Royal Flower Girl Trumps The Don
We know how you feel sweetie!
Who Owns What You Create?
This is the final essay I wrote for Media Law and Ethics.
The World Intellectual Property Organization refers to intellectual property as “creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works… and designs used in commerce” (WIPO). Throughout the course we have been reminded that IP law exists to stimulate creativity and inventiveness. Yet, today much innovation is stifled by career patent companies that use their rights and the law to prohibit further expansion of their ideas. In the absence of an empirical definition of creativity, a handful of music, movie, and software companies have defined the word in dollars. If it makes millions it’s creative, and it belongs to us.
Current interpretation and enforcement of IP law does not acknowledge that nothing is created in a vacuum. If tomorrow’s technology is built on yesterday’s knowledge, then it is interpretive as well as transformative. And the collaboration produced does not deserve protection above and beyond that of the original sources.
Years ago I helped videotape an event occasioned by the retirement of an international chemical company’s patent attorney. He gave a long speech that detailed the history of some of the company’s most successful products. I still remember how he noted several products that the company did not invent, but merely patented. He in fact claimed that getting a patent was easy once you met the requirements (novelty, usefulness, nonobviousness). As a young creative that information left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Today, I have mixed feelings about the extension of copyrights. But changing current laws will only become more difficult with an increasingly bipolar government and constituency. I understand wanting to hold on to something you created. However, if balancing creativity against the right to monopolize profits from one’s inventions is the goal, then future interpretations of IP law must change drastically. We need to celebrate transformative, non-competing uses of material as copyright success stories, not demonize the courts and government for failing to protect information owners. Juries, judges, and legislators must work harder to “split the baby in half”. One portion of law I feel definitely needs to be repealed is a technical amendment added to a bill that allows sound recordings to be considered “works for hire” (Love). This automatic conveyance of ownership rights to record companies mocks the idea of copyright stimulating creativity.
Going forward, the ethical responsibility to respect other people’s work remains intact. Choosing to totally disregard current laws would have the same stifling effect on creativity the current “user as criminal” culture has engendered. But at the same time, the next generation of artists needs to work harder at changing the political landscape. Choosing to patronize open source and Creative Commons licensed artists, as well as using these less restrictive models for some of our own work is a beginning. Without a new example of how copyright and patent laws can benefit creators and society at large, corporations will continue to confiscate the work of others and hoard their own creations with no intentions of ever releasing the knowledge to the public.
Works Cited
Creative Commons. “Creative Commons.” Creativecommons.org. Creative Commons. Web. 18 Dec. 2010.<http://creativecommons.org/>.
Love, Courtney. “Courtney Love Does the Math – Courtney Love – Salon.com.” Salon.com. 14 June 2000. Web. 18 Dec. 2010. <http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love>.
“Mission | Open Source Initiative.” Opensource.org. Web. 18 Dec. 2010. <http://www.opensource.org/>.
WIPO. “What Is Intellectual Property?” Wipo.int. World Intellectual Property Organization. Web. 18 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/>.
It’s Your Community; You Decide
Ask 10 people to define “community” and you’ll probably get 10 different answers, or none at all. We may all agree on a broad definition–a group of people who share a commonality, for instance, location, a disease, religious or political beliefs. But try to nail the fine details and even broad definitions disintegrate.
Perhaps that’s why out of 50,000 people only 25 showed up to discuss my city’s nascent Unified Development Ordinance. (At least five were city employees.) Once developed (pardon the play on words), the ordinance will simplify the maze of rules that developers must navigate to build in the city. It will be the framework that allows citizens and entrepreneurs to develop a liveable, walkable, and bike-friendly city that embraces the many varied definitions of community. Ever visited a town with a diverse yet successful mixture of businesses, ethnicities, and economies? Thank their Unified Development Ordinance and the citizens who were willing to confront past prejudice, current reality, and future uncertainty in deciding how to define community.
Now, I understand other people actually have lives. Unless you’re a city planner, discussing parking space to square footage ratios may not pay the bills. Setbacks and city codes are not very sexy. But get this plan wrong, and lack of sex appeal will be the least of a city’s concerns.
This is neither a chastisement, nor expression of disapproval over the collective public apathy surrounding local government. Being overworked and underpaid doesn’t leave much energy to contribute ideas that may take decades to fulfill. Or at worst may not happen at all. But people have a right to decide what their community should look like. And invitations to discuss comprehensive plans and development ordinances are a good place to start the conversation. After a 12 hour shift some of the discussions may induce a sleep worthy of Rip Van Winkle. But who knows, if that happens maybe when you awake 20 years you won’t have to struggle to define community; you’ll be surrounded by one.
Posted in Personal Tagged citizen, community, comprehensive plan, neighborhood, planning, unified development ordinance Leave a comment
9/11: Let Us Move On; Let The Dead Sleep
To the living, the dead are asleep. The Bible makes that clear. There is but one voice they will hear; it is not ours. They don’t know we still weep. Their nerves don’t grate at the shrill bagpipes played in their honor. The tolling bell does not disturb their slumber. They do not stir when their names are read one after another in an hours long sorrowful, orgiastic trance.
They are no longer witness to the perpetuating hatred against Muslims.
Every token of remembrance is strictly for the living. And we have every right to remember, to celebrate, to memorialize. But with that right comes the responsibility to move on. Grief should be part of healing, yet somehow I don’t think the macabre proceedings in New York every year on this day are accomplishing that healing. Once healed, a scar sometimes remains. Or perhaps a slight limp, or a painful twinge that predicts the coming rain. It’s only fitting that Ground Zero remains a pus oozing open sore that won’t heal; it reflects our national psyche in that respect. But a public spectacle magnitudes larger than any individual funeral for those who perished only serves to reopen the wound.
It takes a lot of strength to move on. At 13 I lost a brother to an act of violence every bit as sudden and senseless as the hijacking of four planes. When a loved one or friend is taken away suddenly, a rift large enough to engulf you opens. The beckoning darkness (like sleep) seems comforting. But time and tide slowly close that rift, never totally, but enough for you to jump across. Maybe nine years isn’t enough time. But I see that rift growing, and that means the medicine is not working.
It’s time for a new prescription. If I were doctor I would start by downsizing the 9/11 ceremony. That sounds like treason to some reading this. But it’s a start. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had lost someone in the attacks. Probably not. But watching the pomp and circumstance, I sense a feeling of obligation from the participants. We don’t have to forget; we’ll never forget, but we’re only obliged to move on with our lives. I think if they weren’t busy sleeping, nearly 3000 people would agree.
Life’s Falls
Yesterday had that look. It was the first hint that I had seen all summer. Well past the Summer Solstice, the sun’s golden rays had taken on the slant that says fall is coming. It’s definitely not here yet, although the past few days have been a welcome relief from the weeks of broiling temperatures we’re accustomed to. But the light had a new angle to it as if to say; wait for it. Wait for the renewal, the end of old, stale things, and the fulfillment of nearly forgotten dreams.
I’m not good at this waiting. It’s like standing around in mud. The clammy abrasiveness cakes upon your skin, clogging your pores. It sets, a dusky concrete stretching on for miles and engulfing your life. It takes more than a pretty golden light to fix that. But the light is a harbinger. It’s a sign of the coming season that reshapes life with its cold vice grip.
That’s what I thought about this morning as I sippped the pre-fall season’s first French Press (a nice, locally roasted Sumatra): how the seasons shift and change and every time it happens, it feels so new. But it’s a cycle. Life shifts and changes too; it’s a cycle as well. Mom used to say, “Life’s a constant repeat”. It was always a desolate thought, but has never been truer.
Nature may abhor a vacuum, but autumn does a nice job sucking up the past. The cooler air points me in a new direction and whispers, Hey buddy, life’s that way! Out there! Once beckoned, it’s hard to turn back. Like a shark I keep moving, as if that is the only answer. And as fall slides into winter, summer’s memories freeze and shatter like crystal beneath my trodding feet. Once I’ve found the temerity to stop and look back I think about the last line in The Day After Tomorrow:
“Have you ever seen the air so clear?”.
Thoughts On A Bicycle
It’s a beautiful summer day, except it doesn’t feel like summer downeast NC. A heavenly cold front has spanked the ghastly century mark temperatures. That and overcast skies are holding the mercury down to about 80° today. It’s a great day for a ride and the shiny two-wheeled contraption collecting dust in the corner is begging for a spin. So I take the back way to Homework Central with the lappie snug in its new backpack. And several thoughts remind me that things are different on two wheels. On a bicycle…
- Flats don’t seem so flat anymore.
- A ride to your local caffeine dispenser is not just a trip, it’s an adventure!
- You fully appreciate the fact that objects are closer than they appear.
- When you haven’t ridden in a while, your lowest gear is sometimes barely low enough.
- The swooshy descent is worth the burn.
- I need to ride more.
- It’s good to be alive.
Carbon-neutrally yours,
Eric Blues
MS Word: Neutering The Language For Safer Reading
It’s English 102 time. Of course that means writing a research paper (essay, really). Yes… more Starbucks, more staring into space trying to gather my thoughts, and more Microsoft Word. Make mine 2003 if you please. It also means more Wordisms… like the dozy attempt at gender neutrality above.
I could go on and on about the end of the patriarchal society as predicated by the world’s favorite text editor. Or I could argue the other side and wax nostalgic for the good old days when men were men, and mankind included women kind whether we, err… they… them liked it or not. Instead, I’m merely prompted to ask “Do you remember your freshperson year?”
Posted in Art School, Personal Tagged gender, microsoft word, research paper, writing Leave a comment
Outpost 9: One Giant Leap For Martian Bats
Six weeks, nearly 450 lines of code (paltry), too little sleep and too many Starbucks triple tall Americanos later, I’ve delivered my first game coded in Adobe Director’s Lingo. It may have only been a dream, but this concludes the required three Interactive Authoring classes for my degree at the Art Institute. I’m pretty happy with the game and it’s a great base for continuing my education in Object Oriented Programming. Although many Flash-savvy authors consider Director an endangered species, it’s still useful for making stupid online games. And without silly Interweb games, how else are we supposed to eat up millions of hours of productivity.
Feel free to contribute to this global suck by clicking the Outpost 9 graphic below. The premise is simple. You’re part of the security force for Earth’s first manned outpost on Mars. Aggressive Martian bats (actually, one bat 
) attack during the day. Kill him or make it to night without dying and you win. Don’t bother changing weapons at the moment. The Shockwave is not active yet and the alert box disables further game play.
Posted in Art School, Culture, Personal Tagged adobe director, art institute, games, shockwave Leave a comment
