Copyright Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Artists can be awfully protective of their work. In his forthcoming Copyright Wars, Peter Baldwin observes that Samuel Beckett “objected . . .\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/07\/copyright-wars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Copyright Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Artists can be awfully protective of their work. 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{"id":16355,"date":"2014-07-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2014-07-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T00:00:00","slug":"copyright-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/07\/copyright-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyright Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Artists can be awfully protective of their work. In his forthcoming\u00a0Copyright Wars<\/a>, Peter Baldwin observes that Samuel Beckett \u201cobjected . . . when directors performed his plays with women, non-white casts, or incidental music. He sued the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge for playing Endgame <\/em>in an abandoned Boston subway station and the Comedie Fran\u00e7aise for doing so on a set bathed in pink light. . . . Beckett also quibbled about stagings of Godot <\/em>in Dublin, London, Salzburg, Berlin, and Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artists are also famously nervous about protecting their rights, and never satisfied that they have done enough. Baldwin notes the inherent tension in intellectual property rights: Artists and authors want fame and money, the audience wants access to cultural treasures. Artists wants ownership of their products, but their products are part of a common cultural heritage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The product of these tensions, he argues, has been a steady expansion of intellectual property rights over the past several centuries: \u201cfrom the eighteenth century to the present, rights holders \u2013 whether authors or disseminators \u2013 have won an ever-stronger stake in their works. In certain nations some claims remain with the author and his estate perpetually. But in all countries rights have been continually extended on their owners\u2019 behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, in spite of regular complaints from artists, intellectual property rights are now stronger than rights to real property: \u201cIntellectual property has in fact come to be treated more favorably than its conventional cousins, especially real property. . . .\u00a0American and especially European authors have received ever-greater powers over the past two centuries. They may decide how their works appear, whether others may make use of them for derivative creations, and if so, under what circumstances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since 1908, \u201call member states of the first international copyright union, the Berne Convention, were obliged to grant copyright without any formalities whatsoever. Every scribble, doodle, and bathtub aria was thus a protected work as of its creation. The shopping list on the fridge is as copyrighted as Dan Brown\u2019s latest blockbuster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, \u201cEverywhere property has been ever more subjected to restrictions imposed by the state as the ultimate regulator. From nuisance laws to rent regulation, from zoning codes to health-and-safety rules, from taxation to outright takings, conventional property \u2013 the state has made clear \u2013 is possessed on society\u2019s premises and only insofar as private ownership is compatible with broader social objectives. The social determinants of private property became ever more prominent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldwin sees this as part of a larger cultural trajectory that has moved from \u201ctangibles to intangibles,\u201d as symbolic, intellectual, and non-material products have assumed more and more of our economic life. Already in the nineteenth century, in one Pennsylvania county, the proportion of intangible assets had grown to more than two-thirds of the total wealth. We have become a more \u201cspiritual\u201d economy over the past several centuries, and property law has followed.<\/p>\n

Baldwin admits that the shift has not been uniform. Intellectual property is more thoroughly protected in Britain and America than continental Europe, not to mention the wild west of Asia and Africa. (Years ago, NPR reported that a Chinese translation of the last Harry Potter book appeared before<\/em> the English original. Readers were bewildered about the strange plot twists.)<\/p>\n

The other recent challenge, of course, has been the protection of intellectual property in a web-connected work. \u201cDuring the 1990s film and music corporations fought consumers over open access, peer-to-peer downloading, and digital rights management, sounding themes familiar from earlier debates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldwin thinks that it\u2019s important to see that \u201cThe copyright wars of our own era are only the latest iteration of a long-fought struggle. . . . Chronologically blinkered as we all are, the digital generation thinks it is fighting for the first time a battle that, in fact, stretches back three centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re inclined to wager, the historical trends indicate that you should put your money on the artists to wins this latest engagement in the copyright wars.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"