What is the most important thing when creating a new piece of work? Is it to create the most impressive work possible at any means, or is it to create something unique and original? There have been discussions in class about when it is alright to remix or reuse someone else’s work and when it is not okay. This question’s answer is not black and white but a combination of the two. Sometimes, it is best to work off of each other’s ideas to advance as far as possible in the work. While other times, it is best to allow each person to independently express their own ideas in the work with no outside sources. Another factor that must be considered is the creator’s intent. For what purpose was the work created? Certain purposes such as the advancement of human knowledge could support the reuse of the work, but other purposes such as financial reasons or the pursuit of fame would support the opposite. For these reasons, the problem must be observed and judged based on a case-by-case basis. For the purpose of analyzing the prompt, this essay will cover both sides of the case. The examples that will be covered for the side of not allowing the use of outside sources will be literature. For the side of allowing the reusing of outside sources will be computer software.
When is it alright to reuse the works of others to improve upon your work? Many claim that in the golden past without copyright laws, men, who were working off of each other’s ideas, invented concepts such as Calculus and democracy. It has been proven in many cases that working off of each other’s ideas can lead to many great ideas being created that otherwise wouldn’t have even been imagined. This leads to the question of why there are laws such as copyright in existence today. One argument is that the copyright laws are there to maintain the creative energy that allows for new ideas to be created. During many of Engl 1102-L3’s discussions, the idea that literature should be copyrighted was brought up. Within the “Blog Post 4: Copyleft” discussion, a fellow student commented that “author's do want significant protection and credit and whatever other accolades, whether financial or otherwise, for their work, hence why copyright is such a big deal.”(Ramoutar). This statement clearly summarizes the argument for copyright laws. An author has all of the rights to the expression of ideas that he/she has created and should be protected by law. If another had free access to use these ideas, then there would be no incentive for many authors to use their creative energy. In the case of literature, this is especially prevalent. Say an author produces a best-selling novel. Then, another author writes a similar novel with a different setting and cast, consequently stealing some of the original author’s customers. During this scenario, the original author suffers from losing revenue and renown. But, the original author is not the only one to suffer for this. If events such as this scenario were to be allowed, the literary world as a whole would suffer as there would be less need for new ideas to be created, thus the literary community would begin to lose its creative energy. In such media formats such as literature that requires the expression of ideas would benefit from not allowing the reuse of other’s ideas.
“Marx's concept of a 'general intellect', suggesting that at some point a collective learning process will surpass physical labour as a productive force, offers a promising backdrop to understand the accomplishments of the free software community.” (Soderberg). While certain cases require individual work to promote originality, other cases are far more efficient when multiple minds are free to work on it. For this reason, the law of copyleft was created. Copyright is a law used to prohibit the reproduction, adaptation, and distribution of the copyrighted material. Copyleft, unlike copyright, gives “every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute it and require that any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licensing agreement.” (wikipedia). Such ideas have lead to the creation of “open-source” software. Open-source software is a type of software, such as Firefox and Linux, that is freely distributed and anyone is allowed to freely modify and adapt. Because of the free access to the source codes, many programmers around the world have worked extensively towards debugging and improving the original programming. For this reason, many software programs such as Firefox have become one of the most popular software within its domain. The open-source movement was started by computer scientist Richard Stallman in an attempt to create high-quality free software available to everyone. According to Lawton, “Stallman's beef was with commercial companies that smother their software with patents and copyrights and keep the source code – the original program, written in a computer language such as C++ – a closely guarded secret. Stallman saw this as damaging. It generated poor-quality, bug-ridden software. And worse, it choked off the free flow of ideas. Stallman fretted that if computer scientists could no longer learn from one another's code, the art of programming would stagnate” (Lawton). Stallman believes that by gaining new insight into computer programming by learning from other’s codes, a programmer can make far more use out of his creative energy then if he were to work from scratch. Despite the programmer using ideas not originally his own, by using these ideas as a stepping stone, the programmer can reach new heights in his creativity that had been previously inaccessible to him due to the lack of knowledge. By not having to waste his energy on rediscovering old ideas, the programmer can use his creative energy far more efficiently. As can be seen by copyleft and the open-source movement, allowing the reuse and remix of other’s ideas can be highly efficient compared to other options.
Because there are so many differences between media types and intentions of the creators, there is no clear cut way of knowing if the reuse of another’s ideas is a better use of creative energy. In many situations, allowing one to use other’s work can restrict the creative energy. In other situations, allowing one to focus on developing new heights off of other’s previous works can lead to a far more efficient use of creative energy. As the teacher of Engl 1102-L3 stated in one of the class discussions, “not all media formats are created equal.”(Wharton). Because of this, the question can only be solved on a case-by-case basis.
Works Cited
"Copyleft -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 23 Feb. 2010.
Lawton, Graham. "The Great Giveaway". NewScientist.
Ramoutar, Reesha. “Copyleft” Engl1102-L3.
Soderberg, Johan. “Copyleft vs. Copyright: A Marxist Critique”. FirstMonday, volume 7, number 3.
Wharton, Robin. Quote during class discussion.
