That’s what Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called the attitude of those who would make use of creative works, in this case music, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing she chaired this morning. It’s a great way of phrasing what I often say (including earlier today), namely that those who focus on the “rights” of end-users of creative works often ignore the fact that they can’t use the works without the creators doing their thing to begin with. The “rights” here belong to the creators.

Feinstein promoted her bill that would bring parity to music rate-setting. As I noted in my previous post, the entire rate-setting structure is a mess, and while not necessarily achievable (or always even desirable) the concepts of parity and fair markets certainly are laudable.

But here I’d like to praise Feinstein for going beyond the legislative and regulatory morass that is compulsory licensing and hitting at the heart of the matter — a lack of respect for creators. She talked about the grave problems of illegal downloading and uploading of creative works, a problem that continues daily and has negative impacts on individual artists and creators, yet often now goes unmentioned because it has been with us for so long. And yes, she talked about the mentality of entitlements.

Senator Feinstein understands the important role copyright plays in the economy and in job creation, and she understands how it is a motivator for individuals to express themselves creatively and thus provide all of us works to enjoy. We are not entitled to these works; we are fortunate the artists choose to share them, and should respect the rights of the artists to extend whatever rights they choose to us.

Feinstein is one of the original sponsors of the IP enforcement bill introduced last Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA). The Copyright Alliance is on the record praising the bill, and the senators’ efforts to better defend the rights of creators and artists.

For as long as there are creators, there will be intra-industry disputes over compensation. Some industries (I’m looking at you, music) are cursed to have more than others. But as the diverse membership of the Copyright Alliance shows — songwriters, entertainment and business software, photography, recording artists, broadcasting, music publishers, motion pictures, publishers of books and magazines and newspapers, visual arts, and amateur and professional sports leagues — at the end of the day all of us in the creative community share a commitment to copyright and the rights of artists and creators.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 12:30 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under capitol hill, creators, licensing, market forces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.