per painting. This is close enough to true for the purpose of the point I'm making. If an artist gets paid for the labor they put into a piece there is no reason they should be allowed to derive an "extra" income on top of that in the form of a copyright. Working as an artist is liberating enough when compared to working in a factory. I've done both and much prefer art. Artists are in a sense already doubly paid. If an artist makes $45,000 and a person assembling circuit boards also makes $45,000 the artist gets the "extra" compensation of a more challenging and interesting job with much greater flexibility in scheduling. Because they are an artist they deserve a "third" form of payment in the continuous extraction of money from the "ideas" they create too? This is just an example of elites valuing their work above the work of mere laborers. The fact that some incidental benefits accrue for those further down the ladder is just a happy coincidence. The attempts to tie the fates of working class artists with elites through the mechanism of intellectual property rights is transparent and should be opposed. Copyrights exist for the wealthy as a form of extending the extraction of payments out of work already done. Entire books have been devoted to the subject and I doubt that my writings here will put the issue to rest. So much for my attempts at brevity.
John Thornton