"Art that matters" to "bought and sold." Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. Knopf Publishing Group, 2007.
In The Gift, Hyde proposes that art is not only bought and sold, but it is also a gift to those who experience it. This is because a work of art produces an effect (emotional, spiritual, intellectual, etc.) on its audience that cannot be quantified, or even adequately described. This experience is the artist's "gift" to his audience, and it coexists with the commercial relationship between audience and artist (i.e., the relationship in which the audience members pay a fee to experience the work). Hence, there are two economies, a gift economy and a market economy. The gift relationship in the artistic world constitutes the main difference between the artistic and commercial spheres, and it is also what allows works of art to endure for long periods of time. Art could survive without the market economy--yet without the gift relationship, art necessarily perishes.
Jonathan Lethem uses exactly this concept of two economies in The Ecstasy of Influence as part of his argument that plagiarism in the cultural sphere may be acceptable, even desirable, despite current laws regarding intellectual property. The artist, by displaying his works, is giving his audience a gift in the form of whatever they take away from it spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, etc. Thus, because of its status as a gift, art should be part of a cultural commons (public domain is another way to think of it) in order to allow all potential artists to build upon the ideas set forth in any particular work--without being penalized.
I chose this reference because I find the concept of two different economies that can coexist highly interesting. I also gained a new perspective on the split between the artistic and commercial worlds: before, I had accepted that the two were separate and in some ways fundamentally different, but I had never thought of them as two economies.
"...enabled by a kind...freely reworked." Mcleod, Kembrew. Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
Lethem uses this source to discuss blues and jazz musicians who have freely and directly copied others' works (melodies or song fragments) without anxieties about originality and with positive results. This caused me to think further on the merits of plagiarism.
"the primary objective..." to "unfair nor unfortunate." Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. No. 499-340. Supreme Ct. of the US. 27 March 1991.
This reference offers a new perspective on the purpose of copyright: Lethem proposes that the objective of copyright laws is not to "reward labor" (68), but to encourage the growth of the arts and sciences. People should therefore build freely on what others have produced, an idea Lethem believes to be perfectly fair and beneficial. I chose this reference because I had never considered the purpose of copyright in this light before.
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