Talking Points: The Starving Artist

You should have had your ears to the ground, buddy.

I get into plenty of comments sections discussing the topic of copyright.  You might be surprised, that some arguments start to form a pattern, and then I feel that, instead of replying to each and every one of those, I´d rather do a column adressing them.

For example, I´ve already seen at least two people bring this kind of talk :

"This is a bad era for artists! I spent so and so effort making an art, and then e'rebody stole it. You guys don't know what it's like to create something because you all want something for free!"

No, this wern't comments in videos and articles about "END COPYRIGHT FOREVER, FREE SHIT FOR EVERYBODY". These were comments in videos explaining in great detail how copyright was manipulated to do the entertainment industry's bidding.

I'd like to say all those guys are just People from the RIAA and MPAA sockpuppets  trying to change public opinion in their favor, but I have no evidence of that. In truth, piracy does affect a huge number of upstarts, which is most of the reason it exists. There may be people that legitimately feel those things, and I don't want to be patronizing to those people. But I have to disagree.
So this one's for you, Starving Artists. I'm gonna run you through a gamut of answers to your concerns.

A) It's not a battle of "All the copyright vs No copyright".

There are certainly those who feel copyright is an unnecessary element of law.  But people like Lawrence Lessig aren't those people. People like me aren't those people. We don't want copyright to  go away, we want it to do it's friggin' job. no more no less. It's job is giving artists a fighting chance in a world where duplication could ruin them.

Oh, look, a nice urinal

When we're discussing HOW copyright should be, it is wasteful to say "B-b-b-b-but copyright should exist." We know, baby, we know. Besides we already have some strong copyright and...

B)What happened to you  did not happen because not enough copyright.

 It's understandable to want the kinds of protections copyright promises (but can't actually enforce). But let's get serious here: Copyright lasts  more than the average human lives, and covers so many things it's not even funny.  In this world. This is the world where copyright reigns. There's not much more copyright out there to give.

I'm almost as old as copyright lasts!

If in THIS WORLD, your entire enterprise was taken down solely by pirates, then it is irrelevant to our discussion. In fact, yours is exactly the kind of work that should go public domain in a short time,  so that people could freely reuse it as they see fit. If you can't really make it in 10 years, you aren't likely gonna make it in 95 years. If you find that disheartening, maybe this will cheer you up.

C) Your project might have been doomed to failiure from the start.

If at first you don't succeed...you still got until 2082.

The world of art isn't a sure thing, buddy. For every artist that makes it and becomes well known and quoted, there are 30000 that nobody will ever know.

Perhaps your work wasn't good, perhaps it was not something that people would like, perhaps you didn't market yourself properly, or maybe you're just trying to make an outdated model work. Maybe it was too niche, or maybe too broad. Either way, your project just failed, as so many do.

But what's that got to do with stretching the copyright of works already made? The point of copyright is to inspire creativity, not hug every cat.

While anecdotally you may claim it was pirates, all loving your shit and not buying it, there's other people out there making money off of works. It might just be a personal failiure.

D)Many Other Starving Artists would like to use works under copyright, at some point, eventually.

See, Warner? You're the problem, not the solution.

Sure, from your stance I assume your works are entirely original, based solely on your own creative genius and gumption. And that's respectable. But it's not the only way to create art.

And that's part of it. Art building on other art. For example, next Summers Batman v Superman draw plenty of inspiration from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which itself drew inspiration from decades of Batman comics. Is Zack Snyder NOT a lazy sack of shit for not coming up with his own thing instead just because the company he's working under owns the property? Coolio took Stevie Wonder Wonder Song and made it about Gangsters. Is he a lazy sack of shit for not coming up with his own thing? Smash Bros was going to not star known Nintendo characters. And I dare say we love it all the more BECAUSE they didn't come up with something new!

Well, there's someone out there who'd make a killer Batman/Superman comic. He doesn't have the money to pay for Warner's license(if they'd even let him), and he can't work there. Is he different from Zack Snyder?

Maybe someone out there is just starting in music, and has a great idea for a cover of Stevie Wonder's Superstitious. What's the difference between him and Coolio?

And maybe there's a breakaway game designer waiting to make a game reuniting the unsung heroes of defunct games from the 80s for a final game. Is he different from Nintendo, who knew that using popular characters instead of new ones would result in a more appealing (and profitable game)?


We've made existing works profitable enough to dominate the box offices and music charts for years, now. But that comes with an agreement that, you know, those works eventually  should become public domain. Hopefully  before 2019.




E) This companies don't care about you

I get royalties, they get the REAL Money.

Disney made Mulan. We say that, like Disney is a person, and Mulan is a chicken dinner. People made Mulan. Animators put effort into making the characters the Character Designers made move fluidly and with grace. Colorists gave it a beautiful pastel palette. A director whose name is not atop the movie's billboard guided the voice actors to express the emotions the scriptwriter wanted. And guess what? Most of those where only payed once.

Once the artists have built the centerpiece, Disney begins to build commercialism around it. Mulan toys which the character designer won't see any money from. Mulan Backpacks, which exploit the palette the colorists put into it, without liking it. And a live action remake, which the director, scriptwriters and actors who made the original likeable won't be getting paid for. And all this built around an old chinese poem from the public domain.

These laws aren't about you, guy who's trying to be an upstart. You're about as well covered as you're gonna get.  It's about THEM, enormous corporations who rule certain mediums and want to continue ruling them. They've been working together so long, they don't even understand the concept of  actually competing, and it fucking scares them.

So I hope this answered your questions. If you're gonna take away anything from this is that we need to seriosly look at our copyright, how works, what is it purpose, change the parts that aren't working. Is that so wrong?