Hollywood Sues Retailer for Piracy

That's the headline. It brings to mind something I've been thinking about lately, copyrights and trademarks. I've been trying to get through some of the Story of Civilization series by Will Durant, and at the beginning they talk about the copyrights. The first book was written in the 30s, and it took several decades to complete the series, for obvious reasons.

I started thinking about how long a creative work such as this remains private, and aside from the legal issues how long it should remain private. Of course the most fundamental reason for protecting these rights is monetary. Copyright issues dealt with in the courts are settled for the most part on who is affected commercially and financially. In other words, who's making money on the shit in question. This isn't too imply that creative work is shit, although some of it really is shit, but that's a matter of opinion. Where was I?

So it got me thinking, how long should someone be able to make money on a creative work. Will Durant died in 1981, but his wife Ariel is still alive and kicking, at least I can't find a deceased date on the website. That doesn't mean anything though, she was born in 1898, so if she's still alive it's a good chance there's not much of a life at that age. Anyway, there is a web site for a foundation called Will Durant Foundation, The Center for the Advancement for the Writings and Teachings of Will and Ariel Durant. It brings to mind other foundations such as that of Ayn Rand, and 'Estates' like that of Elvis Presley. Why have a 'Foundation' for someone that is gone. Sure we want to remember this guy and what he wrote, it's good stuff... boring, but good. But is there really a need for a foundation? The only reason I can see to have a foundation is it gives something 'concrete' for schleps to suck on for a while. Really, the only reason someone would be associated with something like that is because they can't do anything on their own. This stuff is still copyrighted, but the authors are dead. (I did some searching, she died in '81) So who is benefiting from the copyright? Why?!?!

Only in a capitalist state could this happen. Did you know that back in ancient times if someone wrote something, you had to actually commission a copy to get a copy for yourself. The person getting reimbursed for a copy was the person that made sure the copy was done. The author got nothing. Of course it was harder back then. It was almost as difficult and time consuming to make the copy as it was to make the original.

I have this idealist notion see. If someone spends a year working on something creative such as a novel, they should expect to be paid for it of course. But how about being paid for the year it took to write the damn thing, rather than the rest of one's life? That's how royalties work, if you own the rights to some creative work, others are only allowed to do things with it, as in publish copies, only after getting permission from the person that created the damn thing. The agreement entails some type of monetary compensation, usually in the form of royalties.

This is how capitalism works, people are encouraged and inspired by MONEY, and a lot of times this is enough incentive to put out something that has enough merit to be educational or entertaining. Of course we would have less writers today if the market weren't so lucrative if somebody becomes popular. Because of this we have to deal with endless sequels and remakes, original work is sacrificed for the 'easy money'.

I'm getting off track. I think the laws in this country protect the creative person just a bit too much. Wait a minute, maybe not the creative person, but the creative work. Maybe a person should be compensated for the rest of their life if they put out something worthwhile. I don't think it really should be that way, but just for the sake of argument, let's give 'em the benefit of any argument. We still have not covered the rights over creative works after the creator is gone! Ask any sane person of the works of, let's say Herodotus, whether it's right for someone to own the rights to this guy's works. (He's a historian from 440 B.C.) In other words, is there anyone alive that should receive royalties from a publisher if they print one of his books? Is there anyone that should be compensated, other than the publisher, for the costs of producing his shit? Of course not. Why then do we still have people getting royalties for creative works of dead relatives??

Because there are people in this country that believe greedy people should be protected.