In discussing the Orphan Works issue, and so many, many other subjects whose controversies permeate throughout our mental and heart circuits to cause great pain and anxiety, we appear to gain little. We evoke dissention in attempting to relieve ills that are but a mere manifestation of our collective condition as incomplete human beings. Our perception is a deception to the point that we risk losing all hope.
Ralph Waldo Emerson touched upon the enigma of how this is so in his masterful essay Self-Reliance. In his view, laws and institutions embodied the sense of dependence beyond one’s sphere of influence. Moreover, they were the symptom of an altogether loss of self-reliance—what he described as a “want”—whereby the effort to become self-reliant stymied the ability to act independently.
We envision and embrace the concept of “property”, for example, because we seek to not be bound by the whims of others over what we possess. However, by assessing our value through that which we possess (Property) we fail to claim our independence and true worth, which attribute resides solely in our individual nature—the person that we are.
Interestingly, this viewpoint seems perfectly legitimate in the context of the copyright argument—particularly in direct link to a creator of a work of art. If we can dispense with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s perspective that nothing “new” is truly created, one thing is merely replaced by another, we could come to an interesting conclusion.
It is not copyright that establishes the value of, or gives genuine authority to, the artist. The artist as Creator is independent of any law and need not be subject to a law to provide protection over his/her creations. In this pretext, one might argue that copyright is not really transferable.
This is curious, because I could then argue that the true limit of copyright lies within the lifetime of the artist, which concept of in perpetuity is fictitious, but this would complicate things…
We do have, again through law, vehicles to allow copyright to remain intact beyond the artist’s lifetime. And where does this leave us? We return to the place where we started…
Any artist out there continues to face this predicament, and we may never see a conclusive satisfaction in any law. While we are obliged to defend our rights, we must hold fast to the fact that the law cannot alter our value as artists/Creators, even if the law is skewed to infringe upon our rights to freely execute such a quest.
For artists, our principles are manifested within that which we create. Only our art can speak for us and not our laws. We would do well to consider Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words and prescribe them to our daily lives.
The last part of the essay reads as follows:
“…Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.
And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long, that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what he has, if he see that it is accidental, — came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there, because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes. “Thy lot or portion of life,” said the Caliph Ali, “is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.” Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in multitude. Not so, O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.
So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
