As a writer and filmmaker, my attitude towards copyright and plagiarism is simple. Keep your paws off my intellectual property you damned, dirty ape!

Get it?

The truth is, no one wants people to steal their ideas and profit from them. Granted, in most creative industries this happens on a regular basis, and in all industries employers steal the ideas of their subordinates. But still, why should a novel or an album be given less respect as a commodity than a vacuum cleaner, a car, or a big pile of money? Artists work hard, and in this economy, it’s not easy to make a living. They should be compensated for their hard work, which consumers enjoy and take for granted.

On the other hand, I work hard, and after a long day at work, I like to curl up and watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones. But in this economy, I can’t afford HBO. So what am I supposed to do? Deny myself a pop culture milestone? I’m sure you can guess what I do instead.

Each of the three essays we were asked to read for class raises separate issues about the nature of intellectual property. In the New York Times piece, record companies were portrayed as greedy giants, on the verge of extinction, who were trying to deny brilliant recording artists the right to sell their own music. It seems pretty obvious that the record company’s argument is nonsense, and that if they can still afford the lobbyists, they will undoubtedly get Congress to change the copyright laws so that the record companies can continue to hold the rights to hit albums by artists like Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

The Jonathan Lethem piece examines where ideas come from, and who owns the rights to words. The point he makes is that there are no new ideas, so why adhere to copyright at all? His most compelling argument is that if you are the creator of something as omnipresent as Mickey Mouse or Coca-Cola, you sacrifice your right to claim exclusive right to those ideas. With just the slightest bit of wiggling, this idea drops like a loose tooth. How do you define “omnipresent?” What about Harry Potter? Steamboat Willy was almost a century ago, but J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard is less than 15. And yet, who doesn’t know Harry Potter? Does Ms. Rowling sacrifice her rights to HP simply because of her success? The law says that obvious parody is acceptable, and a vibrant “fan fiction” community goes unchecked, but if one of those fan fiction authors profited from her writing, wouldn’t Scholastic’s lawyers get involved? Lethem grants the readers of his article the right to use his work, but even with the author’s okay, I doubt his publisher would be so magnanimous.

The last piece, from Harper’s Bazaar, is divided into two parts. First, the account of a painter who appropriated a famous photo for one of her paintings, and her hassle with the lawyers of the woman who took the original photograph. The second account is that of the photographer, and although she is cordial and says she only wishes to provide context, you can sort of tell that she is pissed that the painter radically changed the meaning of the original image and doesn’t think she did anything wrong. Normally, I would say that as long as the person appropriating the creative material isn’t profiting, distribution and alteration to create new artistic works is fine (otherwise, every library would be taken to court). But in this case, I have to put on my artist hat and come down on the side of the photographer. Some rabble rousing artist can claim that taking a Mickey Mouse doll and smearing it with human feces is art, or perhaps, a protest against the oppressive nature of Disney’s corporate arm. Artists view their creative works like parents view children. I love my novel like a daughter. More than a daughter, because my novel never stole my car or maxed out my credit card. If that same rabble rousing artist smeared human feces all over your daughter, and said it was art, how would you react?

The big problem, and the reason we may never resolve this issue totally, is that pesky thing we call The First Amendment. If we restrict the rights of artists to defame other artists, the same is true for corporate criminals and corrupt politicians. And if we lose our ability to speak truth to power, what good is it to listen to the music?