A suitable synonym for intellectual property is creativity. All people have the natural right to be creative according to MacPherson. Now, do all people have the right of protect their works of creativity and benefit from them? The capitalist belief or value defends the creator's right to profit from their works of creativity. And the American laws have been set to protect that value.
Now, the American law also allows pieces of creative works to be used by others as long as the work is cited or the tribute is contributed. Lessig presents "quoting" as a way of payment to the originator. As a student, I benefit from this allowance when writing research papers about topics only experts like Doctors of Philosophy have researched. Do I profit monetarily from this use? No. I do benefit but I do not profit monetarily. It is obvious that companies and profit seeking entities find problems with these 'quoting' issues when profits are being earned. GirlTalk, for example, is an artist that has made money from "quoting" musical artists in order to create new musical products.
If I am to support GirlTalk's position I would use the concept developed by Locke. Locke presented the idea that if value is added to something then improvement has been made and the new property that has been created is owned by the creator. This concept can be applied here. Many listeners are downloading GirlTalk's musical product which proves he has added value and made an improvement to something thus he deserves the monetary profits. Creativity in any form is owned by the creator thus GirlTalk should wreak the benefits.
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I agree with Kristina in that GirlTalk should reap the monetary benefits of his musical product - though it is a compilation, or mix, of other artist's songs, he really has created something new and original. GirlTalk is not playing the songs of others and claiming that they are his own; rather, he has woven together the music of many different artist and used it as a foundation to create something new that has proven to be a phenomenon. The way in which GirlTalk has added value to the music industry is twofold: not only has he created a new sound that is unlike anything we have ever heard before, but he has inspired other aspiring artists to think outside of the box when it comes to the creation of music. I believe that building upon the work of others is just as "original" as starting from scratch, and this is what GirlTalk has done. His work is original, and thus he should profit from it, just as other artists do.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Kristina about the whole Girl Talk issue. When listening to the music I found nowhere where Girl Talk had copied music from other artists. I found their product to be very interesting, and as Kristina pointed out, creative. This idea of creativity has been flipped in our society. Now it seems like something completely new and original has to be created for it to earn any type of profit or monetary value. An example of this is Travis Barker. Some people may know of him through his drum playing days with Blink 182, or his days on MTV in the reality show “Meet the Barkers”. Recently he has taken two rap songs and turned them into rock and roll jams. I’m not quite sure what the deal between the artists is or was but Barker has to be obtaining some value through his music. All that he did was add a heavy metal drum part through the whole song to make the song to his liking. Now it seems today people would be all over him because of copyright, but I see it as creative and enjoyable to audiences that like this type of music. So is Barker as guilty as Girl Talk? Well as I’ve stated, I find them both to be creative, and I think we need to readjust how we look at creativity as a society.
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