COPYRIGHTS:

A CHOICE OF NO CHOICE FOR ARTISTS AND THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES;

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IS LOSING ANYWAY

 

Joost Smiers

(3 May, 1999)

Joost Smiers est directeur du Centre de recherches de l'Université des arts à Utrecht, Pays Bas, et professeur invité au Département des arts et cultures du monde de l'Université de Californie à Los Angeles. Son dernier livre est État des lieux de la création en Europe. Le tissu culturel déchiré (L'Harmattan).

 

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Excerpt:

There exists convincing evidence that artistic life, which is an important segment in every society, is better off when we give up the concept of copyrights. As a consequence, our common artistic creativity will no longer be the exclusive possession of a handful of intellectual property rights corporations. Knowledge and creativity become again an essential element of the public domain. And, surprisingly enough, without the system of copyrights many artists in western and non-western countries will be able to earn a decent income!

Many reasons urge us to reconsider the copyright system which gives the exclusive rights on knowledge and creativity to authors of different ilk. The reality, however, is, that they appropriate artistic materials which exist already for a long time and which actually belong to our common good. For instance, there is no poem created without former poems. In our present culture we are inclined to forget that the author or performer has used many sources - language, images, tonality, rhythms, colours, movements, meanings, humour, and so on - which belong to our common cultural and intellectual domain. Therefore there is no justification to claim originality and as a result give an artist monopolistic rights on his or her work. "Originality" is thus a misleading and romantic concept .…