Abstract
For most of human history, the essential nature of creativity was understood to be cumulative and collective. This notion has been largely forgotten by modern policies that regulate creativity and speech. As hard as it may be to believe, the most valuable components of our immortal culture were created under a fully open regime with regard to access to pre-existing expressions and reuse. From the Platonic mimesis to Shakespeare’s “borrowed feathers,” the largest part of our culture has been produced under a paradigm in which imitation — even plagiarism — and social authorship formed constitutive elements of the creative moment. Pre-modern creativity spread from a continuous line of re-use and juxtaposition of pre-existing expressive content, transitioning from orality to textuality and then melding the two traditions. The cumulative and collaborative character of the oral formulaic tradition dominated the development of epic literature. The literary pillars of Western culture, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were fully forged in the furnace of that tradition. Later, under the aegis of Macrobius’ art of rewriting and the Latin principles of imitatio, medieval epics grew out of similar dynamics of sharing and recombination of formulas and traditional patterns. Continuations, free re-use, and the re-modeling of iconic figures and characters, such as King Arthur and Roland, made chansons de geste and romance literature powerful vehicles in propelling cross-country circulation of culture.The parallelism between past and present highlights the incapacity of the present copyright system to recreate the cumulative and collaborative creative process that proved so fruitful in the past. In particular, the constant development and recursive use of iconic characters, which served as an engine for creativity in epic literature, is but a fading memory. This is because our policies for creativity are engineered in a fashion that stymies the re-use of information and knowledge, rather than facilitating it. Under the current regime, intellectual works are supposedly created as perfect, self-sustaining artifacts from the moment of their creation. Any modifications, derivations, and cumulative additions must secure preventive approval and must be paid off, as if they were nuisances to society.Rereading the history of aesthetics is particularly inspiring at the dawn of the networked age. The dynamics of sharing of pre-modern creativity parallel the features of digital networked creativity. As in the oral-formulaic tradition, digital creativity reconnects its exponential generative capacity to the ubiquity of participatory contributions. Additionally, the formula — the single unit to be used and reused, worked and re-worked — is the building block of the remix culture as well as the oral formulaic tradition. Today, in an era of networked mass collaboration, ubiquitous online fan communities, user-based creativity, digital memes, and remix culture, the enclosure of knowledge brought about by an ever-expanding copyright paradigm is felt with renewed intensity. Therefore, I suggest that the communal, cumulative, social and collaborative nature of creativity and authorship should be rediscovered and should drive our policies. In order to plead my case, I have asked for the support of the most unexpected witnesses.
Highlights
For most of human history, the essential nature of creativity was understood to be cumulative and collective
The Homeric works would be construed as products of collective genius as opposed to the romantic idea of individual genius. It upsets all romantic conceptions of the nature of art and the artist— conceptions which are the very foundation of nineteenth-century aesthetics —to have to think of the Homeric epics, in all their perfections, as being the product neither of individual nor of folk poetry, but, on the contrary, as an anonymous artistic product of many elegant courtiers and learned literary gentlemen, in which the boundaries between the work of different personalities, schools and generations have become obliterated.[20]
The Middle Ages coined the very word text out of a textile metaphor to recognize that many medieval writings “are fabrics that incorporate fibers from earlier writings and preceding traditions.”[81]. The task of vernacular writers—and medieval authors in general—was perceived as that of understanding, interpreting and elaborating past authorities, rather than competing with them.[82]
Summary
In the short window during the 1980s between the emergence of digital sampling and the first decisions that outlawed it, Public Enemy released its album It Takes a Nation of Millions, which was critically acclaimed for its influence on hiphop. Building his sonic wall, Public Enemy attempted to make use of bricks kneaded with water and clay of a communitarian musical tradition. In an interview given after the judicial turmoil that took down digital sampling, Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, the frontman of the rap band Public Enemy, better known by his stage name “Chuck D,” explained the impact of copyright on Public Enemy’s creativity: Public Enemy’s music was affected more than anybody’s because we were taking thousands of sounds . The same witness may be of use for an entire generation of digital remixers, vidders, creators of “machinima,” developers of fangames, fanfiction writers, and users generating content
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
