A few days ago, my Creative Writing professor went on a rant (as he normally does) about the awful truths about copyright laws. Normally, I would disagree with him and his desire to be a modern hippie. But, on that particular day, the stars were aligned in such a way that I could not find fault in what he was saying.
The basic point of his long winded ranting was that copyright laws were not in the best interest of the artist, but in the interest of the corporations that basically leech off of the "talent" (this concept is up for debate in today's media) of the artists. In truth, I don't necessarily know when the copyright law came about, I would probably assume that it was sometime around the 1920's since Nosferatu was not allowed to use anything Bram Stoker related. On the other hand, that was also a decision on the Stoker family. Regardless, the information would be easily obtained if I just Google copyright law and scan through Wiki to figure out what it is exactly. Although it would be so easy to do, I most likely won't.
The reason for my agreement with my crazed, overly liberalized professor is strictly based on another rant yet another professor of mine went off on. It was the same subject, different class. This professor was my Tragedy class. He is the quintessential professor. Absolutely in love with his work, incredibly intelligent, and could make anyone enjoy the Classics. His beef with copyright laws came up as we were reading a slue of tragedies from Ancient Greece; the usual Oedipus, Hippolytus, etc.
There were no such things as copyright laws then, nor could they be since many of the plays were based on mythology that everyone knew of. It would be like the thousands of biblical movies made through the past fifty years or so decided to copyright each story turned into movie for their own. They obviously can't since more than half of the population (whether Christian or not) knows the story and knows the origin. Not even the Bible has a copyright...though I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years, the Catholic Church decides that the Bible must be protected from anyone trying to take the word of God as their own.
Nonetheless, even in the 1500 and 1600's, famous poets, authors, and playwrights didn't fight or debate what idea was theirs and whether or not they should be payed for anyone using "their" idea. They swapped stories, poems, and plays religiously, creating a giant community amongst themselves. Though, one could argue that many of these writers were rich courtiers that didn't need to have their work patented. But Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Spenser weren't rich, nor were they really apart of the court. Yet Shakespeare barely ever published anything during his lifetime and it was only after he died that his friends got his works together in as a service to him.
If there were a system like that again, where writers would just pass their work around to each other to gain support and rebuild their community to a higher standard. It wouldn't be a career focused on money or what would be considered a "Best Seller" by some useless person. It would also help writers write more if they had the support of others and less concerned with what sells. Or at least, I think so.
Alicia
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