Where have all the artists gone?

Many of us know the words;

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
Will will they ever learn?
Will will they ever learn?

I heard this again, yesterday, just after reading an article on Amazon vs Indie Bookstores. Together, they echoed a discussion I had been having, intermittently with my husband, over the past week. (It is amazing how such co-incidents happen - a bit Twighlight zone... no not the vampire book ugh!). It will be very interesting to see how this actually plays out. There seems to be a lot of big companies trying to oust the little guy out right now. Screw 'em! Don't they realise that if they push out the individual, then the world loses independent thinking and ideas that would not have been born in the stifling atmosphere bread in closed off corporations?

There seems to be a lot of action in regards to copyright and stealing of copyright recently. There has been many articles showing up advising us that newspapers are trying to get payment for quotes from them. This may at first seem that they are championing copyright, but read carefully. What they want is to have your copyright and make money if you use as little as  5 words of (what would become) theirs!

Associated Press Expects you to pay license for 5 word quotes

and another one here. and in Canada it went to court: Is this Canadian Newspaper breaking Copyright Law?

What I find interesting is that, with Canadian Law - so far at least, has upheld Fair Dealing with several paragraphs being allowed. And in Australian law, it allows for parody. This makes sense. 

How are we supposed to allow for discussion or debate, if we cannot quote appropriate statements? Or is that what big newspapers want? They want to pontificate, to force the public to see their point of view but stop anyone from putting forward another point of view. Even more interesting, is that most newspapers use copy from other sources. They always have. How else can they get their stories? They cannot be omnipotent, no matter how much they blow their collective horns! Some now want to copyright their words, even just 5 of them. So they are justified in stealing, by their definition, copyrighted words of others? 

If they do succeed, will this only be for them or will the independent author benefit as well? Hang on, they can print what THEY want due to freedom of speach...so screw the independents with not enough money to fight them? ugh.

Then there are artists. In Ausrtralia, as soon as you create a piece of work, art or writing, it has automatic copyright. This is how it should be. There are programmes and websites, such as Tineye and Google Image Search that help track down stolen copyrighted art.

I have some friends who are fantastic artists but, even in my small circle, I know of two who have had their work stolen, copied and sold from under them. One has a court case pending, so I will not name her. The thieves have stolen exact images, not even changed to claim a parody! Now that is not only illegal and immoral but downright lazy! Yet, they get away with it. I am hoping my friend - an independent artist - wins her battle. For a battle it is!

Hopefully the 'shit hitting the fan' with copyright theft and fights for restrictions and large companies trying to control all copyright, with end up with a backlash and in the ashes, the individual artist/writers benefiting and not having their livelihood stolen from them. Think about it! Look at the movies coming out of Hollywood over the years. Many are remakes or based on old television shows (the movie moguls are betting the current generation do not know shows) or comics. There are very little original movies, these days. Most that are, are from books, written independently from movie corporations. If the individual has their ideas stolen from them, we would only have large corporations (with the money to win in court) dictating this area of our PRIVATE lives as well; they will restrict what we see and hear and in the end what we can produce and think. Hello Big Brother.

What if the artists went on strike? Why should they produce artwork or books or movies, if they are to only have it stolen? Then who will create the original novels, comics, art, film, tv and images that our modern society craves? 

Just think about it.... while we are allowed. ... how does one copyright private thoughts, I wonder?

Let loose the dogs of war!

(which by the way is more than the five words!)