The Great Fallacy
of Intellectual Property
Samuel Johnson famously said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
That sentiment is what underlies modern copyright law – the idea that creative labors won't be undertaken without a financial incentive. And it's copyright that allows that money to be collected. But as I've been arguing, that assumption was always wrong, and current trends in media on confirming that with each passing day.
Today in the New York Times, Bill Keller writes about how the pastime of book-writing continues to boom despite the new media explosion that seems to be making books increasingly irrelevant. Keller says this about why people write books:
Writers write them for reasons that usually have a little to do with money and not as much to do with masochism as you might think. There is real satisfaction in a story deeply told, a case richly argued, a puzzle meticulously untangled. (Note the tense. When people say they love writing, they usually mean they love having written.) And it is still a credential, a trophy, a pathway to “Charlie Rose” and “Morning Joe,” to conferences and panels that Build Your Brand, to speaking fees and writing assignments.
It's more confirmation that either Samuel Johnson was wrong or that the great mass of writers out there are blockheads.
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