Who should own a creation?

Anonus

A lot of popular media and art are owned not by their creators, but by clients or other corporate entities.

Despite my fantasy-self's obsession with owning intellectual property, I am one of those people who wants to be in control of his own destiny. I generally take the Harry Potter goblin view towards creation - the true owner of something should be its creator, not necessarily its client. But of course that depends on how personal the nature of it is anyway. Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv never meant to hold onto their iteration of the NBC peacock, for instance.

Hexartes

Me

Hexartes

Facetious mode: Off

Ownership is one of those topics that boggles me whenever I sit and think about it. George Carlin in his bit about "stuff" put it really well.

Ownership is inherently ephemeral. I think rights should go to whoever the creator dictates they go to.

Imipolex G

man, don't get me started about ownership, it's bizarre.

generally, though, I think the creator should own it unless they give/sell it to someone else.

One-Winged Eagle

We can all agree on the "should", but the "what" is more interesting to me. Like, what are the laws that currently exist that dictate possession?

glennmagusharvey

Who should own a creation?

(philosophical answer)

Everyone who thinks about it.

Everyone whose lives are influenced by that creation.

Everyone who has ideas for making sense of that creation.

Everyone woh has ideas for building on that creation.

A creation becomes public domain (in the social sense, even if not the legal sense) when it becomes public.  It becomes everyone's -- everyone who comes into contact with it and becomes aware of it.

eriophora zia

One of the tricky parts about "the creator should own it" is when a piece is an enormous collaboration of entities. For example, take a blockbuster film. Should the screenplay writer own it? The animators (if it is animated)? The directors? The actors? How do we define a creator in this case when so many people are working together to create?

In such a case, it's almost impossible for anyone other than the client, the person hiring the services of others to create a full feature film, to be the owner even if they aren't directly involved in the creation outside of funding.

glennmagusharvey

Who should own a creation, and how?

(legal answer)

Original creator or creative team.

10 years: exclusive control of copyright.

after that, an additional 20 (or even 10?) years: guaranteed royalties from for-profit derivatives.  Derivative works that are sufficiently transformative are allowed.  Not-for-profit derivatives need give no money, but any profit from derivatives pay royalties to original creator; derivative works are allowed even if the creator does not consent to them.  Derivative works' copyright works the same way for those works' creators, except for the part of the content that comes from the original creation.

after that: public domain

Derivative works of original creation, also by original creator, have their own copyright.  In this case -- if a creator keeps the creation "active" -- copyright can be renewed by original creator, but not for more than a total of 20 years before derivatives become automatically allowed and royalties automatically due.

Creator of original creation can choose to waive any part of this control at any time.  Not sure what if they want to regain it within the original timeframe, or regain it with a renewal.

That's how it SHOULD be.

^ edit: i have been ninja'd

Salix Babylonika

It's kind of a pointless question, imo.

Not to be like, the token cynical person, but generally speaking whoever wants a piece of media that has the most money tends to get it.

And that'll be true for as long as we treat art as product, which will probably be until the heat death of the universe, or the extinction of our species, whichever comes first.