Re: [rumori] RE: pho: "threshold" for copyright??


From: Don Joyce (djATwebbnet.com)
Date: Fri Mar 02 2001 - 20:19:02 PST


Responses below.
DJ

>Thu, 1 Mar 2001 found Don Joyce writing:
>
>->achieve fair use for collage. Someone COULD claim their compilation of
>->samples IS a work of art, but it should and would be quickly thrown out of
>->court, hopefully with the admonition, "You can do better than this..."
>->Honestly, the "is it or isn't it?" art factor for courts would be a hell of
>->a lot easier than the "is it or isn't it" pornography factor they deal with
>->all the time. Once you know the rules, distinctions are comparitively clear
>->and easy.
>
Steve - Hopefully. This appears to be exactly one of the very big
>problems in our fight. Can we really ask a judge to decide
>what is art and what is not? We can but how many are really
>qualified? Or even willing?

DJ - No choice, as long as commerce continues to prosecute art, art is
going to find itself in court. We'ld better have some knowledgeable
representation there. I recommend a requestable "Art Court" hearing for any
IP copyright infringement contention. The Art Court (don't laugh!) would be
presided over by judges who actually ARE both qualified and willing to
distinguish collage as art from compilations and counterfeiting.
>
>Is Britney Spears' music art?

DJ - Yes.
>
>Are her videos?

DJ - Yes.

Aren't videos just a commercial for a
>record?

DJ - It's an art in a medium "advertising" the same art in another medium.
Both are art and neither is advertising for anything else outside itself,
its own qualities, per sae. It's her record and her video - artworks - none
of the lyrics in either actually tell you to please buy the thing you're
listening to. And even that would make them self-advertising at most. See,
there is no product outside Britney, no other product paying Britney to be
Britney the product, though she can rent out herself for such purposes. And
you can advertise yourself in your own art forever and still be art. It's
when something outside her "art" is paying the bills and writing the script
that it becomes advertising. No one should be forced into compulsary
participation with another's product, but you can hawk your own to death.

 so What about Bill Viola's videos? They're for sale for
>large sums of money. Isn't a gallery show, in a way, just an
>ad for some art?

DJ - The gallery show IS advertising, in this case selling something inside
it rather than something outside it... the gallery is a business, not an
art. The videos themselves are the only art, if they deserve to be. And if
they deserve to be, and no copies otherwise exist, they might be
individually worth a large sum to someone. That's art for you.

>very problematic.

DJ - I'd say only slightly problematic compared to copyright
non-distinctions as they are. Commercial speech is not free speech. It may
be self-censoring but it's nevertheless speech scripted and censored by
others. You can't be both free AND censored speech. Maybe Orwell was on to
something here...

>of course i'm engaging in devil's advocacy here, i
>agree with your basic distinction, but i fear that that will
>never be one clearly made in a court or Congress. It's a
>bit like the fight to limit billboards, etc. Commercial
>speech is just speech, say the marketeers, and hence is
>protected by the First Amendment. Trying to draw the line
>and say commerce must be limited, must NOT have the same
>rights as a person (much less an "artist", whatever that is)
>is a big big fight, bigger than this one about copyright.
>
>smh
>
>Steev Hise, Syssy Admin
>steevATdetritus.net http://detritus.net/steev
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>"Collage is the essential psychological identity of this century."
> -Charles Amirkhanian
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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