Totoro, SOPA, and My Weekend Project

My new hobby has got me thinking a lot about intellectual property.  When you’re relaxing on the sofa with a ball of yarn, the mind tends to wander.  So, I started wondering, who ‘owns’ this cute lil stuffed Totoro I just made?

The pattern for this handsome little guy comes from LucyRavenscar, the British crochet maven who makes among the best amigurumi around.  In her pattern, which she gives away for free on the internet, she specifies: “This is a free pattern of my design, so please do not sell it.  Otherwise, use as you like, but if you make this Totoro to sell you must include a link to this pattern.  Thank you!”

Copyright enthusiasts might scratch their heads.  Why would she possibly give this away for free, especially when she already has an online storefront at Etsy?  Let’s extend this argument to libraries: why should publishers let libraries “give away” ebooks for free, for instance?

And here’s the thing: finding crochet patterns for free — at the library and on the internet — has ultimately enticed me to spend a bunch of my own cash on yarn, tools and notions.  I bought a few of my own amigurumi books (like this one and this one).  And I even bought a few amigurumi patterns on Etsy.  Same goes for ebooks!  When ideas can be freely exchanged, most people are only inspired to do more, find more, (buy more,) create more.  Our original U.S. legislators were spot on — to give creative folks a limited amount of time (14 years) to profit from their idea before freeing it up to the average guy.  In other words:

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

Many people probably don’t even realize the original copyright term was 14 years, renewable for a second 14 years in limited cases.  We should all be reading Harry Potter (1997) and watching Seinfeld (1990-98) for free right now!  But lobbyists and companies with a lot of money exercised their power and influence to increase this term to its current incarnation of 120+ years.

Aside from the cash angle, though, I believe intellectual property is also an ethical issue of what makes us human, and what divides us by class.  Look: we’re all inspired to create, retell, and reinterpret the stories, symbols and icons that surround us.  We take the symbols we recognize in pop culture and internalize them, make them something new, use them to give our lives meaning.  When you lock up these cultural symbols and put a 120-year tariff on them, you deny those who have the fewest resources the ability to create their own meaning.

Take my all-time favorite example of the hip-hop and remix culture born in the 1970s and ’80s.  The very wealthy said they owned culture, and the “new” copyright laws said they were right.  It was now illegal for the urban poor to access cultural symbols to reinterpret and reinvent the stories and sounds around them.  Shakespeare could borrow whatever cultural symbols he wanted to entertain crowds on the Elizabethan stage.  But a few black dudes in New York?  Uh-uh, sorry.

Now, in 2012, we’re at new crossroads for intellectual property.  The new proposed SOPA legislation freaks me out because it will set a new precedent to make it impossible for amateurs — hobbyists, small businesses, kids, the working class — to share any content on the internet.  Under SOPA, any site that hosts amateur content, like YouTube, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, would be liable for anything that could be considered “copyright infringement.”  And rather than policing the millions of gigabytes of new content that’s generated each month, content hosters will be coerced to shut down everything that’s not already pre-vetted.  Librarian in a Banana Suit will go away.  And so will your Facebook wall.  Content hosters like WordPress and Facebook know that massive content takedown will be more cost-effective than lawsuits from copyright holders like Studio Ghibli.  Which technically owns the entire “Totoro” franchise.  And, by extension, my cat’s new toy.

Tags: DIY, Intellectual Freedom, Lupa the Cat, Open Access