aeblog

the greater good

My sister is a scientist and a professor. She spends her time dreaming up new and exciting ways of furthering our understanding of the human brain. This is a vast simplification of her work, but for my purposes here, it is adequate.
Now, the only way she can tell if the research she is doing is actually advancing science is by having a clear and up to date understanding of all prior work that has been done by scientists around the globe in her area of research. This is an ever changing body of work, documented in numerous scientific journals. These journals are predicated upon the notion of full disclosure, which makes perfect sense because science is about discovering the 'truth' and one must strive to prove this elusive 'truth' by basing one's work on that which has come before it and that which has been widely accepted as correct.
So I am getting a bit long winded here. My point is that my sister and all academic researchers in every field base their research on the research of others. They build off of each other in a symbiotic way that is both incredibly efficient at uncovering the truth and also manages to reward the producers of significant advances despite the fact that they give their content to the community for free. OK, so now is it starting to make sense why I am babbling on and on about this?
Academic science flourishes because of the immediate, complete and free sharing of 'content'. Why can't our culture flourish in much the same way? Is it really all that different when a musician hears something that someone else has done and is impressed enough to reprocess the idea in his or her own way? A successful scientist does not get paid directly for having her articles published in prestigious journals. But she strives day and night to get published in those very journals because of the indirect compensation. First and foremost, recognition of colleagues plays a large role. The pride associated with having one's work influence a greater understanding as well as becoming a small link in a chain of discovery dating back hundreds of years and which will (hopefully) continue on for hundreds of years to come also must feel great. But these academics all seem to be able to pay their mortgages and support families and even occasionally go on vacations, right? How do they do it? They are paid by universities to research and teach. They are given grants. They are paid to give lectures. They write and publish books.
When my sister publishes a paper that furthers the ideas set forth by another scientist, she does not have to pay anyone for creating this 'derivative work' nor does she have to ask permission of the original creator nor must she hire a team of lawyers at great expense to clear the rights. All she has to do is cite the original author and focus on what makes her work new and therefore a worthy addition. Her peers decide this by publishing it or not. This is why scientific progress is so efficient.
Academia has created an environment in which its participants can give away the fruits of their labor for free and yet still sustain themselves personally and institutionally. Can such a system be created for artists in which we could paint paintings, write music, take photographs, make films etc etc and give them away for free and still be able to put food on the table and be fairly recognized for our creations/contributions? I've always thought that the real way musicians would make money in the future was not through the sale of cds (this would almost be a loss-leader of sorts) but through performing in the traditional sense as well as innovative other ways of entertaining.

I understand that there are fundamental differences between art and science, so my argument here (which really is much more of a brainstorm than anything coherent) does tend to break down in the details, but I still think it is interesting to think about. There are just as many 'greater good' benefits to a community of artistic creators as there are to a community of scientific creators, I would argue. I suppose the main difference is that on the whole, the financial potential for scientific creators is greater than that of artistic creators, and perhaps that's the very thing that will make these musings fall apart here at the very end.
I really don't know what is possible, but I do know that I am personally very invested in the future of culture and of the creative process, and I am fearful that the law is gumming up the wheels in well intentioned, but short-sighted and overaggressive ways. Ways that will ensure that a cultural environment like the one I describe above will have a very hard time coming into existence.
But I still say 'why not?'

These are just late night ramblings, and I apologize. Please poke holes. I am tired, but still find it interesting despite the expected gaps of knowledge, leaps of faith and inconsistencies.