While working on the readings this week, so many examples popped into my head.
The McLeod readings reminded me of issues that pop star singers had in the early 1990's. Prince changed his name to a symbol in order to protest ownership by Sony of Prince's music. Around the same time, George Michael was ordered by his label to make more albums and music videos in their format. He protested this legal authority by producing music videos using words, supermodels and destroying all "historical" evidence of George Michael's past on MTV. He refused to be in his videos. This tension in ownership begs the interesting question, who was right? The label legally owned George Michael's music and his artistic creations for the duration of the contract. George Michael's creativity should have some ownership without the oppression of the label. So in regard to McLeod's question of ownership of culture, does George Michael or the record label own the cultural art? George Michael's Freedom
Reading Gaines brought up a couple more examples. In the section of photography, I thought about Annie Leibovitz's famous photo of a naked John Lennon spooning his fully clothed wife, Yoko Ono. The photo was taken for "Rolling Stone" magazine. Who owns the photo? Lennon and Yoko's image, or soul, resides within the photo. Leibovitz's originality in posing and snapping the photo lives in the photo, makes the photo. "Rolling Stone" requested a specific-type photo for its cover. The tensions blur the ownership of that photo.
Later in Gaines with the Nancy Sinatra piece, I recalled an 80's cover band at a conference. I heard what I thought was the theme from "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr. only to realize the song was Huey Lewis's song "I Want a New Drug." I remembered the lawsuit in the 80's. Lewis won and continues to make money every time the "Ghostbusters" theme song is played. Looking at Handel's music as stealing further muddies this issue. Does a particular sound belong to anyone? It is hard to tell who owns sound.
Also in watching the big football game (I would have said SuperBowl but it is trademarked) in early February, I noticed the disclaimer that stated something like "no rebroadcast or re-telling of the game is allowed without specific permission." Does that mean I can't talk about Eli Manning's terrific throws to my friends after the game? Legally, probably not. Culture increases the fuzziness in these laws.
So, more and more tensions arise in the study of authorship. What are the answers in each of these cases? What is right and what is wrong? Those answers are open for discussion, and more discussion, where in the end, there likely won't be any definitive answers...again!
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