When the history of our era is written, I believe that the introduction of the Internet, and the digitization of the bulk of human communication (including the storage and
retrieval of works in various media) will be seen as the seminal event of our time. Creations that fail to enter into the digital realm in a full and unencumbered fashion
will, for all intents and purposes, not exist in our history -- at least for the great mass of the population. One vector into digital immortality is a significant measure
of fame in popular culture; the Beatles legacy is well protected, due to their popularity and commercial success. The fate of less celebrated artists and creators is obviously
less certain. Even if an obscure work is digitized and nominally made available, if it fails to reach the notability requirements of Wikipedia -- if it fails to be properly
indexed by Google's search algorithm -- then, for all practical purposes, it may be lost as well; hidden in plain sight as it were, because it cannot be easily discovered by
those with casual interest in the particular genre. These days, failing a winning stint on American Idol or other even more vacuous reality-based enterprises, the road to
recognition is crowded and hard-fought, and the results, even for works of great worth, are often sadly disappointing.
Along with the mass digitization of the majority of our cultural artifacts, we have witnessed the great commodification of what might once have been called art -- that which
is produced by the 'entertainment industry'. In spite of the sorry state of popular culture, there are obviously still true artists at work, sprinkled in among the dreary,
uninspired sequels, knock-offs, and plain lowest-common-denominator media equivalent of junk food, bereft of any semblance of what was once quaintly referred to as "socially
redeeming value". One problem with this state of affairs (among many more obvious and well-noted problems) is the result that even the best of what our culture has to offer,
in every genre and medium, is almost by definition the "product" of some media company, typically a public for-profit corporation with fiduciary responsibility to maximize
profits for its shareholders. Thus the work of Britney Spears, the Beatles, and Philip Glass are, from a commercial standpoint, indistinguishable with respect to the status
of their works as pieces of intellectual property. The films of Stanley Kubrick and those of Jerry Bruckheimer are simply two sets of 'catalog' owned by various corporations.
Why does any of this matter? Because for-profit corporations use intellectual property laws to greatly control and restrict access to their property. They engage in massive
lobbying efforts to ensure that such laws are written in their favor. They have no economic interest or obligation (as they see it) to be concerned about the relationship
between the works that they own and control, and the cultural heritage that some fraction of those works may represent. They have successfully lobbied the US congress (and
other governments) to repeatedly extend the life of copyright, ensuring that works even 90 years old are not available as part of the public domain. Copyright was not originally
conceived as a right that an artist would typically sell to a corporation to control in perpetuity, but that is the state of affairs as it exists today. None of the work of
Disney, or the musicals of the 30's and 40's, or the Beatles, or Elvis Presley, or Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, etc. and so on -- none of what many would argue is the product of a
great new age of media, the last two thirds of the 20th century -- will, as things stand today, ever enter into the public domain. They cannot be copied, distributed, edited, or
even usefully commented on (commentary added to the original) without being swallowed in a mire of legal and accounting obligations. For works of world renown, this is only a
minor annoyance. Celebrated works are typically made available at reasonable cost by the media companies who stand to make money from their back catalog. For more obscure and
less profitable artists, however, the long-term picture is quite bleak. There are many thousands (if not millions) of books out of print, but whose copyright holders still refuse
to release into the public domain (if they can even be determined and contacted). Many works of music, film, and writing are now in this purgatory of less than superstar fame but
encumbered by perennial copyright due to their original contracts with their distributors. The media companies have little incentive to clear up this mess, as in their view a
corpus of old, free works with potential to entertain and inform could compete with their need to constantly turn over their product and sell the latest, trendiest popular cruft
to the consuming public.
Emblematic of the problem -- to this day, if there is a birthday scene in a movie, you will almost never hear the strains of "Happy Birthday"
(see wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You)
-- even though that is what we all sing at every birthday party. Small matter -- in movies, you hear "For He's A Jolly
Good Fellow" (a bit awkward for birthday girls!) But it just makes the point that ownership of creative works that are controlled in perpetuity creates a barrier to properly
archiving and representing life as we actually live it.
In software, we have something called "Open Source" (and/or "Free Software"; there are internecine battles regarding these phrases that need not concern us here. If interested:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_terms_for_free_software).
Open Source software is created with the express purpose of allowing anyone to have access to useful computer
software without restrictions -- as long as the original inventor(s) of the work are given due credit. In some instances, modification and commercial distribution are restricted;
in other cases, the only restriction is the requirement of attribution. In all cases, the result is that the software cannot, due to the legal force of the licenses used, be
co-opted by corporations or other business interests in an exclusive fashion. Unlike typical commercial software from companies such as Microsoft or Apple, Open Source software
can always be copied to any machine or medium one desires; it can be freely distributed to your friends, or indeed publicly distributed anonymously, for anyone to download themselves.
Without going into great detail as to how such work is funded (there's a plethora of information you can Google) -- note that pieces of Open Source software are utilized as components
in numerous commercial products and services, and deliver the bulk of Internet traffic, including from major companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
Creative Commons is the analog of Open Source in other fields of endeavor, such as music, film, and written works. The idea is to offer a legal and ethical framework within which
artists and creators can choose to have their works protected from appropriation, but allow distribution and copying with some restrictions, such as (at a minimum) requiring proper
attribution of credit to the original author(s). Licensing one's work in this way does not, incidentally, mean one can no longer sell one's work -- you are free to continue selling
books, records, iTunes downloads, and film tickets. However, it is true that your works can now also be distributed freely, so there may be cases where potential paying customers
will be able to acquire your works without compensation. On the other hand, licensing one's work under Creative Commons provides a chance for your work to effectively be in the public
domain, with the proviso that your authorship will be noted and respected. There is a small but vibrant and growing community of artists, musicians, writers, and other creative folk
who want to contribute to our common cultural heritage, bypassing the typical corporate pathway, with all its encumbrances and limitations. Our goal is to create a corpus of work that
can fairly compete with, and provide legitimate counterbalance to, the Disneys and Viacoms and News Corps of the world, whose dedication to the public trust and welfare is limited at best.
When people first started talking about Open Source software, they were commonly derided as utopia-addled fools and worse. Now, it is a legitimate driving force behind much of the
software and high-tech industry. Rather than replace proprietary products from Microsoft and Apple, what it does is keep those companies in check. Microsoft must now contend with the fact that
LibreOffice can do almost everything their expensive Office software can do. Linux competes with Windows and OSX, making it harder to engage in 'vendor lock-in' and predatory practices.
Some commercial companies are willing to forego profits in some sectors to support Open Source alternatives to royalty-encumbered technologies. By way of example, Google acquired a
company (On2) whose video codec WebM (formerly known as VP8) helps to ensure that a powerful group of patent holders (MPEG-LA) cannot restrict the ability of artists and independent businesses
to distribute audio/video works freely and openly on the Internet.
In a similar fashion, I am hopeful that the Creative Commons movement will provide a legitimate alternative pathway for creators of all stripes to get their work out to the public, and
reach their intended audience without a low-value middleman standing between producer and consumer. As in the Open Source case, I doubt this will spell the end of publishing houses, movie
studios, and record companies -- but it might provide a much-needed check on their tendency to mop up every bit of culturally relevant work and smack a barcode on it, charging a tithe
every time we sing "Happy Birthday".