I am always happy to find free content. Without, it would, for instance, be extremely costly to illustrate a blog!
I am well aware of the fact that many people have reservations about “free content”. Who protects the property of authors and photographers? Many things must be considered. Theft of intellectual property musts not be promoted, permitted, or tolerated.
You have to accept that life does not get any easier for professional photographers if they get additional competition from amateurs. How often have we experienced that technological or social change caused entire professions to disappear?
Technology, social developments and globalization changed “the world”. Law and society will follow in this process of change. It seems to make sense for content to become free “by default”. And if you do not wish your content to be free, you have to say so explicitly. A decision that then also has to be accepted.
Recently, there was an interesting discussion about Frau Helene Hegemann (the current German “Fräulein-Wunder”). She had given a controversial performance in the Munich “Kammerspiele” and was criticized for voicing the opinion that authors basically do not produce anything. Instead, she says, they just process what they read about or experienced.
I wonder if there is not some truth in this. Can we assume at all that any one person on earth ever really came up with something totally innovative? Instead, would it not be fair to say that even our “great” ideas and concepts have been – at least partly – the result of accidental results of our lives and experiences? And do we not benefit with all our “ingeniousness” from our private “stake holders”? Are we not all just a product of our development and our social identities, anyway?
In the long run, isn’t it almost amoral to charge people for your creativity if said creativity would not have been possible without our society? Can you really claim something like intellectual property and copyright protection if the whole necessary input for the idea came from interactions with other people?
Aren’t we, perhaps, again using the antiquated image of the God-like human who creates phantastical things all by himself? Does the term “intellectual property” even fit into a time that is concerned with new “concerns” such as the survival of the planet?
Would it not be natural if we returned to the environment everything we received from it? Even if this idealistic approach seems to clash with a world of one-sided materialistic values.
Once in a while, there are even attempts at forbidding amateurs (Dilettanten) the free publication of their lovingly produced content. In my opinion, this is particularly disgusting. Amateurs go about their art in a painstaking way. They do not do it for commercial reasons, but just because they like the art. Often, the results achieved by “amateurs” are better than those of professionals done routinely. Why should we not be allowed to take advantage of the fruit of the amateurs’ labour?
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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