Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

Shelley Powers has written an excellent piece called the The Mockingbird’s Wish. And although she doesn’t come right out and say it, it’s obvious from the post comments that the piece is an allegory for our rip, mix and burn culture. Mockingbird desires to sing all the songs of all the birds in the world, and is left in the end without a song of its own.

It’s a really, really good piece, imaginative and well-written.

Doesn’t it feel familiar, somehow?

The Mockingbird’s Wish is itself a derivative work, having roots in wishbringer mythology passed down through oral tradition from numerous cultures. The theme is a familiar one: foolish animals go before gods and spirits to ask for wishes, often getting their just desserts in the end. Rudyard Kipling drew heavily on the same themes in his Just So Stories. I’ve never read Joseph Campbell, but I’ll bet he’d have something to say about the character of the wishbringer.

Shelley has, unintentionally or not, done a bit of rip/mix/burn literature.

A few days earlier, I debated with Shelley about derivative works (warning: it’s a long post). Under current copyright law, the one who owns the copyright can also control how the work is performed. Witness the protective actions of playwright Samuel Beckett’s estate:

In 1994 the English director, Deborah Warner, was banned from directing Beckett’s work for life following her London production of Footfalls, in which Fiona Shaw played a part intended for a man.

Beckett was very precise as to the manner in which his work was to be performed.

In 1988 he went to court in Haarlem to attempt to stop an all-female version of Waiting For Godot and that same year he stopped a French production of Endgame which used the wrong colour of lighting.

I find this a bit problematic. Because interpretation is a huge part of our culture, especially when it comes to creative works like literature, art and music.

Should copyright be used to prevent others from reinterpreting a creative work? I wrote in the comments at Shelley’s site:

I see and respect your point as a creator. I simply disagree with the notion that any creative works are so important that we must have laws that state they cannot be interpreted in any other way other than how the author intended. Things are interpreted, and reinterpreted. It’s the way our culture works. Even our own Constitution is constantly being reinterpreted, sometimes with grave consequences.

Without it, it’s questionable whether we’d have things like comedy, parody and ironic juxtaposition. There’d be no Negativland, no Ian McKellen-led “Richard III” set in a 1930’s fascist England, and there’d be no “Last Temptation of Christ.”

(I’ll add that there might not be a Mockingbird’s Wish either, if the thematic elements weren’t already in the public domain. By the way, that’s the last time I’ll use “juxtaposition,” ever. Nothing screams “English major!” quite like it.)

My argument is that Beckett still gets paid, but we suffer. We don’t get to see how good or bad an all-female Godot would be.

It’s one thing for an artist to say “you cannot perform my work.” It’s quite another to say “you cannot interpret my work any other way,” which smacks of fundamentalism.

It’s the risk you take for participating in culture. You either publish, or your don’t. You either let it fly into the air (where it can be snatched away! and sold! and retold! without you knowing it!) or you hide it in a shoebox under the bed. Where’s the cultural value in that?

And let’s face it: sometimes the derivative is better. Or at least more consumable. Better have your licensing worked out.