Some of Nothing

Odetta and Creative Commons
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I was filling out this Creative Commons survey while I was listening to the video embedded in this NYT article about recently deceased folk singer, Odetta, and suddenly (somewhere about 75% of the way through the survey) my worlds converged.

Likely flouting all manner of copyright, I've embedded the portion of the New York Times video in which Odetta explains that members of the folk singing community in the 60s weren't "stealing" from each other; they were "passing on the folk tradition". I like that this distinction was an important one for her to make. She was unashamed of her role as both culture consumer and culture generator and seemed to understand quite well that you can't be one without the other. I guess the fact that artwork serves this dual role is what makes copyright such a b-tch to figure out.

Methinks that Shakespeare, given his propensity for "passing on the dramatic tradition", never would have survived in our copyright climate.

Nothing New byslag at 10:33 AM