Although I’d ordinarily include some excerpts, it would be difficult to select any particular sections as more worthy of reproduction. The article is lengthy, but well worth the time it takes to read.
Cleverly, the article borrows heavily from a wide variety of sources, reinforcing (with deliberate exaggeration) its premise that much or all of what we do and make is really an echo of those who have gone before. In this perspective, copyright is best viewed as Thomas Jefferson saw it — a chance to recover one’s investment in creative works.
A digression regarding creativity
As the content on this site indicates, much of what I want to share with the world is my perspective on the ideas and works of others. Maybe I’m less important because I don’t offer much innovation, but maybe I’m more important because I offer a roadmap to places you’re not likely to visit. I gravitate toward people who can show me things I never knew I’d be interested in.
I think we all sit somewhere between the extremes of Production and Consumption. In order to entirely avoid being a producer, you’d need to be a hermit, entirely cut off from civilization and leaving no way for anybody to know you’d lived. But it’s equally impossible to avoid being a pure consumer, because we’re always taking in new information, new perspectives and ideas that will change our view on life and affect the things we make.
As with most things, it’s a continuum — authors and artists and musicians and filmmakers sitting on the producer side; most everyone else towards the side of consumption. We can move around if we want, but for most it’s easier to be passive than creative. And that’s okay, because a lot of what keeps society running doesn’t require or necessarily allow for creativity. Perhaps we’d be happier in a world where that was reversed, but we get by.
And so I think people like me are also important. We’re the ones who try to make up the middle of the gradient, to link the consumers and producers. We do a little bit of each; maybe not great at either, but good at the mix.
So really, I see it all as a balance — art wants an audience, the audience wants art, and the go-betweeners want to connect the two. Although we may scorn each other at times, we’re all much poorer without each other.
