New Copyright Act Should Protect Artists

Sandra Aistars takes a seldom-heard position that should there be a new US Copyright Act, it must be more protective of artists’ intellectual property.

[P]rotecting authors is in the public interest. Ensuring that all creators retain the freedom of choice in determining how their creative work is used, disseminated and monetized is vital to protecting freedom of expression.

Aistars continues,

Copyright is vital to protecting individual creators’ choice in how they express themselves to the general public. Whether authors take a DIY route or partner with a company, whether they sell their works or give them away, their choices must be respected.

Aistars argues against those that push for more lax copyright laws, pointing out that these “free culture” and “death of creativity” individuals don’t understand “the business realities of how creative individuals and industries operate.” Good point. In fact, that brief sentence highlights the misunderstanding that many anti-copyright folks have regarding the actual artistic practices of contemporary artists. Not all visual artists consider stealing others’ works a valid form of artistic practice, and I would venture to add that most visual artists — at least those with a serious and rigorous practice — consider appropriation-without-criticality a neo-Romantic ideology steeped in bourgeois sentimentality.

When it comes to property rights, Aistairs is right on, the rights of property owners must be respected.

More on Aistars’s thoughts here via The Hill.

Tags: appropriation, art, congress, Copyright, copyright act of 1976, free culture, intellectual property, law, revision