PhotoDude.com

Fri. Jan 24, 2003

The Salaried Dictate to the Freelance

The Salaried Dictate to the Freelance – “THE ECONOMIST is calling for a fourteen-year copyright term, renewable once [...] It’s okay with me, and I have more copyrighted stuff than most people.”

It’s okay with you, because you don’t earn your sole living from copyrighted work. And it’s not just Glenn, he’s one of the more moderate voices. In fact, I’d wager that 95% of the people involved in this discussion draw a salary. All these proposed changes make a lot of sense, to those who don’t have to live off their copyrighted creations. It’s really easy for some to sit down over a $4 latte on a lunch break from a salaried and secure six figure job, and discuss what the problem is with those people who want to protect their intellectual property for whatever length of time they choose. Meanwhile, I’m just one guy trying to use my copyrighted creations just to get to the point that I can afford daily breaks to sit down and talk over $4 lattes.

Salaried lawyers talk about it, salaried corporate employees talk about it, but no one really seems to care about the freelance individuals who are most affected by it. We are virtually completely ignored in the rush to reign in corporate copyright abuse. As I’ve said over and over and over again, individuals create copyrights, corporations just own them, yet the individual is totally shut out of this debate.

I’m sick of it. I don’t give a damn about Mickey Mouse, just as those at the forefront of the IP battle don’t seeem to give a damn about those who actually have to get into the trenches and live by the results of this. The individuals. We’re often considered thieves .. yes, thieves ... just because we want to retain our property rights. They say “ideas can’t be property,” as though all copyrights are merely ephemeral mental concepts. Copyrights are also hard two dimensional fixed photographs … that’s not an “idea,” it’s a unique and tangible physical object. And you want me to give up the rights to it in 14 years, just so Mickey can be free?

All this talk is so very encouraging to me, it makes me want to run willy-nilly to offer up everything to the public domain, and simply become a pauper. In reality, it makes me want to firmly grasp everything I can, as long as I can, before some salaried lawyer decides I don’t need that income producing property anymore. It just encourages me to hunker down, not open up.

Talk to individuals, bring them into the fold, correct the glaring blind spot in this debate. Give me some incentive, don’t give me a new tax. Or risk alienating tens of thousands of individual creators by slashing the property rights they use to put food on their tables. Not a Mercedes in their garage. Only the salaried folks have those.