A
coalition representing over 500 Canadian artists has now also raised its voice in an
open letter demanding better access to contemporary works of art in order to use them as raw material for new art.
Quote:
The Coalition offers three principles that it argues must ground Canada’s copyright policy:
FAIR ACCESS TO COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL LIES AT THE HEART OF COPYRIGHT. Creators need access to the works of others to create. Legislative changes premised on the “need” to give copyright owners more control over their works must be rejected.
ARTISTS AND OTHER CREATORS REQUIRE CERTAINTY OF ACCESS. The time has come for the Canadian government to consider replacing fair dealing with a broader defense, such as fair use, that will offer artists the certainty they require to create.
ANTI-CIRCUMVENTION LAWS SHOULD NOT OUTLAW CREATIVE ACCESS. Laws that privilege technical measures that protect access to digital works must be rejected. The law should not outlaw otherwise legal dealings with copyrighted works merely because a digital lock has been used. Artists work with a contemporary palette, using new technology. They work from within popular culture, using material from movies and popular music. Contemporary culture should not be immune to critical commentary.
“Artworks that use appropriation have a long and well documented place in the history of art” notes Sarah Joyce, a signatory to the Open Letter. “These works are collected and exhibited in major cultural institutions across Canada and throughout the world and yet artists express this form of creativity under threat of the law. To silence this valid form of creativity is tragic. That Canada’s laws do so is simply wrong.”
“Canada’s art community has not been consulted on the implications of possible copyright reforms,” states Gordon Duggan, another of the Open Letter’s signatories. “We are creators, and we rely on copyright laws for our livelihood. Yet, to my knowledge, the needs of Canadian artists have never been a consideration in copyright policy debates. It is time that changed. The sheer size and makeup of this coalition relects the level of dissatisfaction within the art community. These changes are set to lock Canadian art into a very narrow idea of what the Government wants art to be rather than reflecting the reality of contemporary Canadian art.”
|
Some discussion on the topic available in
Slyck.