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Example Commentary Posts
Here are a few Commentary Posts from Spring 2005 that scored well:
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TITLE: Long Copyright Periods: An Unfair Burden on Society
DATE: 01/26/2005 11:18:07 AM
The extension of copyright terms and further division of copyright categories under thr Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 is detrimental to society from an economic and social viewpoint.
First, from an economic viewpoint, extension of copyright terms may create market inefficiencies and over inflate the costs of acquiring information. The purpose of copyright law is to protect the product of the copyrighted work creators from infringement by others who might wish to duplicate their work. Thus it acts as an incentive for those who might wish to create copyrightable works by protecting the profitability of the work. However, there is an inherent social cost that accompanies the protection of the work; Society benefits from being able to receive information freely and to use this information to create new copyrightable works. The costs of copyright include many factors including the disincentive it provides copyright owners to innovate and create new works, the inability of others to freely create derivative works from the copyrighted work, and the administrative costs of adjudicating claims over old copyrights. The benefits include the profit that accrues to the copyright owner and the incentive to create new copyrighted works. The goal of copyright law should be to maximize the net social benefit of copyrights which includes the benefit to the copyright owner. Using basic economic models, net social benefit is maximized at the point in time where the social cost of a copyright equals the social benefit, would be the optimal point to end copyright protection. Extending copyright protection beyond this point in time decreases the net benefit, because beyond this point the cost of the copyright would exceed the benefits.
Although it is difficult to determine the exact point where costs and benefits are equal, there is some ancillary evidence that current copyright protection exceeds this point of optimality. First, the fact that less than 10% of copyrights are renewed, indicates that current copyright terms are protecting works beyond the point where the author values protecting them and perhaps the point where protection gave him incentive to create the work initially. Second, the problem with older copyrighted works being lost due to neglect also indicates that copyrights are shielding works beyond the point where it is beneficial for the author to insure the work isn’t lost. This is particularly a problem with older movies and recordings that are being lost permanently as the media they are recorded on degrades. The social cost of losing pieces of work may prove to be immeasurably large as time passes. For example, is the added profit and incentive to create new work from copyright protection being extended 20 years worth the irrevocable loss of copyrighted material that gradually disappears over the copyright period? Third, film and print critics claim that there is a decline in innovation in music and movies may indicate that we may be overprotecting copyrighted works and are removing incentive to innovate. This may be further seen by the growing trend of music artists and movie studios releasing “best of” collections and director’s cuts of movies which vary only slightly from the original. Fourth, it may be argued that the increased amount of piracy of copyrighted material is an indicator that current copyright protection is keeping the prices of copyrighted materials above the amount which prospective buyers are willing to spend. Additionally, increasing the length of copyrights does nothing to alleviate piracy which is the primary problem affecting movie and music copyright holders. Finally, the rise of electronic means of communication mean that disseminating information has become far easier and cheaper. To some degree, this increases the protection for copyrights during their lifetime because it decreases the probability of copyright infringer claiming that they independently created their work. Thus during the lifetime of the copyright, copyright owners now enjoy a greater degree of protection for their copyrighted work. Because ability to successfully pursue copyright litigation and the period off time during which this litigation can be pursued both serve the same end, it stands to reason that an increase in one should entail a proportional decrease in the other to maintain the same total level of protection afforded to copyright holders.
A second problem with increasing the length of copyrights is that it increases externalities and deadweight loss in the copyright market. The cost of litigating old copyrights increases dramatically as the copyrights become older. As original copyright owners die, it becomes difficult to determine who exactly has the right to exercise copyright protection. Information which courts need to adjudicate copyright claims also becomes far more costly to gather as time passes and documents are lost. Further, longer copyright protection may overcrowd areas of the copyright market as time progresses and decrease the incentive for new works to be developed in a particular area. For example, it may prove unprofitable to create an architectural design within a certain stylistic school because that school of design is so saturated with copyrighted designs that there isn’t sufficient room to create new designs that wouldn’t infringe on some aspect of existing designs. On a related note, longer copyrights increase the risk of old copyrights conflicting with new material. This fear of “dead hand copyrights” creates a negative externality for those who might wish to create works in the future. The expected cost of defending in a copyright infringement suit is one which must be considered by work creators. Factoring the chance of a suit and litigation cost into the cost-benefit analysis may drive some designers to not develop a new creative work or design.
A third problem with increasing copyrights is that it injects unpredictability into the copyright market. Copyright owners choose their amount of investment in a copyrighted design based on what they anticipate the life of the copyright to be. Conversely, those who wish to infringe a copyright or use a copyright after it has expired (as in the case of some of the Disney works prior to the Sonny Bono Act) make a set of investments in anticipation of the copyrighted work ceasing to be protected. By varying the length of copyrights, Congress creates inefficiency in this market. Varying the length of copyrights can give incentive for those entering this market to speculate on future changes in copyright length. Thus owners of copyrights will invest based not on what the copyright length is, but what they anticipate it will become. Those who wish to invest in reproducing copyrighted works when the copyright period ends will under-invest in preparation to distribute the works because of the risk of the statutory period being increased, and over-invest if they believe the copyright period will decrease and it doesn’t. Finally, the possibility of change in t he copyright period creates risk – and the greater the risk, the less likely risk-adverse parties will be to invest in the copyright market.
A fourth problem is that copyright periods as they stand now seem to be conform to the protection needs of those types of copyrighted works (music and movies) which require or need the most protection. Inherently, this method seems economically flawed. Considering the renewal rate for all copyrighted works, it seems that the length of copyright protection is far too long for the vast majority of works. Assuming that copyright owners would renew their copyrights if it was beneficial to them, it seems that these copyrighted works provide little benefit to society, yet cost our society by reducing the flow of information and increasing externalities. Thus unless the benefit from the copyrighted movies and music that utilize the full copyright period outweighs the cost of protecting the vast majority of works which do not require such lengthy protection – then the length of copyrights is inefficient. An ideal copyright law length must protect some works less than they require and protect other works longer than needed. It is at this point that we balance the benefit of free information with the costs of lesser copyright protection. It is hard to see how the current statutory periods achieve this balance.
Overall, it seems that increased copyright length under the current regime is not an effective solution. Among others, it creates the problems discussed above. In addition, it does little to address problems the field of copyright is facing including the loss of older works, the increase of piracy, and the increased diversification of works falling under copyright law. Thus it seems that copyright law needs to be refined both in terms of method and time. Belwo I briefly mention a few changes which might address these problems, but are not without problems of their own.
One solution would be to start defining copyright length more in terms of the type of work and less in terms of who is creating the work. Certain types of works such as movies and music traditionally are renewed far more often than other forms of copyrighted works (over 40% versus less than 10%). Thus it seems that the types of copyright which traditionally are renewed less often should have a shorter period of protection. This would encourage innovation by work creators, help insure that these works aren’t lost during the copyright period, and possibly decrease the incentive for piracy.
A second solution would be to increase the costs or requirements of protecting copyrights. A stronger predilection for copyrights lapsing without sufficient effort by the copyright holder might help to stratify those copyrights that truly benefit from copyright protection from those that no longer benefit from copyright protection. In essence this is similar to a copyright tariff to counteract the tendency for copyrights to languish.
A final suggestion might be to enforce a policy of adverse possession of copyrighted ideas if the copyright holder fails to successfully defend the work. This policy would encourage copyright owners to actively use and protect their works. It would also encourage use of copyrighted works that might otherwise cease to be used and favor active usage of ideas. While this might entail added administrative costs, it would do a great deal to ensure that copyrighted works didn’t serve as a completely impermeable barrier to the use of aging copyrighted works.
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TITLE: Issues of Industrial Design Should Not Be Determined Under Copyright Law
DATE: 01/26/2005 11:57:37 AM
I apologize for the authoritative tone.
It would not be unreasonable to suspect Congress of deliberate cruelty in passing a statute that required the courts to distinguish between “applied art” and “industrial design.” The contorted reasoning in Brandir International, Inc v. Cascade Pacific Lumber Co. illustrates why it is probably wise to avoid well-marked philosophical rabbit holes such as “what is art?” when drafting legislation, but the Copyright Act of 1976 tackled just this question by incorporating the useful article doctrine. While I agree that the aesthetic elements of “useful articles” deserve protection, I think they are misplaced under copyright law. The fact that Congress was led to the cryptic art-versus-design distinction is strong evidence that this category of protection would be better placed under a regime where that question can be avoided.
Judge Winter’s dissent in Brandir International points to strong evidence that the “conceptual separability” test employed by the court is flawed. The fact that the very same object can either qualify for a copyright or not depending on the circumstances of its creation seems intuitively problematic. It is also troubling that the court’s analysis does not require any consideration of the degree of similarity between the products’ designs. The implication is that a competitor can virtually duplicate a distinctive design, as long as the original was “influenced in significant measure by utilitarian concerns.” Since most products are designed around their function, this leads to the unsatisfactory conclusion that most product designs can be duplicated without penalty (under copyright law).
The essence of the problem is that by extending copyright protection to “useful articles,” Congress is necessarily placing industrial design within the context of copyright law, even as it simultaneously purports to exclude it. Purely decorative features are an element of industrial design, regardless of what the statute implies to the contrary. As a result, copyright law gets applied to cases like Brandir International, where it is ill suited to the issues in dispute.
Industrial design seems to have frustrated neat categorization. In addition to the applications of copyright law illustrated by the Brandir International case, trademark law and patent law can both be applied to cases regarding the protection of industrial design. Based on an analysis of the objectives and mechanisms of all three regimes, I would argue that trademark law is best suited to these disputes, and that the useful article doctrine is an unnecessary and confusing addition to copyright law.
The court in Brandir International keeps returning to the distinction between artistic and functional considerations. It rejects one test for conceptual separability based on “whether the primary use is as a utilitarian article as opposed to an artistic work,” only to settle on another that requires a separation of “artistic judgment” from “functional influences.” This distinction is fundamental to the conflict between copyright law and industrial design. Copyright law is intended to encourage works of creative expression; and the value of these works is inherent in the expression itself, not the medium that conveys it. Industrial design, on the other hand, is an inducement to acquire an object that’s primary value is in its function. This creates in inseparable bond between form and function in product design, not simply in the effect of each on the other, but also in the relationship of the two in the minds of consumers. The incentives and controls of copyright law are intended to encourage originality, but they do not go far enough in recognizing the dangers of a lack thereof. Copyright law is focused on incentives for the artist, not consumer protection, and industrial design requires both. Consumers relate appearance and function (e.g., the quality of certain brands), and a confusing similarity can lead to consequences beyond the unfair exploitation of another’s work. By including “useful articles,” the 1976 act drags functional considerations under copyright law, a regime which expressly attempts to avoid any influence over function. The Brandir International case illustrates the difficulty of extricating only the artistic elements once you are considering a functional object. For that reason, I think it would make sense to remove functional objects, and therefore industrial design, from the scope of copyright law altogether.
Patent law also addresses industrial design protection in the form of design patents, although these arguably are also not well suited to the task. Design patents still limit protection to aesthetic elements rather than functional elements, although the distinction appears to be much less strict in practice. Design patents do not require “artistic judgment” to be “exercised independently of functional influences” (Brandir International). Instead, it is required that the design not be “primarily functional rather than ornamental” (Power Controls Corp. v. Hybrinetics). This language allows for a more lenient standard, particularly since a design element is not considered “primarily functional” if the same function can be achieved by other design techniques. Design patents are therefore better suited than copyright protection in addressing the appearance of functional objects, since aesthetic decisions made within functional parameters can still be protected. On the other hand, the formality of the process is unnecessary, and counterproductive to the needs of the filing party. Innovations in design are often more fleeting than innovations in function, and the value of the protection of a design patent may be greatly diminished by the time it is issued, often 2 – 3 years later (according to the textbook). There are many categories of consumer goods, such as women’s handbags, where imitators are far better able to keep up with the changes in design than the patent office.
The fact that questions of industrial design have leaked so extensively into both trademark and copyright law is probably evidence of what a substantial problem these formal obstacles are. Design patents were originally intended to deal with just such issues, and the fact that they have not been able to secure this territory after over 150 years seems to indicate that their purpose does not fit comfortably within the objectives and methods of the patent regime. Patents were initially intended to encourage technical innovation. The stakes in this area can be very high, and exacting standards are required as a result. Research and development costs are often enormous, and the value of a new product can be astronomical. The potential scale of the vested interests creates a need for precision in determining the proper scope of protection to ensure that an applicant is not given an unfair advantage. In addition, traditional patents (utility patents) require a utility assessment to ensure that they really are an advancement in the state-of-the-art. These factors necessitate a laborious process. Product design, on the other hand, does not require such an elaborate system to establish protections. The value that manufacturers invest in, and that consumers derive from product design is almost always much less than that associated with product function. Therefore it is simply not necessary to take the elaborate precautions inherent in the patent system. Furthermore, little expertise is required to determine aesthetic originality, and no utility assessment is necessary at all. Thus, even if some formality is required, it should be much more streamlined than the utility patent process.
The case that provides the standard for design patent protection hints in its language that protection of industrial design is best served under another regime. In Gorham Mfg. C. v. White, the court holds that “if in the eyes of an ordinary observer, giving such attention as a purchaser usually gives, two designs are substantially the same… inducing him to purchase one supposing it to be the other, the first one patented is infringed by the other.” This language expresses concerns more consistent with trademark law. The objectives of trademark protection are to improve consumer information regarding products by communicating certain brand features or standards through distinctive marks. This lowers the search cost for consumers selecting products by allowing them to make certain assumptions about product attributes without extensive investigation. This, in turn, encourages companies to invest in quality, since improvements will be associated with their brand, and sought by consumers. The idea of a confusing similarity is more problematic for the concerns of trademark law than patents. Even if products are quite distinctive, a patent infringement can still occur if the function is similar enough. Trademark law, on the other hand, is centered around the distinctive aesthetic identity of brands. The concern is that a confusingly similar appearance will create a false expectation that the functions are also the same.
Industrial design seems to fit much more neatly under the trademark law notion of “trade dress.” Trademarks encourage companies to invest in their products by allowing them to maintain a distinctive product appearance. The appearance of the product itself can also provide an inherent value to the consumer, whether it’s for purely aesthetic reasons, or due to emotional associations with the brand. The trademark regime allow us to avoid the art vs. design distinction by basing its analysis purely on the distinctiveness of the product and the ability of the consumer to identify the distinctive elements to a brand. The rule for assessing trade dress protection is established by TrafFix Devices, Inc. v. Marketing Displays, Inc., which holds that a products design or package can be protected as long it has a “secondary meaning” identifying the product with its manufacturer or source. This dual meaning analysis makes trademark law much more adept at addressing both form and function, allowing it to consider industrial design without the painful distinction of art and design attempted in Brandir International. The first meaning is simply the perception of the function of the product, the second meaning is the brand associations (which may be purely aesthetic) that are being conveyed by the design. The ability of trademark law to encompass both “art” and “design” considerations makes it a natural choice for addressing disputes of industrial design. Furthermore, as hinted above, the objectives of the regime are in line with the concerns of industrial design disputes as well. We want to reward manufacturers for investing in the quality of their products, and there is no reason why quality shouldn’t include aesthetic appeal. The protection over the appearance of the product can not only protect its superior functionality, but also its superior perceived artistic value. The latter is the very area of concern that causes the copyright law to tread on industrial design, and therefore the extension of copyright standards into this area is redundant and unnecessary. A company like Brandir International wishes to protect its product from competitors capitalizing off its investment in development by imitation, and this is precisely the type of situation that trademark law is designed to address.
I propose that the Brandir International case, and any involving industrial design, could be more easily and more correctly resolved using the concept of trade dress instead of copyright. Instead of attempting to extricate the artistic from the functional elements of a single object, the court can determine that the overall design connotes a functional meaning (it is a bicycle rack), as well as an alternative meaning associated with the manufacturer (it is the distinctive design associated with Brandir International). This would allow the court to avoid the problematic design versus art distinction, and to reach what I believe is the correct result. The RIBBON Rack is an innovative product design that the plaintiff should be able to associate with their brand and protect from imitators. By applying trademark law to industrial design cases, we can clarify the analysis by incorporating a regime that can incorporate both form and function while providing greater incentives for the socially desirable outcome of innovative product design.
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TITLE: Careful with Those Copies: A Platonist’s Reaction to Copyright Law
DATE: 01/26/2005 11:37:16 PM
Introduction
The strong presumption found in the U.S. Constitution and the literature surrounding the foundation of intellectual property literature is that the dissemination of knowledge is the desideratum of copyright law. We give a limited monopoly of sorts to the author of a work, not only so that he can reap the fruits of his work (an ancillary benefit), but so that an incentive is created for the creative activity itself (Merges, 325). We want artists and writers and poets to go forth and paint and write and poeticize. But actual dissemination of this work means copies, either by licensing agreements between authors and users, or by fair use. We assume that knowledge will spread as the author promotes his work, either explicitly (art shows, book signings, poetry readings) or implicitly (excellent work that draws the attention of critics, experts, and artsy-types). This is because the by subsidizing, through legal protections, for the life of an author plus 70 years (or a total of 95 years for “entity authors”) we create an economic incentive for the artist to produce—i.e. we subject art work to market forces (17 U.S.C. §302). Eventually the copyright protection expires and the manuscript or artwork becomes part of the public domain, usually reproduced mercilessly so that even the most artistically oblivious among us can have atleast one refrigerator magnet Mona Lisa miniature.
All of this implies that there is something interesting, useful, or valuable about the ability to reproduce an original work—we want copies of things. Copyright law is predicated by the fact that when society, or some section of it, finds a particular work compelling in some way, there will be a market for reproductions of the original work, and that the reproductions will have a certain inherent value. This value can be objective (a limited-edition print or first-cut vinyl recording) or subjective (Matisse just seems to “get” you in his work). But what if the reproductions were thought to be valueless? What if society started taking the view that even one-to-one reproductions of an original somehow were less authentic or “fake?” So-called “art snobs” would tend to dismiss macaroni-and-paste renditions of “Starry Night” as kitschy, and that “Nude Descending a Stair Case” tote bag? SO déclassé.
Already from our hyperbole examples we see an existing concept in society that certain ways of interpreting, or reproducing artwork is inappropriate, maybe out of deference for the aesthetic greatness of the original model or form of the work, or maybe simply because it's a bad copy. If you are still skeptical, think about those “easy listening” remakes of your once favorite rock songs that seem to drift endlessly through banks, dentists’ offices, and elevators until you begin to wish the song never existed in the first place. Somehow the copy doesn’t seem so desirable. Regardless, it is not absurd to imagine that someone could take the stance that a copy can never be as “perfect” as an original, and making “mass copies” of a particular work somehow detracts from its value. Plato contends just this in his discussion of aesthetics in The Republic.
Plato’s Aesthetics
In The Republic, Plato discusses his general philosophy as well as his view of art. The Platonic universe is one that is in a sense, divided into the Real World and the Apparent World. In the famous “Allegory of the Caves,” found in Book VI of The Republic, Plato eloquently summarizes this two-world scheme with a complex metaphor. We human beings, as we are to believe, are like men chained to the floor of a cave, with our backs to its entrance. Projected unto the wall in front of us are shadows cast by beings walking back and forth in front of the cave’s aperture, holding various objects. Inferring it’s a sunny day, our entire sense of reality outside the cave or, indeed around us, can only be discerned by paying attention to the shadows (we are supposed to imagine shadow puppetry). But Plato’s point is that our impressions of the shadows are often illusory, and at best present us with an obscured version of the “facts” of the objects carried by the beings outside the cave.
Now deconstructing the analogy, the “world of shadows” inside the cave is our world, the world of Appearances. The world outside the cave is the Real World, and is the source for Truth (“Truth” is to be distinguished from “truth,” which is gleaned from the Apparent World). According to Plato it is the goal of all men to break free from our chains and walk into the light. Metaphorically, our acclimation to the brightness of the outside world is like the Enlightenment of understanding how things really are. When we are “outside the cave” we can look upon the actual Forms of the things that we once saw as shadows inside the cave. Understanding these forms, according to Plato, will gain us Wisdom, which is the highest form for understanding possible and the goal of all philosophical understanding (excerpts from The Republic).
Having completed this brief sketch of Plato’s idea of the world, we can now turn our attention to his critique of art. Art in general is to be mistrusted, and is a fruitless endeavor. In the Apparent World we only know the Appearances of the Forms, and not the Forms in and of themselves. For example, while we may make a bed or a chair it can never be a perfect bed or chair because we don’t know what the Real chair looks like (all we have experienced in our lives in the Apparent World is the “shadow” of the Form of the chair). We can draw a circle or sing a beautiful song, but the circle will never be a perfect circle, nor will the song be of perfect, timeless beauty—the value of both these objects is limited and in a sense illusory, because our perception of what we conceive to be perfection in some sense, is not real. Only the Forms can be perfect.
Now if the physical chair is an imperfect replica of its Form, we have created an object that is one degree of separation from its Real nature (the Perfect Chair). From this it follows that if we paint that same chair, or make an alabaster sculpture of it, we are now one degree of separation from a thing that is one degree away from perfection. We are mimicking a mimicry, and are now creating something that, to Plato, is two degrees of separation away from Reality. Essentially the reality of the painting or sculpture of the chair is even “more illusory” than reality itself. This mimesis, in light of Plato’s theory of Wisdom is counterproductive and frowned upon.
Plato, Meet Xerox
Plato had never seen a photocopy machine or computer-aided, topographical scanners that can virtually reproduce an object with nearly a one-to-one correlation to the original. But would this fact have any bearing on the Platonic view of mimesis? Probably not. Plato would most likely say that any method of copying Apparent forms faster or more efficiently would just be a faster and more efficient way of taking mankind off it's path towards true knowledge. Getting caught up in the emotion and sensuality of art is to be caught up in a false ideal—adding any kind of efficacy to get our “art fix” would be dangerous to Plato. Not just art or music, but obviously books and knowledge itself are open to the criticism that they are potentially imperfect mimicries of the more nebulous True Forms of Knowledge. It is an interesting proposition to consider, since nearly 2500 years after Plato’s lifetime, we are learning about his theory through books, websites, and lectures that have been reproduced and recreated countless times. Platonic philosophy, and The Republic itself, would probably not have survived if it weren’t for the disciplined transcription of its Apparent form throughout history.
So where does that leave the Platonist who desperately wants to make a copy of his favorite Far Side? Will we ever laugh again, knowing the joke and the representation of the joke is somehow inherently imperfect? There will always be strong pragmatic arguments against Platonic philosophy—some of the strongest come from Nietzsche and other philosophers who find the idea of grasping for some sort of imperceptible reality above and beyond the world in which we live absurd (see Twilight of Idols). But the Platonist doesn’t have to live a boring, joyless life. When a particular piece of art is strikingly beautiful, and has universal aesthetic appeal, it is like a tantalizing glimmer of the more perfect Form that awaits us in the Real world outside the cave. The trick, we have to suppose, is to realize that the value of these “glimmers” is transient and imperfect and that there is a True Form behind that Apparent copy is timeless and unwavering perfection. Whether even Plato could argue that there was a more Perfect form behind modern art is another story…
Copyrights or Copywrongs?
We have seen one philosopher’s model of how encouraging copying and the dissemination of creativity and ideas that are tied to the copies might not be such a valuable social model after all. Where would that leave our modern conception of copyright law? Our ideas and concepts of the world are always changing; indeed our understanding of our world is very different from the time of the Platonists. This author contends that protecting the expression of ideas is a way to encourage ideas to linger and enter the public sphere, even if they are imperfect. How would we know for example that Plato’s philosophy was any better than Zeno’s or Dr. Phil’s for that matter, if we couldn’t have books or manuscripts on hand to reference and compare. If an author could not atleast have his works attributed to him during his lifetime, then how could he, for example, start a philosophical school? Ideas themselves may be mutable and may not conform to reality, and the expression of these ideas, especially artistic ones, may not arguably be useful in any sort of teleological way, but that doesn’t mean that policies that encourage such expression are useless. If we want to reconcile Platonic philosophy with our modern propensity to copy and disseminate the expression of ideas, we may just have to recognize that we are working towards a greater good of encouraging thought itself through books, art, music, etc. After all, it is only through stimulating thought and discussion, often through, or due to, books or art, that we can ever hope to gain wisdom.
Reference:
Title 17 U.S.C.
Merges, Robert P. et. al. Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age. 3d Ed. New York: Aspen, 2003
Hare, R.M. “Plato.” Greek Philosophers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996
Philosophy of Art. Edited by Alex Neill and Aaron Ridley. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1995.
Platonic Dialogues: The Republic (especially the Penguin Books edition); also Meno, Crito, and Laws
Fun art stuff:
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/fiers/fiers1-9-01.asp
(the Belgian artist who made a machine that mimics digestion and “defecates” to show how modern consumer-ism is pointless)
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/
(the guys who displayed the 17-ft embalmed tiger shark as modern art)
http://www.talwargallery.com/
(an edgy gallery in New York that shows modern Indian artists)
Copyright-related stuff:
Fight the Man! http://www.chillingeffects.org/
Posted by Polk Wagner at January 27, 2006 12:45 PM in Announcements , in Questions
