怎样鼓励艺术创作

It’s mad to give my heirs rights to a student lit crit essayIntellectual property law must strike a difficult balance. There is public benefit from the widest possible access to and use of creative output. There is also a public interest in ensuring that artists and their publishers have incentives to produce new work.There are few certainties in judging the effects of such policies, but there are some. John Lennon will never sing another song. James Joyce will never publish another novel (thank goodness), and Picasso will never pick up his brush again. No financial incentives can now affect the quality or quantity of their work.Yet the US Congress and the European Commission have been much exercised in increasing the rights of the dead, or those whose creative years are long behind them. The Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998 extended the term of American copyright in written material and was quickly followed in Europe. Thanks to the efforts of Mr Bono and my doctors, copyright in my prize essay for excellence in Scottish literature will probably endure into the 22nd century. More recent pressure to extend copyright terms has focused on sound recordings. While this plan has been rejected several times, pressure from interest groups is relentless.Of course, the lobbyists are not really representing the great poetry circle in the sky. The principal beneficiaries of these measures are organisations that are very much alive, even if some are struggling to remain so: organisations like EMI/Citigroup, which controls most British popular music recordings of the 1960s, and the Disney Corporation, whose exclusive rights to Walt’s characters were about to expire when Sonny Bono came to the rescue. The focus of current attention, however, is art.Droit de suite gives an artist who has sold his work the right to share the proceeds of any subsequent sale, an idea that seems odd when applied to cars, or clothes, or even books. It is unjust that van Gogh received so little financial reward or public recognition in his short lifetime, but we cannot make it up to him now.Still, the resale right was adopted in France, then Germany; the European Union was subsequently persuaded to take the idea on board. The winning argument was that since France had foolishly implemented this policy unilaterally, French auctioneers would suffer a competitive disadvantage unless everyone else adopted it as well. They do: Paris is a world centre for painters, for art museums, but not for art sales. Britain, by some distance Europe’s largest art market, managed to secure a derogation for 10 years in respect of the work of artists who are no longer alive. But these years are about to run out.The argument that France would suffer by unilateral action does, of course, apply equally to the European Union as a whole. The initial directive required the Commission to negotiate similar agreements globally and to report on the effects of its policy within 10 years of implementation. No report has appeared and no such agreements have been made – or are likely to be, since there is no flicker of interest in droit de suite in the US, Switzerland or China.If we want to support new creative endeavours, it is easy to think of more effective measures. It was my vanity, the spur of the prize, and the encouragement of Mr Steel that prompted me to write that Scottish essay in 1959, not the prospect of rewards to my distant heirs. A similar mix of motives leads me to write this article. Public support of artists should focus on recognition, immediate financial recompense, and a supportive political and cultural environment.It is time to distinguish sharply between the public interest in stimulating new creative work and the private interest in squeezing more profit from work that was created long ago. We do not encourage originality by conferring windfall gains on the Disney Corporation, EMI, Citigroup, and the Picasso estate. Little understanding of either culture or economics is required to recognise that new ideas in art, music and literature will come from the living, not the dead.知识产权法必须要做到一个艰难的平衡。

公共利益要求能够最大限度地获取和使用创意作品，公共利益也要求能保证艺术家和出版商有动力产出新作品。

在评判这些政策的效果时，很少能有定论，但可以肯定的是：约翰?列侬(John Lennon)绝对不会再唱新歌了，詹姆斯?乔伊斯(James Joyce)绝对不会再出版新小说了（谢天谢地），毕加索(Picasso)也一定不会再拿起画笔了。

现在，财务激励再多也不可能影响他们作品的数量和质量了。

然而，美国国会和欧盟委员会(European Commission)却多次为死人、或年事已高、创造力早已消失的人提高权利。

1998年通过的《桑尼?博诺版权法案》(Sonny Bono Copyright Act)延长了书面材料在美国的版权保护期，这一举动很快就得到欧洲的效仿。