Sunday, 6 May 2012

Responsibility, and Property

An interesting question that often arrises whe discussing writing is that of property. When a particular book, or character becomes famous it is genrally recognized that the public fanbase begin to develop a certain emotional attachment to the world or characters therenin. This attachment often leads to the notion of public discourse, or the right of the fanbase to shape the events of a story, or the nature of its characters through their consent of published materiel, and their expectations that future materiel should meet their desired standards. So does this mean that the public has the right to dictate to authors what their stories should contain, or what their characters should do? Of course it sounds silly when one puts it in that context, as a living writer has every right to make their materiel follow whatever path that they desire, but let's look at it another way.

The great myths and legends that have lost their original authors, or passed into the public sphere of intellectual property (who really owns Herecles and Zues's face?), so these all exist now as public property, and their names, and histories are available to any author who'd like to use them. Yet, critical backlash over such poorly made films as Clash of The Titans 2010 show that the public still has very strong expectations of the handling of such properties, even if they have no owner. While I could take this concept into Star Wars territoriy, I think I'll bring it back to a purely text example, and so we now look at the example of Sherlock Holmes. The killing-off of Holmes by his creator led to such a fervent public outcry of property mismanagement (and subsequent boycotting of Doyles books) that Doyle would later resume the series with a new Holmes adventure that retconned, and resurrected Holmes. This does at the very least demonstrate that public discourse has a certain democratic effect that can force authors to behave responsibly, or face the scorn and mistrust of their public (see George Lucas). Similar examples can be found in the comic book industry, were modern day myths and legends have often been mishandled in both print and film, leading to constant retconns, reboots, and have refined the comic film industry to the point that Marvel has taken back its creative control from the irresponsible film studios, and led to their latest string of successes.

So what effect does public discourse really have on itellectual property? Well, I certainly would disagree if someone were to suggest that the public has the right to dictate terms to author, or that authors have no need to even consider the public's opinion when dealing with their own intellectual property, but I would agree with authors like Stuart Glover who said: "Public discourse can be a powerful agent in controlling others and in shaping knowledge. The public voice is one we conspire to privilege, sometimes forgetting to question its right to speak authoritatively." (18)

Stuart Glover, “The Disloyal Subject: The consequences of non-fiction in Zigzag Street.” Imago 10.2 (1998): 17–23

1 comment:

  1. P.S, forgive any spelling errors, if any, I am very tired, and very sick, and forgot to do a spell check.

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