You know, it must have been something for the Europeans who came to the New World back in and 1500 and 1600. Just think what it must’ve been like for them to encounter so much purely untouched virgin natural resources.
Of course, we all know the story of the exploitation of these natural resources over the past few hundred years. But to those original explorers and settlers, the available forests, buffalo, salmon stocks, king crabs and whales must’ve seemed to them to be infinite and inexhaustible. To someone looking at a herd of a million or more wild buffalo roaming the Great Plains, the idea that they could ever come close to extinction would have seemed utterly ludicrous.
In my opinion, something very similar is happening right now in the realm of artistic creativity.
You can go on youtube right now and download hundreds of movies and songs that are currently under copyright. Beneath all of this stolen and illegally posted copyrighted material there is this strange disclaimer commonly posted. People will say, “I do not own the copyright to this. No copyright infringement intended.” This is a little bit like someone breaking into your house and stealing your stuff, but thinking it’s okay as long as they turn to you as they walk out the door and stay, “I do not own this television set. No theft intended.” It is that discordant in the mind.
On Amazon, people are selling copyrighted books that they have already read for a penny. There is a vast “black market” in used books. At the moment, this sort of thing is “legal,” but in practical terms, the authors are not getting compensated for the use of their work. There’s a presumption that somehow, the authors will go and automatically replenish themselves, so everyone can just help themselves. There are so many authors, why not.
Now granted, given the vast numbers of books and movies and television shows that exist, it’s impossible that we would ever run out of this resource, right?
Well, okay, there are an awful lot of people out there, and an awful lot of digital cameras, and there are also an awful lot of Coke bottles, and Mentos to put in them. But the lifetime commitment involved in becoming an artistic professional at the highest levels of homo sapiens’ capacity is not guaranteed to be there forever. If we continue to take the highest levels of artistic output for granted and refuse to create any kind of system where these people get paid for their work (and I am not suggesting government subsidy, I just want fair price for the use), this is like chopping down the rain forest and just assuming it will grow back all by itself.
I just discovered the other day that pernambuco wood from Brazil is getting to be very hard to get. There isn’t a violinist or cellist in the world that doesn’t need a piece of pernambuco wood to play their fiddle. What the? It’s all gone?
I recently took a friend who is a home builder to the famous Newport mansions. In one room, the tour guide said, “to build this one single room today would cost over $100,000.” My friend looked at the guide and said, “that’s not true. You could not build this room today for any amount of money. The craftsmen who had the skill to build this room no longer exist.” I mention that story to simply point out that artistic skills can become extinct, just like animals.
Hey, I love the free movies on youtube. I love to be able to buy any book I want online for cheap. And I’ll bet whale meat is delicious. We decry our many ignorant ancestors for failing to recognize the fragility and limitation of these resources, many of which are gone forever. But I fear we are now just as blind and guilty as they are, only in a different category.
© Justin Locke
