Copyright Release Party
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About the piece: This painting was made in protest of a growing trend in lawsuits by large mulinational corporations against individuals who "violate" copyright protection. While copyright protection, granted in the US constitution and upheld throughout the world, was originally intended to protect artists, authors and musicians against unauthorized reproduction of their works, it has become a tool for corporations to silence opposition and parody of their products and trademarks, which include popular cultural icons and ultimately society itself. Copyright laws now are more often used to silence free speech and creative parody than they are to uphold an artist's right to their own work. Not only have large corporations with deep pockets and teams of lawyers abused copyright protection in astounding attacks on free speech, but US congres extended the life of copyright to 100 years thanks to Washington lobbyists rallying for Mickey Mouse. Indeed, corporations are not only abusing copyright law and constitutional protection, but are freely abusing their close contact with law makers in their favor, to the detriment of individuals and society as a whole. Such is the corporate game. Barbie and Mattel have been the worst offenders (rivaled only by Disney)setting landmark supreme court cases in whether or not artists have the right to use popular cultural icons in parody. Corporations such as Mattel who wish to silence artists in the name of protecting their brand are in fact prohibiting society as a whole from commenting on popular icons, symbols, and cornerstones of culture, most of which are copyrighted now by major corporations. In the past cultural icons belonged to everyone - now they are owned by corporations. But how can you comment on society without using popular icons? The answer, of course, is that you can't. While recognizing the need for copyright law, we also need to recognize the original intent of copyright law, and disallow corporations from being such bad citizens and hijacking both our culture, and our right to comment on it, critique it, and expand it. You just can't be creative anymore with Mattel, Disney and Starbucks filing law suits anytime someone pokes fun at a logo or popular character. Ultimately we should take peopledom away from corporations; that however is a different story. Some Interesting and useful links on copyright debate:
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