Total Eclipse

Cory Doctorow has recently posted a couple of interesting posts having to deal with ‘fanfiction’ on the best blog on all of the internets, BoingBoing.

There is a notion of “original” work compared with “derivative” work, and the legal differences between these supposed separate states of affair. Creators hold intellectual property rights to their works and derivatives.

I will argue herein, in a somewhat philosophical manner, precisely what I take to be Doctorow’s point; That there is no essential difference between original and derivative.

To me, it has always been quite obvious that the word “Creator” has two distinct senses; On loan from Wittgenstein, I shall call them an absolute sense, and a relative one. I believe tracing the geneology of the concept might help explain what I believe to be a misuse of language we often lend ourselves to, in discussions of culture, property, copyright, etc.

I will suggest that these two distinct senses not only imply different meaning, but that confusing the two could even be called sinful¹. To make my point perfectly obvious, I will suggest two examples.
In Hebrew, there are two words which mean “create”.
In what I call the relative sense, we have “litzor” or “yetzira” from the root Y.TZ.R י.צ.ר. . If I were to attempt to translate the world back into English, my precise choice of wording would not be ‘create’, but rather compose (as in, yetzira, composition), or perhaps synthesize. The word ‘create’ in the relative sense means nothing more than an assembly of parts in which we preceive meaning. Parts which are already there.
The Hebrew word for “create” which I would suggest as having an absolute sense is “bor’e” or “briah”, from the root B.R.A. ב.ר.א. . This is a very special verb, as it is the second word to appear in the book of Genesis. It is a verb which can only correctly be used in reference to God (some, such as the Rambam, would argue it is the only verb we can correctly attribute to God).

There is a qualitative distinction between these two actions. Sythesizing or composing is putting things together to form meaning. Creating in the Biblical sense is taking things apart to form meaning. Dividing Heaven and Earth, Darkness from Light, Sparrows from Nightingales.

The King James translation of the bible uses the word “create” to describe God’s actions. This word later came to lose it’s biblical sense, but was rather used as a simile, as it was used in legal matters to defend composer’s rights. With time, the distinction seems to have become lost in the plot, as lawyers (that’s latin for “liars”) managed to convince the court system that there is in fact, no distinction at all! Creators now appear to have rights over their “creations” just as God has ultimate rule over Creation. Today, people are no longer free to use these “creations” as further basis for ever complex layers of work, but must ask permission from the legal creator before they can do any so-called derivative work at all².
To me it is obvious, that this is plain misuse of language. Creation in the absolute, or Biblical sense is the act of order emerging from chaos. This resembles what humans do when they compose, or create in the relative sense; they add layers of complexity to an existing order. Though there is resemblance, this is an essentially different matter altogether.

When an author writes a book, he has not created composition, or language, or the concept of writing. He has not created metaphor, though he may have used it. In essence, he has created nothing, he has only used the available memes and tools of culture to assemble something, which ultimately, is not novel at all. Whether these memes come from divine origin or a social process of evolution, all they are and ever will be are building blocks, blocks which we all share, innately, on bedrock, by their very nature.

Denying our freedom to a shared, or “free” culture, denies our nature, and implies eminence where there simply is none.

1. Specifically, guilty of the sin of Hubris. [↩]
2. This has much to do with the artificial concept of property, on which I may touch again at a later time. [↩]

Tagged as composition, copyright, creation, derivative, free culture, novelty, originality, Philosophy, Shay Brog, synthesis, שי ברוג + Categorized as Art/Culture, Philosophy, Social Politics