copyright

EXPLORING CREATIVE COMMONS: A SKEPTICAL VIEW OF A WORTHY PURSUIT
by Niva Elkin-Koren
(quoted here under "fair use" ha ha)

The notion of property is rather intuitive. When something is owned by someone else, we know we must ask for permission to use it. We normally do not think the same way of stories, images or music. Sometimes we might not even be aware that we were using them in creating our own work. When we use such creative works we usually do not have to cross any physical barriers. The barriers are abstract restrictions imposed by social norms. Social norms are therefore particularly significant with respect to informational works that lack physical boundaries. These norms turn songs and stories into commodities. The commodity metaphor creates an abstract ”fence” around (abstract) informational goods. While we may easily build a fence to keep others off our land, we cannot keep others from playing a musical composition hundreds of miles away. We must convince potential users that they should exercise self-restraint and respect the legal restrictions we placed on the use of our works.

Achieving compliance with copyright laws by the general public therefore relies upon internalizing the commodity metaphor. When creative works are treated simply as commodities, we may assume that the basic property intuitions would apply to them.
Treating creative works as commodities protected by property rights strengthens the perception of informational works as commodities. Once we realize that everything we write, draw, or play could be licensed we may start conceiving our own self-expressions as commodities. Our email correspondence, a picture we took of a newsworthy event, and commentary we posted online are all subject to exclusive rights. They all may be viewed as separate, identifiable pieces which are subject to exclusion. We may think of our writings as economic assets, and view our own expression as chips to be traded, rather than ideas to be shared.

Reliance on property rights may weaken the dialogic virtue of information that is a key to individuals’ participation in the creation of culture. The creation process is a complex social phenomenon with conflicting features. Works of art are autonomous, on the one hand, but communal on the other. Creating works at a specific time and place, and using existing artistic language and skills, are part of our social dialogue and the process of socialization. It reflects a shared artistic language, an artistic canon.

It makes use of existing building blocks and state of the art technologies. When a work is created it becomes part of our cultural language. Communicating works contribute to their internalization by integrating them into our social code. Creative expression is shaped by the various audiences46 and the different generations of creators.47 For creativity to thrive, creative works must be shared and individuals must be able to freely engage with them, to create new meanings. Those are the dialogic virtues of information. Engaging with creative works does not consume them. Exchanging ideas is not a transaction. The conceptual framework of property does not capture this complexity. Property rules do not merely define rights and duties. They further carry a normative message, announcing which values deserve protection and how. Therefore, reliance on property rights in creative works is likely to reinforce the belief that sharing these works is always prohibited unless authorized. To the extent this normative framework affects our behavior, it may distort our natural practices related to information.