Copyright

[KurtisM]

I've been thinking about how much copyright has been used in such dismissive, manipulative and "negative" ways. Particularly for me, in the area of artistic permission for expression.

 

I'm wondering what you all think of this law? How has it played out in your lives? Do you think it will evolve as we progress into the Mature Age Paradigm? Currently I think it's very much a young soul tool for gaining profit and getting+retaining status, and that saddens me.

I've been deeply looking forward to the future of art and creativity.

[John Roth]

5 hours ago, KurtisM said:

I've been thinking about how much copyright has been used in such dismissive, manipulative and "negative" ways. Particularly for me, in the area of artistic permission for expression.

 

I'm wondering what you all think of this law? How has it played out in your lives? Do you think it will evolve as we progress into the Mature Age Paradigm? Currently I think it's very much a young soul tool for gaining profit and getting+retaining status, and that saddens me.

I've been deeply looking forward to the future of art and creativity.

I've been thinking about this on and off for a while. As you may or may not know, copyright goes back to Queen Anne's Law; before that the publisher owned the work, so people like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Shakespere got a single payment for their work, if that, and there was no protection against some other printer taking that and printing their own copies and selling them. The reason the King James Bible is called the Authorized Version is that there's a law in England that gives the right to print copies to authorized printers. There's no expiration date on that version.

 

Copyright is enshrined in the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The Mickey Mouse changes to the international copyright laws (so called because Disney pushed them through to protect the copyright on the aforesaid mouse), certainly seems to violate the spirit of the phrase "limited times." I'm not at all sure that it authorizes the transfer of rights to publishers, etc. Licensing of rights, yes. Transfer, possibly not.

 

The thing to remember about what's coming down the pike is that Capitalism, as we know it, is simply one of Sentience's experiments, and it's reached the point where Sentience has gotten what it wants out of it and it's time to experiment with some other way of organizing the resource allocation side of society. Whether there will be anything resembling copyright a hundred years from now is, as far as I can tell, questionable.

 

[KurtisM]

Thanks for the history on the topic John. :)

Young Age art is very pristine, hierarchial and commercialized in our past- but that's mostly cause we did choose to live through capitalism during it.

 

With what I've seen about art in the Mature age is that it become far more accepted as diverse, nuanced, contextual, and used as a means of exploring and fulfilling intimacy.

The Mature Age seems like one where people are no longer seeking an individual identity for themselves, so the boundaries of what art is, how it can be used and how the creator "owns" that creation would seem to dissolve so that any experiencer of that can contribute to it in their own right.

 

I've read topics here describing Old Soul art as well, and even then it becomes even less owned by any particular person or group, and more and more like a piece everyone can contribute to spontaneously so that no sight/experience of that art is ever the same for anyone who sees it. Ever-evolving art that anyone can add to.

[ckaricai]

I could say a lot about copyrights. Writing and interpreting copyright contracts was my first publishing job. The laws are rather convoluted. One of the challenges was securing rights for works that were created before ebooks and digital technology even existed. 

 

In any case, making art regardless of what it is costs money and it takes time. So copyright laws are necessary if you want to be able to make art and pay rent. I would imagine that in a resource based economy contracts would be written to include intent instead of monetary compensation. I don't know that I would feel comfortable if someone used my art to make a statement that goes against my value systems. I wouldn't want to be misrepresented. Or maybe if people want to use other people's art in their own work collaborative agreements can be made instead.

Edited September 24, 2016 by ckaricai

[KurtisM]

That's exactly how I was thinking Ckaricai. 

Regarding value systems, yes that's certainly tricky. Someone could use your art in a way that misrepresents your beliefs, but I do think that we'll have an eventual built-in policy that will consider that each individual's contribution/use reflects their own perspectives rather than that of the creator.

 

Inherently built into the Mature Soul is that consideration for and exploration of personal rights and the nuances of each group/person involved in the dynamic. Rather than say, standardized laws.

 

So intent over compensation holds true, and collaborative agreements/work is a step in that direction definitely. We aren't in a century of DEBT anymore, after all.

Edited September 24, 2016 by KurtisM

[ckaricai]

57 minutes ago, KurtisM said:

That's exactly how I was thinking Ckaricai. 

Regarding value systems, yes that's certainly tricky. Someone could use your art in a way that misrepresents your beliefs, but I do think that we'll have an eventual built-in policy that will consider that each individual's contribution/use reflects their own perspectives rather than that of the creator.

 

Inherently built into the Mature Soul is that consideration for and exploration of personal rights and the nuances of each group/person involved in the dynamic. Rather than say, standardized laws.

 

So intent over compensation holds true, and collaborative agreements/work is a step in that direction definitely. We aren't in a century of DEBT anymore, after all.

 

are you saying we aren't in a debt century right now? My student loans and maxed out credit cards would beg to differ. Ha! 

 

I don't agree that there would be a built in policy to consider the perspective of the artist. That implies that the observer has to know something about the artist to interpret their work. That won't always be possible. The artists aren't going to always be there to explain what they meant. Art doesn't need an intent to exist. Sometimes we just want to make pretty things. Sometimes you just want that idea out of your head so you can focus on a new idea.

 

I've been thinking about knitting a bunch of squares with different patterns just because I want to knit but I'm not interested in making clothes all the time. I want to make them for my own pleasure. If someone came behind me and asked if they could have them I'd want to know why. (I'm not going to give up all the time and effort I put into them without a discussion. Even in a society where we do some things for the greater good we might still do some things for ourselves and feel ownership over some things. Those squares would me my babies.) So, If I agreed to the reuse and they ended up using them to make sweaters for dogs people wouldn't know that wasn't my intent when I made the squares unless the new creator said so. To the observer it's only ever meant to be a dog sweater. 

 

OTOH, if we are all used to reusing and repurposing things it might also be assumed that the yarn was repurposed, and that where it came from originally and what it's original intent was is irrelevant. I could have unraveled an old sweater to make the squares in the first place. 

 

People already up-cycle items all the time and I think people only want to know an item's provenance to prove it was actually up cycled. Maybe in a resources based economy people won't care about a work's provenance at all. Who knows.

Edited September 24, 2016 by ckaricai

[ckaricai]

This is not about copyrights but is related to repurposing found objects. 

 

[KurtisM]

Good points.

I'll have to think on this. I'm interested in all sorts of opinions, but I want to know what I'm talking about too.l

 

This would be a good Q to ask the M's, if anyone wants to take it up. I wonder what they would say.

[Maureen]

Here is a Q&A I had with Michael about the future where the topic of "owning" things came up.

 

Maureen:  Michael – What did you mean by “There would still be a concept of privacy, competition, and defense in culture of the oldest of souls, but these would tend toward a refinement that may be very difficult for those of you in the current paradigm to even conceive”? Would you give an example of what will be difficult for us Older Souls to conceive?

MEntity:  Maureen, from what we have seen in any older soul paradigm, the concept of competition would tend to be either in playful terms, or in how that competitiveness contributes to the joy and well-being of the others involved. There is no real concept of winning. Games would tend to seem either boring, confusing, or pointless to the younger paradigm of game players. Imagine a football game where there are no teams, no score, and no winners, and you may come close to a glimpse.

MEntity:  This is starting to come into fruition in the world of video games where those games emphasize experience as the priority over the winning or scoring.

Maureen:  I can see that. One of the reasons I don't like professional sports so much is that someone "has to lose". It's heartbreaking to watch at times.

MEntity:  Privacy is all but gone in the old soul paradigm, at least in terms of how those from a young paradigm might see it. Body image issues lose all footing, and clothing becomes optional, while resources are no longer used from a base of competition and debt, but availability, so there is no currency or details about oneself that can be exploited in those ways relative to resources.

MEntity:  Ownership of objects tends to be seen more in terms of borrowed, so that there is little attachment to "things."

MEntity:  When one person may lean toward more ownership of things than another, they are considered available within reason to anyone, and expectations or demands to the use of anyone else's objects is minimal, since they are fairly readily available anyway, and when not available, it is not taken personally.

Maureen:  I have "imagined" that in the future Michael - about not "owning" most things - borrowing even personal things.

MEntity:  There are some hints of this in terms of digital products in your world now, with confusion in place regarding the legalities of control and ownership for such products.

MEntity:  It is a different world of rules regarding ownership when objects can simply be duplicated without effect on the original object. Theft is not only no longer of interest, but no longer of necessity or use.

MEntity:  For now, this paradigm of borrowing is fairly limited to the world of digital products, but is mired in younger soul concepts of profit and ownership. The Priest who was known as "Aaron Swartz" is in a Configuration looking to change this paradigm of competitive ownership

Maureen:  So his death may have some meaning then?

MEntity:  In terms of defense, the older soul paradigm tends toward dynamics that usurp any necessity for assault and defense in any obvious sense, though there would tend to be tactics in place relative to any known threats. For instance, there would still be concepts of healthy preventions, and remedies, as well as physical weaponry relative to threats.

MEntity:  However, the concept of defense would be relative to threat, not to paranoia, or speculative threat.

MEntity:  Maureen, if those who remain from the Configuration choose to carry forth the point of his vision, awareness could come, but the actual changes necessary for implementing his vision would seem to be for another generation.

MEntity:  The "foot is in the door" of this precarious consideration for the future of digital data, so this was Good Work.

 

[Sarah]

I think ckaricai makes a good point about copyright being necessary to make a living. At this point in time, anyway. We still live in a society where most people need money to buy food, pay for housing, etc. Giving away your time and energy and ending up starving on the street doesn't exactly seem productive (since, in many cases, that situation would prevent you from making more art since you'd be thrown into a survival situation).

 

I don't think the concept of respect is there yet. Respect for artists and their time, I mean. I've seen so many people with the attitude of, "If it's on the Internet, it's free!" It doesn't seem to matter how it ended up there, if it was stolen or if it was put up freely with the expectation that credit would continue to be given when the work was shared. There are still many people willing to take credit for the work of others. Until we move past that, copyright laws are going to be necessary if we want artists to be able to do their thing.

[DianeHB]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Kurtis is probably referring in part to copyright concerns of his paraphrasing of Michael material channeled by Troy. When you start doing any sort of essay writing in college, Kurtis, you'll find that you can quote or paraphrase anybody's work as long as you properly credit them. This is not a limitation on artistic expression, it's a matter of respect for other people's work. As a writer, how would you feel if you came across someone else's writing on the internet that copied or paraphrased your work without crediting you? 

[KurtisM]

Thanks Maureen, that was very helpful and enlightening!

 

Also, Diane that's pretty smart & intuitive to relate it to that, but that's not why I posted this topic.

I understand now that I should have credited Troy's works early on, as they are built from his rightful passions and he deserves credit for all that he's done. At the time, I'd seen such topics of overleaves written on multiple sources+sites, so I assumed that writing about and summarizing them, especially since they were noted to be genetic as well as energetic, would be useful and readily available to anyone who might want it.

Until some members mentioned crediting Troy, I never thought of it.

 

Rather, this is more related to fan fiction. I know some very devoted people inspired by their favourite fictions to create a story or game others may read/play, that have been struck by copyright laws and had all their work cut down. To me at least, seeing what is simply a fun fan fiction game in honor of a series/show that other fans can play, be cut down just because is saddening.

I understand when the creators are not credited for their proper works, but for most of these cases they were, and these very fan fiction works would actually help the original creators gain notoriety anyways.

 

As an Old Soul Artisan I know that any one thing that's expressed cannot be standardized in its meaning, quality, value etc. across the board.

If someone were to use what I created, I'd know it's not for the same reasons I would use them and "my" character would reflect different attributes to anyone. So I'm slowly growing out of the idea they have to represent them accurately(Passion Mode).

However I still understand the pain of misrepresentation, especially when it comes as a threat to your profession or reputation in the world.

[Christian]

Thanks for asking the question, Kurtis.

 

This helps with a story I am working on. 

[Connie Stansell-Foy]

On 9/24/2016 at 10:56 AM, KurtisM said:

I've read topics here describing Old Soul art as well, and even then it becomes even less owned by any particular person or group, and more and more like a piece everyone can contribute to spontaneously so that no sight/experience of that art is ever the same for anyone who sees it. Ever-evolving art that anyone can add to.

 

Reminds me of graffiti. One person paints something on a wall. Then another does. Then another, and another, and another, until the entire wall is covered in paint, sometimes multiple layers deep. And there's no guarantee it will stop there, though the owner of said wall may do something to remove all the paint. Then the artists begin again - most likely different artists.

I hadn't thought of graffiti artists as Old Souls before. Interesting idea.

Edited July 22, 2020 by Connie Stansell-Foy
Why do I never see typos when I make them?