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• eric - Mar 13 2007 | free, art, Jonathan Lethem, copyright, author, film, business, towrite

  Author Jonathan Lethem has decided to option his most recent book to a filmmaker with some interesting terms. He is requesting that the filmmaker relinquish all rights five years from the movie release so that others may produce derivative work without fear of reprisal.

  Quoted: Lately I’ve become fitful about some of the typical ways art is commodified. Despite making my living (mostly) by licensing my own copyrights, I found myself questioning some of the particular ways such rights are transacted, and even some of the premises underlying what’s called intellectual property. I read a lot of Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, who convinced me that technological progress – and globalization – made this a particularly contemporary issue. I also read Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, which persuaded me, paradoxically, that these issues are eternal ones, deeply embedded in the impulse to make any kind of art in the first place. I came away with the sense that artists ought to engage these questions directly, rather than leaving it entirely for corporations (on one side) and public advocates (on the other) to hash out. I also realized that sometimes giving things away – things that are usually seen to have an important and intrinsic ‘value’, like a film option – already felt like a meaningful part of what I do. I wanted to do more of it.