Boing Boing: "You have to remember that it's only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Francis Ford Coppola, copyfighter
Boing Boing: "You have to remember that it's only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.
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8 comments:
I think that it is all well and good to say that artists shouldn't make money if your name is Francis Ford Coppola. But for the rest of us, if art is free, then it is not worth anything. The "students" do not download music and movies because they think that art should be free or that they are sticking it to the man, they do it because it is free! And because it is easy. People don't realize the implications of their purchases. Mr. Coppola is great, love him, love his movies, but I think he has an extremely high up viewpoint on art. I think a good reason to make art free is so that more people could see it. But if you are going to say that you should just make art just because you love it, then you are making art illegitimate. I think you should be able to make a living off of it.
I feel this article is bridging the very fine line between art and entertainment and also bridges the line of prospective because thats what it's all about , people's prospective. some people believe art is for everyone and if the artist follows channels to make it so then good for them and good for the rest of the world. but otherwise it costs money to produce art and entertainment and it is for the common purpose of making a profit . when you take what is meant to be paid for without permission that is stealing just because we believe it should be free and shared with everyone doesn't change the fact that its still theft.
Zoe, you bring up a really good point about people pirating copyrighted artistic content simply because it is free and easy, and I certainly agree with your shooting-down of his "art is free because I work another job" argument. We all are presumably investing $200,000 in order to gain the training necessary to make that money back through future jobs in our field, and if the art were to be made purely for free distribution, then there's no excuse for supporting those artists that create it, at least so that they don't need a full-time job in addition to making the art. We'd like to think that people would be willing to donate to artists who produce their content under Creative Commons licensing for example (and some artists do well by doing so, such as musician Jonathan Coulton or author Cory Doctorow), but until people truly understand the value of their purchases when it supports artists, Coppola's viewpoint is disconnected from that of artists who are less established and have more to lose from the "art is free because I work another job" mindset.
"But I make the money in the wine industry." Well, Coppola bought his winery with money from The Godfather, so the fact that he has another job I think is immaterial. The 'let's make art free and seek by seeking wealthy patrons' approach is still around - look at how New York's Public Theatre and Shakespeare festival came to be. For the rest of us, art meets the capitalist norm, i.e., with exceptions, where we benefit from art it would make sense that we pay for that benefit. And authors in particular are put at a huge disadvantage when their work is stolen; piracy and plagiarism may as well be taking the dollar value of the stolen content from its originator, thereby inhibiting the originator's ability to make more stuff. Or Coppola could just finance all art in the US...
It's an interesting thing to think about because really art should be free. You shouldn't need to be wealthy to experience art. But we do live in a capitalist society. This just bring out other forms of art I think, for example, street art, graffiti, installations, tons of things on youtube. Jared is right in separating "art" from "entertainment". On the music end, the public definitely doesn't have a "right" to free material for the sake of art. It is someone else's work and intellectual property. If the public wants to experience it, they can pay the artist for their work. Like any other service. If artists did not need money for life necessities, that is, if they had the option, i'm sure they would like to share their work for free.
I understand where he is coming from, but most artists want their work to be their lives and therefore make money from it. It doesn't mean they don't love art any less, it just means they hope to make a living doing what they love. If you are lucky enough to make millions from your art, then you have the option of saying I don't need a pay check. But for the rest of us, we need that paycheck.
I find it interesting the such a famous director would be so lenient about copyright laws. In today's world, plagiarism is looked down on by so many institutions that we assume it's bad across the board. We forget that creativity is always inspired by something, oftentimes another artist's work. However, I don't think direct copying should be condoned over taking from styles you like.
I agree with Zoe. Unfortunately, I do not own a vineyard, and so my chances of making money just went away. I suppose we could work another job other than theatre, but by Coppola's concept doctors shouldn't make money either. Computer engineers shouldn't make money either. What defines art? Allowing somebody to continue their life is art. Inventing machines to help us with our lives is a type of art. Growing grapes and making wine is a form of art. It can be stress relieving--working, picking grapes and working outside.
But then, the person who makes the wine bottles, or the person who creates advertisements for his wine are creating artistic products. And they're getting paid, aren't they? But those are jobs that are necessary to hold and sell his wine. So really, he shouldn't be paying them either. But he's allowed to keep his own money, right?
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