Feline Humanity?
There I was enjoying my Sunday, sitting on the balcony, sipping my coffee after lunch, enjoying a good book and being proud of the achievements of the day. It was 3 PM and I already managed to have a shower. I didn’t allow myself to think about the rigors of the coming week, when I will be immersed in the minor but incredibly important distinctions in copyright law. It was a perfect.
I sure can be a lazy bastard when I want to and I do not feel even slightly bad about it. Only one who can beat me at extreme laziness is my cat, but then again he’s competing in a different category. He’s heavy weight champion. There’s a problem with being lazy, though. I can only do it for so long. After a few days I get bored by it. After a week or two it’s unbearable. That’s when my cat wins. I get to work and go do something, anything. It’s just more fun for me when I have a busy schedule, 12 hours of work planned in the next 10, lots of activities and lots of things I have to take care of, preferably prioritized in three categories. A friend of mine asked me whether I still look forward to working crazy hours during the summer, and honestly, I do. Not the crazy hours, really, I enjoy excessive boss presence just as much as the next guy. But the feeling that I’m doing something challenging, that I’m satisfied with the work well done afterwards.
What am I, really? A product of a capitalistic society, an overachiever, a workaholic? Or is it just human nature? Is the desire to achieve or create something impregnated into our essence? Implications of that are profound. If we achieve our goals and behave creatively solely because for the paycheck, then society has a justification to apply such pressure, to force and direct our creativity. Then we are like my cat, acting only when we get a meal for it. But if the real achievements result from a desire within us to create, then creativity and by that our satisfaction is directly proportional to the degree of freedom we have in expressing ourselves. Then an efficient copyright legislation should be based on facilitating free creation, much more than restricting access to created works. I should have just stayed on the balcony, right?
I sure can be a lazy bastard when I want to and I do not feel even slightly bad about it. Only one who can beat me at extreme laziness is my cat, but then again he’s competing in a different category. He’s heavy weight champion. There’s a problem with being lazy, though. I can only do it for so long. After a few days I get bored by it. After a week or two it’s unbearable. That’s when my cat wins. I get to work and go do something, anything. It’s just more fun for me when I have a busy schedule, 12 hours of work planned in the next 10, lots of activities and lots of things I have to take care of, preferably prioritized in three categories. A friend of mine asked me whether I still look forward to working crazy hours during the summer, and honestly, I do. Not the crazy hours, really, I enjoy excessive boss presence just as much as the next guy. But the feeling that I’m doing something challenging, that I’m satisfied with the work well done afterwards.
What am I, really? A product of a capitalistic society, an overachiever, a workaholic? Or is it just human nature? Is the desire to achieve or create something impregnated into our essence? Implications of that are profound. If we achieve our goals and behave creatively solely because for the paycheck, then society has a justification to apply such pressure, to force and direct our creativity. Then we are like my cat, acting only when we get a meal for it. But if the real achievements result from a desire within us to create, then creativity and by that our satisfaction is directly proportional to the degree of freedom we have in expressing ourselves. Then an efficient copyright legislation should be based on facilitating free creation, much more than restricting access to created works. I should have just stayed on the balcony, right?
posted by Sergej at 4:44 PM
3 Comments:
Here are some answers for your "difficult" questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Social_and_self_regulation
( check the self- actualisation issues)
There is nothing about balcony though :) .
" But if the real achievements result from a desire within us to create, then creativity and by that our satisfaction is directly proportional to the degree of freedom we have in expressing ourselves" - that only works for those who need to get their satisfaction from creating. Others whose needs are "more easily satisfied", perhaps do need a more strict copyright legislation to enable them to have a relativly simple job ( like packing or selling music CDs).
Do keep these intelectual property ideas coming...(even if they are from the balcony) :)
See, that's my problem about the high-brow self actualisation debate. When it comes down to solving a simple practical problem of me on the balcony, they're completely worthless.
But to answer your "others" point, I believe we give out a monopoly to authors because we feel the creation part is worth it and beneficial to the society. Not the pack the music CD part. That doesn't deserve a monopoly, does it?
Skiping the balcony problems, let me focus on clearifying my point:
I agree with the simple idea, that we give "acts of monopoly" to authours because we mostly find their creations beneficial to us.
On the other hand my point is more about many who enjoy staying on a "balcony" a bit too long. So when they get a pretty comfortable position ( selling CDs, representing big record, software companies) they don't want the system to change or they would lose their "simple" joys. And that is why companies which are legitimately seeking profits apply pressure on copyright legislation to "overextend" the protection. There just isn't a real political force to stop them in their effort... what kind of monopolies does that give us?
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