Cultural Brevity

As I've written before, Shakespeare did not originate many of the stories for which he later became famous. For example, Arthur Brooke wrote The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet thirty years prior to the first performance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Later writers, like Arthur Laurents, would adapt the work. Countless versions, including Laurents's West Side Story have been derived from Shakespeare's seminal play.

Today, however, this form of creativity has been crushed. The lengthy terms of copyright make it nearly impossible for artists to "stand on the shoulder of giants". What this creates, I believe, is cultural brevity.

The overwhelming majority of copyrighted works do not remain profitable for the duration of protection. However, even after a creative work is useless to the original creator, others cannot use it because of copyright restrictions. Compare this to mythology or legends which, in an oral culture, evolved with each telling. The characters of, say, I Love Lucy, cannot grow, the story cannot evolve, because the creators have forsaken the franchise, yet the content is still restricted.

Take, as a counter example, Star Wars. Although the material is still very much under intellectual property restrictions, the original creators have propagated a social norm - a culture, if you will - of creative evolution. George Lucas is a supporter of fans' derivatives of his work. Works like the following are technically illegal; only the unique qualities of Lucas allow it to spread.



This implicit acceptance by Lucas is hardly present in most content. Instead, as creators forsake their work, it stagnates. Cultural icons pass into history after a brief term of popularity. The greater creative abilities of the general population is disallowed by copyright.

Oral cultures were cultures of evolution. Each bard or elder telling a story had the chance (desired or not) to create. In many ways, the Internet allows for a neo-oral culture. The evolution of cultural memes by the digital consumer/creators is similar to the evolution of legends and myths by storytellers.