In Part I of this essay, I argued that although Shakespeare’s plays do comprise myriad precedent works, his biography and manner of production provide little guidance for a conversation about the role of modern copyright as it relates to derivative works and the need to build upon existing works. And when it comes to skepticism about the incentive role of ...
In contemporary discussion and debate about copyrights in the digital-age, the parties who argue in favor of revision of the law so that it may “conform to the 21st century,” like to pick on William Shakespeare and Vincent Van Gogh quite a bit. References to The Bard tend to be made most often in the context of derivative works—that his ...
“That’s one of the great things about music. You can sing a song to 85,000 people and they’ll sing it back for 85,000 different reasons.” – Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters – I saw this quote posted on Facebook the other day, and I hope it’s properly attributed because it expresses something I had been thinking about shortly after I and ...
I just watched a fun little documentary film called Stripped (2014) made by David Kellett and Frederick Schroeder about comic strip creators. The film features interviews with veteran artists whose careers were born in the syndicated market as well as contemporary cartoonists whose work never graced a newspaper but instead found an audience in cyberspace. Every artist interviewed generally seemed ...
“Of course it’s art,” writes The New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl. “… though by a well-worn Warholian formula: the subjective objectified and the ephemeral iconized, in forms that appear to insult but actually conserve conventions of fine art.” What Schjeldahl is referring to is a September exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City by visual artist Richard Prince, ...
