Tag: culture

We live in an era where corporations are doing their best to control our culture. They want to monetize our stories, our myths, and our songs. This essentially takes the things that portray our values and our ideals, and makes them only accessible to those who can afford them. It also stunts the creative process, by restricting the flow of ideas.

Case in point, you are subject to damages if you quote lyrics from a song, no matter how short, in a written work. So when I used a quote from Marilyn Manson, three lines from “Born Villain,” at the start of my book Rose, it is now possible for the record company to sue me for thousands of dollars. And they do it all the time. Basic common sense would say, “But that’s fair use, isn’t it? A few printed lines of lyrics is not the song. It’s not like you played the song, it’s not like you printed the sheet music. You just gave a few lines of text. In fact, you promoted that artist more than stole from them.” Of course, that’s what common sense says, but our courts side with the money, and so record companies now have a precedent that quotes like that are not fair use.

Last night on tumblr, I came across a picture, a still, obviously taken from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, that the artist had colorized and added some magical symbols (which are public domain, the symbols, not the still). Which is all cool by me. Using a still from a movie is not hurting anyone. Except, the artist made a point of saying the image they had created was copyright.

Why would you do this? What goes through a person’s head that they must claim some kind of ownership over things that are obviously not their own work?

Another thing that puzzles me, “re-bloggable by request.” Why would I have to make a request? If you’re posting something on a social network, aren’t you hoping people will re-blog it? I hope people re-blog the shit out of everything I post.

We need to unlearn these bad habits we’ve picked up from our corporate society which believes ideas are things to be jealously guarded.

Yes, I sell books on the internet. Yes, I would like to someday make a living doing so. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe, but I’ll make my excuses.

Number one, this is on my copyright page:

If you want to quote up to 1,000 words of this work for your own devices, you officially have my permission. If you want to quote more than that, ask me and I will probably let you do it for free.

Number two, if someone came to me and said, “Hey, I’d really like to try your books but I can’t afford them right now.” Or even if they said, “I would like to read your books, but I can’t use the formats you distribute on.” I would more than likely send them a free book. Leaving a review for me on Goodreads or something would be a nice payment, but even that’s not a requirement.

I write because I want other people to read my stories. That’s first and foremost. Making a living doing that is secondary. How any artist thinks differently is beyond my comprehension.