Copyright and Creativity

"A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity" by Joe Nocera of the New York Times

So this article published in early February of the New York Times discusses how J.K. Rowling is suing someone for publishing a Harry Potter companion guide. The idea of the book came out of this large fan site on-line. There of course, have been numerous other books published about Harry Potter, but in the past apparently the author and publishers conferred with J.K. Rowling and co. before publishing, but in this case, the publishers (RDR Books) have not consulted with Rowling first.

The author of the article seems to think that it is so terrible for J.K. Rowling to want to protect her "intellectual property"; it is apparently awful for her to want to have unique rights to publish her own "Harry Potter encyclopedia". I for one think it was rather rude for RDR Books to not consult with Rowling first- they are her books; she wrote them.

I also disagree with how the author thinks that more restrictive copyright laws have destroyed the world- for instance, I think it is entirely appropriate for musicians to have to get permission to sample songs- I have to cite a small quote from an article, so they should have to acknowledge credit where credit is due- especially if they are doing a cover of an entire song. Property rights have to be well established, or anarchy and lawlessness result. That is why we are in desperate need of figuring out how the internet should be regulated.

I agree to the extent that companies are being way too restrictive about who they give permission to use their works and who they do not. I definitely do not agree with that at all. The important point for me is that people who use other people's work do at least show respect to the original author and ask permission.

I obviously have more to read on "fair use" and what that all entails, but I am certainly not in favor of copyright laws going away anytime soon.