societal ideals around what constitutes ownership over art are changing

"Societal ideals around what constitutes ownership over art are changing." - Mike Arrington (you did notice this is a citation with a hyperlink?)

I can almost hear him swinging his dreadlocks away from his chicory-colored face. His voice melodic sing-song syrup over grits: "Yeah, baby, keep it going...what about that dang title on the house artists lives in? Let's spread the love to all that art. Who owns who what any how?"

He's whispering in a parallel universe, though, that's all "made up". Though that's an exchange I'm likely to have with any of my artistic colonists on any given day.

This Lane Hartwell brouhaha kinda proves that these two worlds are drifting apart, like Lewis Hyde points out in The Gift:Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (original edition subtitled "Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property"). What worlds? Gifts, and commodities: the gulf grows wider. Almost forcing art to flow free.

In a nutshell, Hartwell had a video pulled off YouTube because one of her photographs - she's a full-time photographer - was used without credit or compensation. She talked with the videographers first before enforcing this via copyright law. There's more about the Lane Hartwell case here.

"The real issue here is that Hartwell’s feelings were hurt. She wanted attribution in the video, and the creators ignored her." - Mike Arrington, "Misunderstanding Copyright Law and Ruining Everyone's Fun"

Yeah, Art is a gift. You don't actually have to say thank you to the muse either. Yet it's pretty natural to be overflowing with gratitude. Not about expectations, just makes you wonder if anyone's sensitive to that je ne sais quoi between muse, creator, viewer, and the blur of it all.

This story illustrates many burning issues of the day, especially for artists. Right now just want to address one area in particular.

Given that Web 2.0 is purportedly about social connections and community, then it would make sense that you'd want to make it as simple as possible to encourage exchanges between people, not cut them short prematurely by making them effectively anonymous.

So I taking another view of the whole thing in this comment because as I say below: "Making a living as an artist in modern times isn't exactly a piece of cake. And it's not like you make up for it in social standing either. The art makes it all worthwhile. And these days, the relationships around that art make it all worthwhile."

This is the text of my comment in reply to: Why Lane Hartwell is Wrong, by Matthew Ingram (you notice that byline, that link? maybe I could have left it out) below.

UPDATE: I'm so with you, Joe Duck: "Solutions? Dunno, though I'm increasingly leaning to [Thomas] Jefferson's notion that idea "ownership" should not be tolerated and extending this broadly."

Art Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Eduoard Manet, Bar Guurow (in Somalia) by Claver Carroll @ Lonely Planet Images (Without people, bars aren't very inviting to me. Quite lonely actually.)

"As a writer/artist myself, and someone that blogs for a creative community, I've been noting that artists are grappling with the larger issue that I believe pushed Lane Hartwell to take the kind of actions she did.

Not that I'd approach Lane's dilemma the same way - I encourage people to share my work freely far and wide, but I ask that they also circulate my name and link along with the work too. DJ's remix - and still give credit where credits due.

Making a living as an artist in modern times isn't exactly a piece of cake. And it's not like you make up for it in social standing either. The art makes it all worthwhile. And these days, the relationships around that art make it all worthwhile.

Let's consider each piece of "art" to be a "social object" that sparks, and encourages conversation and exchange. Stripped of its creatorship, the viewer cannot hope to have a conversation with the creator, because we won't even know whom that would be.

I believe part of the beauty of Web 2.0 is that these kind of exchanges are possible between creator and viewer in a way that's never been done before. For instance, just the other day an author emailed me because he saw my attribution to his book. He would have been excluded entirely from that exchange with me, and with my audience, if I had "neglected" to mention his name altogether. Now he wouldn't be the wiser if I hadn't credited, but I wanted him to know that I was influenced by, informed by, and thus reused his work in my own.

It was clear from her own words that Lane was frustrated seeing her work widely distributed with no attribution ("credit"). Not only was she excluded around the conversation around the social object (she only stumbled upon it, it was not innate to the finished video), she can't even reap the benefits of PR and word-of-mouth. This is akin to copy and pasting entire paragraphs, and even complete posts, from TechCrunch without any link, without a mention of author or mention of "TechCrunch" as the originator.

Even if that's legal, it's lame.

If I ran the world, I'd abolish copyright altogether. Creative Commons would be default. But even a CC license acknowledges and continues to include an artist in the derivative works."

- Evelyn Rodriguez, Crossroads Dispatches

Comments

[Tara Hunt]

Awesome post, Ev. As usual, you make really great arguments.

[donna]

The problem is using the legal system without handling things first (or even attempting to) in a friendly fashion. When people complain about my linking to or using something on my blog without proper attribution (which I always try to make, or at least attempt to) I will never link to or use or patronize them ever again.

It's not like I'm profiting from their work by putting it on my blog anyway.

If her photos were public on Flickr, she runs the risk of them being used, even if she posts copyright notices. Anyone who really admired that photo could have tracked her down, and perhaps gotten a print of it.

Now, it's very likely that even more people will avoid her work, and this move will cost her work.

[Joel]

Quoting from the referenced Wired article:

“Richter Scales member Matt Hempey said the group considered its "Here Comes Another Bubble" a parody video, and thought that as such it would be protected by fair-use provisions in copyright law.”

Appropriation of the picture was not fair use. Fair use stipulates a quantitative relationship to the object being used.

If I were to review a play, I'd be able to quote snippets from the play to illustrate my critique. If I were to review a motion picture I'd be able to encapsulate brief scenes from the picture pertinent to that review. But how can republication of a copyrighted picture be justified by “fair use”?

Incorporating the picture to be part of a larger work doesn't alter the extant fair use requirement with respect to the artifact in its original scope.

Further, cloaking the fair use argument in “parody” is also fallacious - the picture itself isn’t a parody of anything - but doing so does conveniently beg the aforementioned question.

[Ole Ship]

I Agree and understand "the relationships around that art make it all worthwhile", and relate it from a earlier the post "but first we need to tea, er, eat" -http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2007/11/but-first-we-ne.html

Drawn to the tune and relationships that I've seen put into contexts on this site I took the liberty of an out-of-the-blue search for "Evelyn Rodriguez Christmas 2006", just for ideas I guess, anyway the pull was the first result and its description "in Innovators and ... a still from the film The Fountain (2006); The Fountain, by Kent Williams. ..."

An email I recieved recently inspired me to sign up for the newsletters to comment on the source page. The article title "Community is king, Content is dead", I would have to research for the source again, but it is really about relationships I belive , and the type of contexts is good here.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Tara, thanks.

Donna, here's Lane's own words here:
http://tinyurl.com/2y296p

Lane DID ask nicely behind the scenes. She happened to stumble upon the video - and she was not even mentioned for a photo that was licensed "All Rights Reserved". Richter Scales brought in lawyer (they initiated the lawyer thing) that said they didn't even need to give her credit and took what almost sounded like a brusque attitude with her. After all, it *is* her photo they are using. That's when she brought in a lawyer for advice. Too often artists cave in to what appear to be the "big boys" (i.e. lawyers would fall under this category) and give up.

She was in her rights to do with the work what she chose. She choose "All Rights Reserved" on Flickr. I already said if I ran the world there would be no copyrights, all would be Creative Commons by default. But I also honor the free will choices of others too.

Even Creative Commons stipulates you must give credit. That's simple common courtesy in my book to fellow artists.

The web is about linking. It's a network. It starts to lose that network and community effect when folks choose exclude by NOT linking to the quotes and photos and art that informed, influenced, and made their art possible.

Joel, I agree with you, though I'm not a copyright attorney. Even Fair Use would give the author credit, at minimum. If you read my post, I'm on Lane's side here. I would not have brought in lawyers - but that's me. But neither would I have caved in to Richter Scales blowing me off either.

Ole_Ship, Thanks, I think I'm following you. Are you a real person? Anyhow, I hardly write about Christmas - not my thing to make one day more special, sacrosanct, and sharing - that ought to be blessed everyday.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

One of the most thorough blog posts about this: http://powazek.com/posts/836

However, I myself don't abide with ask permission first. For Flickr, I stay completely away from All Rights Reserved. Don't even see them - just search on "Creative Commons" only. On the Internet-at-large, real-time media like Twitter or blogging is too fast to wait for "permission." So even if it's copyrighted, I take it, but give proper credit with a hyperlink. Should the artist have issues with this - the hyperlink will alert the artist, whom may then contact me and ask me to remove it, and then I do.

It's worked so far. Only two professional artists in over 2-3 years has asked to remove their photo. And one reconsidered after our conversation. The second was offended by the spiritual content of the blog and wanted nothing to do with being affiliated with, so it was more that issue than copyright even.