Olivia Newton John died last August. She was 74 years old.
I was thinking about that when I was listening to this different rendition of Greensleeves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g64hauOT6U
The thing that really struck me is that a lot of the stuff she did in her youth is perfectly consumable today. Grease is still a quite popular movie, her songs are recorded in high fidelity, and so she'll live on forever in her creations.
That's fine, it's good. Good for her. Immortality through our works is a dream of many. But John Travolta is 68 now, presumably most of the actors from that movie are in that age range of 68 to 74. some of them might live to 80, but before my son is legally an adult, all the actors from that movie are likely to be dead of old age.
My parents watched it in theatres when it was new, and I, their kid, watched it and it's still in copyright. And my kid can watch it, and it's still in copyright. And his kids can watch it, and it's still in copyright. And his kids kids can watch it, and it's still in copyright. His kids kids kids can likely watch it, and it'll still be in copyright.
We've got a problem of immortal high fidelity media being protected effectively eternally by overly powerful copyright law.
The purpose of copyright is to incentivise the production of new works. What additional incentive did the now dead Olivia Newton John have in 1978 to make that movie by knowing that my kids kids kids will be forced to comply with copyright, a lifetime after she's long dead?
Besides the legal question, there's another thing: Once we're all directly competing artistically with our grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, and great great great grandparents in their prime and with the full backing of the world's governments to enforce that competition, what effect does that have on culture and on the creation of new culture?
I think it's already happened. Culturally, I'd argue we're in a period of intense conservatism.
I know, a lot of people might take issue with that statement, but consider how much culture is just remakes or reimaginings of things that are sometimes decades, sometimes almost a century old. Action Comics #1 is 85, and we're still rehashing new movies -- and by "we", I mean "the copyright holders of this 85 year old property", who are the only people allowed to create derivative works of the property despite everyone originally being involved with its creation being long-dead.
We see companies vying for control of our entire culture going back generations, and that's apparently ok.
I dunno, things can't stay like this for long imo.
I was thinking about that when I was listening to this different rendition of Greensleeves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g64hauOT6U
The thing that really struck me is that a lot of the stuff she did in her youth is perfectly consumable today. Grease is still a quite popular movie, her songs are recorded in high fidelity, and so she'll live on forever in her creations.
That's fine, it's good. Good for her. Immortality through our works is a dream of many. But John Travolta is 68 now, presumably most of the actors from that movie are in that age range of 68 to 74. some of them might live to 80, but before my son is legally an adult, all the actors from that movie are likely to be dead of old age.
My parents watched it in theatres when it was new, and I, their kid, watched it and it's still in copyright. And my kid can watch it, and it's still in copyright. And his kids can watch it, and it's still in copyright. And his kids kids can watch it, and it's still in copyright. His kids kids kids can likely watch it, and it'll still be in copyright.
We've got a problem of immortal high fidelity media being protected effectively eternally by overly powerful copyright law.
The purpose of copyright is to incentivise the production of new works. What additional incentive did the now dead Olivia Newton John have in 1978 to make that movie by knowing that my kids kids kids will be forced to comply with copyright, a lifetime after she's long dead?
Besides the legal question, there's another thing: Once we're all directly competing artistically with our grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, and great great great grandparents in their prime and with the full backing of the world's governments to enforce that competition, what effect does that have on culture and on the creation of new culture?
I think it's already happened. Culturally, I'd argue we're in a period of intense conservatism.
I know, a lot of people might take issue with that statement, but consider how much culture is just remakes or reimaginings of things that are sometimes decades, sometimes almost a century old. Action Comics #1 is 85, and we're still rehashing new movies -- and by "we", I mean "the copyright holders of this 85 year old property", who are the only people allowed to create derivative works of the property despite everyone originally being involved with its creation being long-dead.
We see companies vying for control of our entire culture going back generations, and that's apparently ok.
I dunno, things can't stay like this for long imo.
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