SIVACRACY.NET

Fiction writer David Swartz has written an interesting paper:

Conclusion and Recommendations: Authors appear to have a good basic understanding of how copyright works, but their interpretations and attitudes are interesting and in parts contradictory. While authors value personal gain in connection with their writing, they are more likely to define that good in terms of how widely their works are read than in terms of profit. They are lukewarm on questions of the public good in connection with their work but feel that access to a wide range of works is important, and they view Creative Commons, which encourages the free and wide dissemination of works, positively.

Interestingly, while they believe that authors and creators benefit from copyright more than the public, their negative view of the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act suggests that they do not count themselves among those benefiting. This suggests that they disagree with the arguments of what Vaidhyanathan refers to as the "copyright cartel," who claim that the strengthening of copyright and the rise of intellectual property benefits creative people. Authors do not appear to be aware of the original thrust of copyright, which was conceived as a public good. They do not question its primary use as a tool for the benefit of authors and creators. This reflects the cultural and legal shift traced by critics of copyright such as Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan. It also suggests that copyright reform will be difficult to implement unless these attitudes change.

My recommendation to researchers wishing to further pursue this topic would be: 1) to try to cast a wider net in order to get responses from a wider range of authors; 2) to ask further questions in an attempt to parse the definition of a public good, and the relationship of fiction to it; and 3) to explore further authors' feelings of who benefits from current copyright laws and who does not. This is an area with wide implications for copyright issues, and warrants further exploration.