Chapter 5 Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment

Chapter 5

Impact of Technologyon the Creative Environment

Contents

PageFindings, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127The Creative Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Impact of Technology on Creators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Self-Image and Motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Tools for Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132Expanding Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132New Ways of Proceeding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135Who Can Participate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Impact of Technology on Resources and Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Impact of Technology on Roles, Relationships, and Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Roles and Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149The System of Incentives and Rewards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Implications for the Intellectual Property Rights System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Changing Players in the Creative Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153The Emergence of New Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

TablesTable No. Page5-1. Electronic Networking: Academic and Research Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1415-2. Libraries in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

F i g u r e s

Figure No. Page5-1. Applications of Information Technologies to the Creation and

Processing of Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1385-2. National Magnetic Fusion Energy Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1425-3. An Example of At-Home Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1445-4. Public and Private Institutions Providing Information Products and Services . . . 1475-5. institutional Users of Computer Readable Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Chapter 5

Impact of Technologyon the Creative Environment

FINDINGSThe development and widespread use of the

new information and communication technolo-gies are changing the creative environment ina number of ways, many of which will have sig-nificant implications for the intellectual prop-erty system. These technologies, for example,are redefining who creators are and what moti-vates them, the kinds of tools and materialsthey use, and how they gain access to thesetools, the skills and knowledge they need topursue their work, and their roles and relation-ships to others in their environment.

In this new environment, the incentives andrewards provided by the intellectual propertysystem may no longer achieve their intended pol-icy goals, In many cases, they inadequately re-flect the motivations, needs, and perceptionsof the members of the creative environment,or the kinds of activities that they pursue.Moreover, they may miscalculate the econom-ics of creating, producing, and distributingintellectual properties, Under these circum-stances, new kinds of inducements may be re-quired.

One of the most significant differences in to-day’s creative environment is the growth inthe number of participants and the transfor-mation of traditional roles and relationships.New participants have entered the scene as

new technological opportunities have emerged.Not part ies to previous inte l lectual propertyagreements, many of the new players and evensome of the older ones who now operate in newmodes, have new and divergent attitudes aboutwho should have access to works and mater i -als, and about what kinds of activities and pur-suits should be rewarded. Under these circum-stances, controversies are likely to developamong players about the distribution of rewards.Furthermore, in the future, there may be lessconsensus about the basic aims of the intellectualproperty system.

The new technologies will greatly enhance thecreative environment, providing new and pow-erful tools that can expand the boundaries ofcreativity, changing the ways in which crea-tors and inventors carry out their work, andopening the way for more people to participatein the creative process and to share the prod-ucts of scholarly and scientific research. At thesame time, these technological capabilities alsopose new problems for the intellectual propertysystem. Allowing users to access and manipu-late creative works with unprecedented easeand speed, they make it more difficult for cre-ators and inventors to identify or trace inci-dents of copyright infringement or plagiarism.

INTRODUCTIONThe American system of intellectual prop- such incentives, in the form of exclusive rights,

erty rights was established to foster creativity would stimulate the development and dissem-and learning by providing economic incentives ination of ideas, discoveries and inventions, in-to individual creators, 1 It was assumed that formation, and knowledge. As a result, artists,

writers, and scholars would have at their dis-

“1’hrfju~hout this chapter the t[’rm creators is used in a gen-posal the resources necessary to support their

erlc sense t o include all t hose p(’opl(” who art, i n ~rol~mi in art is- creat ive work . Most o f what they needed was

tic {Jr Int(’llettual actl\rltles. available through printed materials,127

128 ● Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Information

Today, however, we have moved far beyondthe print culture into an era where the new in-formation and communication technologies arerapidly altering the environment for creativ-ity. This raises the question of whether incen-tives of intellectual property rights, establishedin an era when the printing press dominatedcommunication technology, remain adequatein an age of information and electronics.

This chapter analyzes the relationship be-tween incentives and the creative environment

THE CREATIVEArtists, writers, composers, and inventors

do not work in a vacuum. Nor, as the socialhistorian Elizabeth Eisenstein has pointed, “domajor innovations, discoveries, and artisticworks spring to life abruptly and full blown,like Minerva from Jove’s brow."2 Rather, aninvention, discovery, or creative act is morelike a complex social process than an isolatedincidents The environment in which these proc-esses occur is the ‘‘creative environment. ”

The creative environment consists of severalelements:

the creators themselves—the scholars,poets, writers, artists, inventors, andothers who produce intellectual works;the tools and materials that creators needto perform their tasks;the foundation of artistic and intellectualmaterial on which to build, which mightbe as fundamental as an epic poem or assophisticated as an on-line, bibliographicdatabase;a set of skills and procedures for carryingour their work;

‘Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent ofChange: Communications and Cultural Transformations in EarlyModern Europe, vol. I (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1979), p. 31. For two other discussions of the inter-related activities and processes leading to invention andcreativity, see also, Arnold Pacey, The Maze of Igenuity, Ideasand Idealism in the Development of Technology (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1980); and Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discovers:A History of Man Search to Know His World and HimseJf(New York: Vintage Books, 1985).

3Eisenstein, op. cit., p. 31.

by examining: 1) how technology relates to thecreative environment, and 2) how today’s newtechnologies are affecting that environment.Where possible it will distinguish between theenvironments in which artists, scholars andscientists, and information entrepreneurs oper-ate to determine whether technology is affect-ing these areas in different ways in order toidentify where creators might require differ-ent kinds of incentives and rewards.

ENVIRONMENT● a formal or informal system of education

and training;Ž a network of relationships with others,

each constituting a set of roles; and● a community of shared and supportive

values and a system of incentives andrewards.

Together, these elements constitute a sys-tem in which each part affects all others. Thecreative environment can also be influencedby external factors, such as economic devel-opments, politics, or social change. Technol-ogy is one external factor that is likely to havea particular significant impact because just tobe able employ it generally requires the restruc-turing of the environment in which it is to beused.4

As the following discussion shows, the in-fluence of technology on the creative environ-ment is likely to take several forms. It will af-fect who the creators are and what motivatesthem, what kinds of tools and materials crea-tors use and how they get access to them; theskills they need to carry our their work; andtheir roles and relationships to others in theirenvironment.

4Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics Outof Control as a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1977), p. 100. See also Jacques Ellul, The Techno-logictd Societ.v (New York: Vintage Books, Alfred A. Knopf,1964).

Societies are

Ch. 5—Irnpact of Technology on the Creative Environment ● 129

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON CREATORSshaped and characterized by

the technology that predominates in them. onecan speak, for example, of Stone Age man orof the basket weavers. Today, computer tech-nology is becoming pervasive. While virtuallyeveryone encounters this technology daily inone form or another, its power and scope en-sure that it will have an especially pronouncedeffect on those involved in creative, scientific,and scholarly pursuits. In particular, it will af-fect how artists, inventors, and scholars seethemselves–their self-image, and what moti-vates them.

Self-Image and Motivations

The historical case of the printing press il-lustrates how technology can affect creators’self-images and motivation. In fact, the con-cept of individual authorship, which definitive-ly changed authors’ self images, emerged fromthis new technology.5 Before the printing pressmanuscripts were treated more or less as sa-cred texts whose authorship was as irrelevantas it was difficult to ascertain. Daniel Boor-stin captures how difficult it was to traceauthorship before the establishment of aprinted, title page:6

There were special problems of nomencla-ture when books were commonly composedas well as transcribed by men in holy orders.In each religious house it was customary forgeneration after generation of monks to usethe same names. When a man took his vows,he abandoned the name by which he had beenknown in the secular world, and he took aname of one of the monastic brothers who hadrecently died. As a result, every Franciscanhouse would always have its Bonaventura,but the identity of 'Bonaventura’ at any time

5As Einsenstein has pointed outF’rr)rn t h{, flrqt, authorship was closely Ilnked to t ht. new tech

nolt)~~, ,As F’eh\’re and kf artln sugge~t, It IS a ‘ neolc+p qm to u w,the term “man of let ~erq’ I){’ fort> the advent of prlntlng [’art 1>t)ecause copyists had, after all, rre; er paid thosr who~r workst h e y rop]ed, partly becauqe new hooks were a ~mall port Ion oftht~ earl} t)(x)k trade, an{i partl~ because dl~l~rons of Ilterarv lahor remained blurred, the author retained a quasi-ameteur st a-tus until the elght[wnth c e n t u r y

~:isenstein, op cit., pp 15;1- 154‘ Boorstin, op. cit., p 530

could only be defined by considerable re-search.

All this, as we have seen, gave a tantaliz-ing ambiguity to the name by which a medie-val manuscript book might be known. A man-uscript volume of sermons identified asSermones Bonaventurae might be so calledfor any one of a dozen reasons . . . . Was theoriginal author the famous .Saint Bonaven -tura of Fidanza? Or was there another authorcalled Bonaventura ? Or was it copies bysomeone of that name? Or by someone in amonastery of that name? Or preached bysome Bonaventura, even though not com-posed by him. Or had the volume once beenowned by a Friar Bonaventura, or by a mon-astery called Bonaventury? Or was this a col-lection of sermons by different preachers, ofwhich the first was a Bonaventura? or werethese simply in honor of Saint Bonaventura?

The printing press not only gave rise to theconcept of the individual author, it also af-fected how creative people were motitated.With the enhanced economic value of printedbooks fostered by the new technology, crea-tors encountered conflict concerning whetherthey were—or should be— ‘serving the musesor mechanic printers, [or were] engaged in a‘divine art’ or a ‘mercenary metier. ’ "7 Just asthe printing press affected the self-image andmotivations of 17th and 18th century creators,so too are the new information technologiesalready changing contemporary creators’ atti-tudes and perceptions about themselves andtheir work.

In many fields, the convergence of audio,video, and computer technologies now allowsthe creator to express his/her art in multiplemodes and media, changing the way he/she de-fines his role. Basing her art on a variety oftechnologies, the entertainer, Laurie Anderson,for example, defines herself at one and the sametime as a musician, a composer, a video maker,a writer, an inventor, and a pop stars The sametechnologies turn audio engineers into stage

F:isenstein, op. cit., p. 5~1.‘tJ. IIoberman, “The New .Avant-(; arde I’rorn Anderson to

H?rne,” Dial hfagaine, ,Jul~’ 1985, pp. 5-6.

1 3 0 ● Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Informat ion

performers, sound-mixers into composers andperformers on records,’ and computer scien-tists into film artists. Many artists are alsosoftware designers, many composers are tech-nicians, and many biologists are informationscientists. As technology becomes more inte-gral to the arts, artists have to become techni-cians before they can create.

Beyond changing perceptions of their roles,the new technologies may actually affect howcreators think, how they become aware of whothey are and what they do, and how they de-fine their relationship to the rest of the world.After analyzing people’s experiences with thecomputer, Sherry Turkle observes:10

The computer becomes part of everydaylife. It is a constructive as well as a projec-tive medium. When you create in a pro-grammed world, you work in it, you experi-ment in it, you live in it. The computer’schameleon like quality, the fact that when youprogram it, it becomes your creature, makesit an ideal medium for the construction of awide variety of private worlds and, throughthem, for self-exploration. Computers aremore than screens onto which personality isprojected. They have already become a partof how a new generation is growing up.

By firing creators’ imaginations, the newtechnologies are also widening the scope ofcreative activity itself and opening new oppor-tunities. The interactive fiction writer, AnnByrd-Platt, for example, was discouraged frombecoming a novelist, believing she could notdistinguish herself from “the hundreds andhundreds of writers just like her.’’” She foundthat an understanding of computers and tech-nology gave her new areas in which to exerciseher creativity. In writing interactive fiction—an art form impossible without computers—

—‘.See for example Ken Emerson, “David Byrne: Thinking

Man’s Rock Star, ” 7’he New }’ork ~“mes Magazine, May 5, 1985,

pp. ~~-~~. In creating “once in a I,ifet,ime ” teams of technicaland artistic indi~’iduals create together, working out their senseof structure, relying on intuition, improvisation, and technol-OW’. Thus the creator maJ’ be both musician and engineer.

Sherrv Turkel, The Second Se~f: Computers and the ]lu-mtm Spi~it (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 15.

‘Ann Byrd- Platt, OTA Workshop on the Impact of Tech-nology on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.

she succeeded in finding a niche for herself andher creativity.

Technology, may also change how societyperceives creators and their work. For exam-ple, while most people have always recognizedthat the stage director imparts a unique con-tribution to the performance of a play or mu-sical, the director was unable to claim ‘author-ship’ of his work, because his contributioncould not be written down or expressed unam-biguously. Today, however, video-recordingtechnology, can ‘fix’ the unique way in whichactors, props, motion, and scenery are arrayedin each director’s interpretation of a work. Bythus establishing his authorship, the stage di-rector has greater credence in his claim to copy-right. 12

Technology has also affected the motiva-tions of artists and scientists. Changes in atti-tude seem to be most pronounced in those areaswhere the new technologies have helped to en-hance the market value of creative and scien-tific works. Again, as in the age of the print-ing press, many creators are wrestling withchoices about whether to focus on intrinsic ormonetary rewards.

Traditionally, artists have been inspired tocreate and scientists driven to invent and dis-cover for reasons that can be clearly set apartfrom monetary rewards. The graphic artist Mil-ton Glaser succinctly characterized these kindsof motivations when he said:

I would suspect that a good many peoplewould say that the basic reason they do theirwork is that it pleases them, because they loveit, because they are obsessed by it, and be-cause they don’t feel that they have anychoice. 13

Underlying motivations and the sense of pur-pose for creators remains strong. Explains The-odore Bikel:

The arts are about risk taking. More oftenthan not [they are] about endangerment. Youendanger your soul each time you put some

————‘James Hammerstein, OTA Workshop on the Impact of

Technology on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.

‘Milton Glaser, OTA Workshop on the Impact of Technol-ogy on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.


pen to paper each time you try to interpretsomebody else’s words. We are about poetry-.We are about the gossamer fabric of hopes,of dreams. We finally in the last analysis hopethat what we do create will furnish the na-tion laughter, the nation’s tears, certainlythe nation’s memory of what today. was likeand what yesterday was like. 14

Scientists, too, have been fueled chiefly bynonmonetary concerns. One major force driv-ing them to pursue their work has been the de-sire to be the first to solve a problem, to bethe discoverer, or the inventor. It was, in fact,the originality of a finding that served as “tes-timony that one had successfully lived up tothe most exacting requirements of one’s roleas a scientist."15 This desire to be first gaverise to numerous battles over originality in thescientific community during the 18th and 19thcenturies. 16

Equally important has been the scientist’sdesire to contribute to the advancement ofknowledge in his field. Traditionally, once ascientist made an original contribution, he didnot try to maintain the right of exclusive ac-cess to it. Rather, scientists’ discoveries andinventions became part of the public domainavailable for all to use and build on.17

Benjamin Franklin exemplified this ethic.Explaining why he had turned down an offerfrom the Governor of Pennsylvania to patentthe Franklin stove. he wrote to a friend:

I declined from a Principle which has weighedwith me on such occasions, vis. That as weenjoy great Advantages from the Inventionof others, we should be glad of an opportu-nity to serve others by an invention of ours,and this we should do freely and generously.

Nor did scientists traditionally seek to mar-ket their discoveries. Louis Pasteur’s attitude

—‘Theodore Bike], OTA W’orkshop on the Impact of Technol-

OW’ on the (’reati\e ~~n~’ironment, Apr. 24, 1985.Robert K, Merton, The .%ciolo~ of Science: Theoretical

and Empirica] ln~’(].~tig[]ticlz?.s [Chicago, 11.: The Uni~.ersit~ of(’hicago I)r-ess, 1973)

‘ Ibid,I bid.

“As quoted i n Ilruce M’illis Ilugbeel (;ene.si.s of ,4 merican

l’atent and (’op~’right l,a w (M’ashington. 1)(’, I)ublic A f f a i r sI)ress, 19761, p. 72.

was typical. Although he himself estimatedthat the use of his method would save 100 mil-lion francs per year, he was not interested inprofiting financially from his discoveries. Ashe explained to Napoleon III:

In France scientists would consider theylowered themselves by doing s0.19

While many of these traditional motives arestill in force, recent technological developmentshave noticeably affected how scientists and cre-ators feel about their work, the reasons theypursue it, and the rewards they expect to gainfrom it. In particular, the enhanced commer-cial value attributed to many information prod-ucts and services has brought about both con-flict and change.

Changing motivations are probably the great-est in fields of science where the commerciali-zation of research results has proved highlyprofitable. Industry representatives are nowactively courting the traditional scholar-scien-tist. As one professor of biological science atHarvard University described it,

At this point, it’s mind boggling. I’m courtedevery day. Yesterday, some guy offered me lit-erally millions of dollars to go direct a researchoutfit on the west coast . . . He said any price.’”

Such offers have placed many scholars inconflict about their roles. While some respondfavorably to these developments–even to thepoint of creating their own firms to exploittheir discoveries for profits—others have op-posed them as unsuitable for academic science.Trying to sort out what is appropriate behaviorfor academics and academia, a number of ma-jor universities have themselves begun work-ing together to develop policy guidelines foruniversity-industry relationships. z}

‘As quoted in J.D. Bernal, Science and lndustry in theNineteenth C~nt~r (Ixmdon: Routeledge and Kegan Paul, 1953),p. 86.

‘ ‘As quoted in l~enry Etzkowitz, ‘‘kjntrepreneurial Scien-tists and Entrepreneurial IJniversities in American Academic.Science, ” kfiner~w vol. XXI, Nos. 23, summerautumn 1985, p. 199.

“ “Academe and Industry Debate Partnership, ” Science.vol. 219, No. 4481, January 1983, pp. 150-151, See also U.S.Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Information Tech-nolo~’ Research and De~’elopment: Critical Trends and issues,OTA-CIT-268 (Washington, DC: U.S. Govemrnent Printing Of-fice, February 1985),

132 . Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Information

Creators in the arts and entertainment facesimilar choices. With the development of amass media marketplace, these fields have be-come big businesses where intellectual worksare often treated purely as economic commodi-ties. The development and proliferation of newchannels of distribution has promoted fiercecompetition for entertainent products, whichhas greatly increased its commerical value.22

Under these circumstances, authors, artists,musicians and other creators may be faced withdifficult choices about whether to develop theirart in response to the market or to their owninternal forces. 23 As Milton Glaser describedthis dilemma:

If you begin with the idea that the moviebusiness is a business that has an artistic ele-

22Tom Whiteside, “onward and Upward With the Arts,”Cable I, II, and I I I [three-part article seriesl, The New l’orker,May 1985,

‘ ‘Just such a phenomenon occurred, as has already beennoted, with the growth of the book market after the develop-ment and widespread deployment of the printing press. Suchan occurrence happened again in late 19th century America,when the book market was expanded to meet the needs of anincreasingly literate population. To profit from this literate, al-though generally less educated audience, it was common forpublishers, for example, to press authors to lower their artisticstandard for the sake of increasing sales, See for example, LewisA. Coser, Charles Kadushin, and Walter Powell, Books: 7’he(’u}ture and Commerce of Publishing [New York: Basic Books,Inc, 1982), pp. 226-227.

ment to it, , . . [then you need to recognizethat] the control of the movie business essen-tially is in the hand of the people who thinkof it as a business, invest the money, and arein it to make money and do.24

The choice a creator makes depends on hisfundamental motives and on his relationshipto others within the creative environment. Forsoftware developer David McCune, for exam-ple, there really is no choice. As he says:

I'm going to program computers no mat-ter what. 1‘m concerned that I make enoughmoney to pay the rent and buy myself a com-puter, basically. Other than that I don’t reallycare much.25

Some artists are supported by governmentgrants or endowments from private founda-tions. Few are successful enough to attain boththe desired economic independence and artis-tic freedom. Most, however, choose to workwithin the existing system and, when they can,to finds ways to express their creativity. Ineffect, they work in both worlds, the world ofart and the world of business.

—24Milton Glaser, OTA Workshop on the Impact of Technol-

ogy on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.25David McCune, OTA Workshop on the Impact of Technol-

ogy on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.

TOOLS FOR CREATIVITYMachine tools enhanced man’s ability to per-

form physical tasks. Similarly, the new infor-mation technology will enhance his ability tocarry out intellectual pursuits. 26

Because these technologies are primarily in-tellectual tools, they are likely to be usedextensively in science, scholarship, and thecreative and performing arts. In these areas,technologies may:

.26For a discussion of how information and communication

technology can extend man’s creative process of knowing, seeMarshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions ofMan (New York: Signet, 1964). For a more recent and specula-tive discussion about the impact of the computer on the mind,see Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Uni-verse (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981).

1. expand the boundaries of the fields as weknow them,

2. change the ways in which creators and in-ventors carry our their work, and

3. allow more people to participate in thecreative process and to share the productsof scholarly and scientific research.

Expanding Boundaries

History offers many instances in which newtechnological tools have advanced the bound-aries of science and scholarship, also expandedthe domains of art and entertainment. The in-vention of the clock and the lens, for example,greatly facilitated the development of the

Ch. 5—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment . 133

sciences of mechanics and astronomy.27 Simi-larly, technologies expanded the domains ofart and communication. With the substitutionof oil paint for egg tempera, the course of paint-ing was dramatically changed, giving rise tothe Renaissance style of art. ” The developmentof the camera, too, brought entirely new formsof art and entertainment. As the art critic JohnBerger notes in his analysis of the impact ofthe camera on our perception of the visual arts:

The art oft he past no longer exists as it oncedid. Its authority is lost. In its place there isa language of images. What matters now iswho uses this language and for what pur-poses .’”

Like their earlier counterparts, the new com-munication technologies are exerting a wide-ranging influence on the arts and sciences andon the development of other information prod-ucts and services. They offer new tools. By tak-ing advantage of computers’ high-speed data-processing abilities, computer graphics canrepresent many types of information and art,from mathematical formulae to cartoons. Com-puters facilitate the manipulation and re-arrangement of anything that can be expressedin computer-readable form—images, data files,text. The new techniques for inexpensive re-production–xerography, audio and video dup-lication, computer copying–also allow crea-tors and other users to gain access more easilyto a much broader range of intellectual prop-erties than ever before,

These technologies have varying effects onthe actual substance of creation. For some peo-ple, new technological capabilities enhance thecreative process by making it faster, cheaper,or easier to produce a work. For others, theyactually change the boundaries of their art.

27John P. McKelvey, “Science and Technology: The Drivenand the Driver, ” Technology Review, January 1985, p. 42. AsMcKelvey points out, the casual relationship works both ways,with pure science often given rise to new technologies.

‘“Milton Glaser, OTA W’orkshop on the Impact of Technol-ogy on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24. 1985,

‘“John Berger, British Broadcasting Corp., U’a.vs of Seeing(London: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 21, as cited in Edward M’.Plowman and L. Clark Hamilton, Cop~’right: Intellectual Prop-ert~’ in the Information Age (Imndon: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1980).

A growing number of authors, for example,write on word processors because the new de-vices make it easier to edit, store, and trans-mit their documents. For these authors, wordprocessing has not produced a new form of lit-erary expression; it has simply facilitated themechanics of creating literary works. Similarly,film makers use sophisticated and intelligenttools to capture or create images and soundswith greater ease and dazzling speed.

Beyond facilitating the creative process,some technological advances have actuallyopened new channels for the expression ofcreativity, thereby expanding the very natureof science and art, Using these new computer-ized channels to generate graphics and synthe-size music, artists, film makers, and composersare creating new kinds of images. These newpictures and sounds are born of equations, al-gorithims, and mathematical models. Usingcomputer programs and mathematical valuesto represent color, shape curvatures, shading,and even randomness, teams of engineers, ar-tists, and film makers “produce extraordinar-ily complex and lifelike graphic simulationsthat rival and sometimes exceed those bornof traditional animation."30 Whether used to“draw” a seaside landscape (see box 5-l), togenerate special effects, or make motion pic-tures, the power for creation lies in the soft-ware and the imagination of the team. For cre-ators at Lucasfilms, today’s tools representonly the beginning of what will later be possi-ble: In the future, “the computer will allowHollywood to tell stories that could not havebeen told any other way.’’”

Like their counterparts in the arts, scientistsuse increasingly powerful computers to carryout more and more complex calculations, andto represent and to simulate experiments, proc-esses, and phenomena. The use of supercom-puters and color imaging techniques for nu-merical computation in fields such as physicsenables scientists to solve increasingly com-

“’Stuart Gannes, “1.ights, Cameras Computers. ” DISCOlrER,August 1984, pp. 76-79,

“I+ld Catmull, Head of the Computer Development Group,Lucasfilms, as quoted by Stuart Gannes, “Lights, Cameras.,, Computers,” DISCOVER, August 1984, p. 79.

134 • Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Information

Box 5-1.-Using Computer Generated Imagery to “Draw” a Seaside Landscape

Photo credit: Lucasfilm, Ltd., © 1985

This composite image, titled “Road to Point Reyes” was produced by a team of creators work-ing in the Computer Graphics Project at Lucasfilm. Under the direction of Robert Cook, the land-scape was defined using patches, polygons, fractals, particle systems and a variety of proceduralmodels. Each of the elements of the landscape were rendered separately and later composite. RobCook designed the picture and did the texturing and shading, including the road, hills, fence, rain-bow, shadows, and reflections. Loren Carpenter used fractals for the mountains, rock, and lake,and a special atmosphere program for the sky and haze. Tom Porter provided the procedurally drawntexture for the hills and wrote the software by combining the elements. Bill Reeves defined thegrass by means of a moving particle system he developed. He also wrote the modeling software.David Salesin put the ripples in the puddles. Alvy Ray Smith rendered the flowering forsythia plantsusing a procedural model. The visible surface software was written by Loren Carpenter. RobertCook wrote the antialiasing software, a program to prevent unauthorized access.

The picture was rendered using an Ikonas graphics processor and frame buffers, and was scannedon FIRE 240, courtesy of MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates Ltd. The resolution is 4K x 4K, 24bits/pixel.

plex problems—problems with so many vari-ables that the true visualization requires a nu-merical solution. For example, modeling gasflowing in black holes, where the actual mani-festations of the gas dynamics around themare too small to be observed, requires numeri-cal experiments of a new order of magnitude.Explains Larry Smarr:

A typical experiment makes use of at least10,000 time steps. Thus, the finite-differencesolution is a set of five variables on a spacetime lattice of 250 million points, that is, thesolution of 1.25 billion numbers of nonlinearpartial differential equations.32

32Larry L. Smarr, “An Approach to Complexity: NumericalComputations, ” Science, vol. 228, No. 4698, Apr. 26, 1985, pp.403-405.

Ch. 5—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment • 135

Participants at OTA workshops convenedfor this study,” described the multiple waysin which the new technologies are expandingthe boundaries of science, music, art, dance,photography, film, and television:

In musical composition and performance,new sounds and arrangements result fromcomputer synthesizers, digital sound ana-lyzers, and electronic editors. Although mu-sical notation can begin on paper, it may alsobe “drawn” electronically. The technologynot only provides tools to generate sounds,but also the means to store and manipulatethem as well. Thus composition and perform-ance can result from revision, expansion, orrecombination of unending variety of chords,melodies, rhythms, or pitch.

A dance sequence blends the performanceof a live dancer with that of computer-gener-ated images and information. Intricate andcomplex sequences of movement and danceare developed by the choreographer and per-formed by the computer. While early comput-er representations of dance were rudimentaryrepresentations, computer images are nowessential elements of the performance itself.In some instances, the computer-generateddance sets out new steps, followed in turn bythe live dancer. For some choreographers anddancers, the boundaries between technologyand dance cross in the generation of new artforms. (See box 5-2. )

The new technologies not only affect per-formance in dance directly, as adjunct artforms; they also provide new ways to perma-nently record dance. In turn, once stored,these computer records not only becomechoreographical records, when broken downinto their elements, they can also becomesources for new steps and sequences.

Technological changes in cameras, film,lighting equipment, laser separators, printpublishing, and computer processing of elec-tronic images are all affecting photography.

Computing power display technologies en-hance capacity that they expand science intonew horizons. (See box 5-3. ) This expandedcapacity allows for new ways of visualizing

and analyzing physical phenomena such asthe behavior of a molecule or the evolutionof a galaxy.

The power of the new technologies is notlimited to science and the arts, it cuts acrossvirtually all information-related fields. New in-formation technologies have expanded the va-riety, scope, and sophistication of informationproducts and services. Described by some ob-servers as being in the very process of ‘‘self-creation," 34 the information industry—fromdatabase businesses, software and hardwareproviders, publishers, cable television, infor-mation analysis centers and clearinghouses—continues to grow. In the U.S. software indus-try alone, there are an estimated 1,200 com-panies and thousands of individual free-lancerscreating and producing software and provid-ing services worth $40 billion annually.

The new technologies can both enhance ex-isting information products and services andgenerate new ones. Figure 5- I lays out the mul-tidimensional and multifaceted technologicalcapabilities that play a role in developing in-formation products and services to meet a widerange of information-related functions. At thesame time, the technologies enhance the valueof information products and services by mak-ing them more accurate, timely, and accessible.

New Ways of Proceeding

The development and use of new tools alsoinfluences the way people perform creativeactivities. Historically we can see, for exam-ple, that the technology of mass printing andpublishing changed the process of conductingscientific research and scholarship by impos-ing precision and standards for publication.Books were reviewed, examined, and markedup in ways they had never been before. Forthe first time, images could be printed withtext. A system for organizing books was de-veloped; titles were systematically arrangedwith bibliographies compiled, making it eas-

“OTA Workshops: Technologies for Information (Treat) on, “Charles W’. Nlor]tz, I’resident and Chief operating office,I)ec 6, 1984, I)lsplay, 1+-inting, and Reprography}, Ma] 1 ~1, 1985. I)un & Hradstreet (’orp., Ke~’note Address, 15th Annual Con-1 mpact {}f Technolo~ on the (’reati~e F;n\ironment, Apr 24, ven tion and 1’; xhihi t ion, The J nformat ion I ndust ~, A ssw,lati{)n,1985). Nov. 7, 1983. New York City.


Box 5-2.-Dance and Computer Technology

“And who can tell the dancer from the dance?”

–William Bulter YeatsComputer graphic images depicting dancers and dance sequences were created at the New York

Institute of Technology’s Computer Graphics Laboratory by Robert McDermott, Rebecca Allen,Paul Heckbert, Lance Williams, and Jim St. Lawrence. The computer-generated figures are “roto-scoped” to mimic the steps of a videotaped human dancer’s performance. They can then be com-bined with live action film or video as in Twyla Tharpe’s “Catherine Wheel,” a co-production be-tween Dance in America and the British Broadcasting Corp.

ier to use the growing volume of written works.These changes, in turn, facilitated the devel-opment of the scientific method.35

Printing and the widespread distribution ofbooks also fostered new relationships amongscientists, artists, intellectuals, and their geo-graphically distant counterparts. As Eisen-stein has pointed out:

The fact that identical images, maps, anddiagrams could be viewed simultaneously by

35Eisenstein, op. cit., pp. 80-111.

scattered readers constituted a kind of com-munications revolution itself.36

Just as technology affects the tools used bycreators and enhances and expands the crea-tive process, so too it will lead to new waysof operating. With computers’ increased capac-ity to store, retrieve, and manipulate informa-tion and images, the process of creativity andresearch is becoming more interactive. Twophenomena illustrate this: electronic snippingand pasting and computer networking.

“Ibid., p. 56.

—

Ch. 5—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment ● 137

Box 5-3.-Using Computer Graphics as a Tool To Explore New Surface Structures

Photo credit: D. Hoffman and J.T. Hoffman. © 1985

Minimal surfaces are mathematical idealizations of membranes which are stretched in such away as to attempt to make their surface area as small as possible. They occur as soap films, asinterfaces in liquid crystals, and have been used theoretically in physics and general relativity.

In 1984, David Hoffman, a mathematician at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst andWilliam H. Meeks III, then at Rice University, were able to prove the existence of a new minimalsurface, the first of its type to be discovered in 200 years. By using numerical methods to approxi-mate a possible example, and then computer graphics developed by James T. Hoffman to view por-tions of it, they were able to discern that the surface was highly symmetric. According to DavidHoffman, “This provided qualitative information and insight which led to a new general theoryand the construction of infinitely many examples.” Moreover, he notes, “The ability to process andcondense large amount of information by means of computer graphics is well known in other fields,but has only recently been used in mathematics.”

Pictured below, is a computer-generated view of the new minimal surface.


Figure 5-1 .—Applications of Information Technologies to the Creation and Processing of Information

Description & synthesis Logical access

Microcomputers

CAD/CAM

Synthesizers

Cataloging utilities

/

Circulation systems

CatalogsAutomatic indexing Online retrieval systems

Automatic synopsis/

Database management lnstru-

Computer. generation systems mentation

‘aidedtranslation

Graphics systems

Managementinformation

systems

Computers

Decisionand terminals / Telephone lines support systems

SatellitesCable networks \ Knowledge bases

Word processors

Photocomposition Microwave”Local area Microcomputers

ComputersTelevision sets

Printers

Photocopiers

Printingpresses

Microform readers/printers Compact disk\

/ Facsimile terminals Holographs\

Physical transformation Storage & preservation

SOURCE King Research, Inc., July 1985

Electronic Snipping and Pasting

Even when done with scissors and paste,snipping and pasting consists of a process ofstoring, retrieving, and manipulating informa-tion. The computer, with its unique capacityto perform these tasks, is the ultimate editingtool. With this technology readily available,the creator is now as prone to re-create as tocreate in the first place.

Computer and video technologies are hav-ing such an effect on film editing. With toolssuch as EditDroid, developed by Lucasfilms,the arduous task of editing thousands of feetof film is simplified by electronic snipping andpasting.

37 By computerizing the editing Proc-

— . — .“Experts point out that film editing is a major component

in the making of a film. It can take as long as the shooting it-self. A typical finished feature film consits of 10,000 feet of film,on six reels, the result of as many as 2,000 splices from the origi-nal footage. See Gannes, op. cit.

03

Decision support-0 systemszw CAD/CAM—.C-Iw Graphics—

ess, a film artist can rearrange footage in thesame way a writer rearranges words on hisword processor: inserting and deleting imagesframe by frame; taking whole sequences fromone place and shifting them to another; andscrolling through sequences again and again.All this is done in a matter of seconds.38 Asin creating texts or developing on-line data-bases and information services, films can alsobe edited, merged, and reformed. In the samefashion, old films, stored tape footage, andother archival material can all serve as the ba-sis for new derivative products and creativeworks.

Electronic snipping and pasting has also al-tered the world of the still image photographer.Using laser and computer technologies to scanoriginal photographs and convert them into

38Ibid,

Ch. 5 Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment ● 139

digital data, one can manipulate the ‘no-longerphotographic’ image in very sophisticatedways.39 Color, texture, figures, and so on canbe varied slightly or totally. (See box 5-4, “NOWyou see them, now you don’t. The same tech-nologies can also transmit photographs elec-tronically to printers in remote locations.

These capabilities can alter both the way aphotographer works and his control over hiswork. Before digitized photography, for exam-ple, the photographer could control his imagesby controlling the film negatives. Today, how-ever, the commerical photographer must ne-gotiate in advance, in exact detail, how the im-age will be used, for what length of time, andunder what circumstances. Explains BillWeems: “The human relationships of the wholeindustry have changed dramatically now. . . .You have a whole new world to deal with here.Images are not only stored and retrieved, butare digitized and re-created.”40 To work outthese relationships, additional time must bespent dealing with administrative and trans-action issues. And the photographer wondersif it is only a matter of time before it will beliterally impossible to track all of the uses ofone’s images.

The production of music and sound is equallyamenable to electronic snipping and pasting.Using the ability to store recorded sound dig-itally and gain increased digital control of thatsound, the musician can mix and match notonly sounds, but also rhythms and pitch. Ac-cording to composer Michael Kowalski, thesenew tools allow for:

. . . unprecedented access to reproducing,copying and editing sound— an ability to taketiny snippets of sound, anywhere from a twenty-thousandth of a second of a sound to the wholepiece of music, and manipulate it to yourheart’s content.”

These technological advances have the po-tential to damage creators’ interests as well.— — —

‘Steward Brand, Kevin Kelly, and Jay Kinney. “DigitalRetouching,” Whole Earth Review, No. 47, July 1985, pp. 42-47.

‘ Hill W’eems, OTA Workshop on the Impact of Technologyon the Creative E:n\’ironment, Apr. 24, 1985,

4’ Michael Kowalski, OTA W’orkshop on Technologies for In-formation Creation, Dec. 6, 1984.

The same images and sounds that the artist,photographer, or musician has stored to use,manipulate, revise, and reproduce can also bemanipulated, revised, copied, and used in amultitude of ways by others, with or withoutpermission. Some creators worry that a “cav-alier attitude will develop toward taking what-ever you want and doing whatever you wantwith it. "42 This attitude has already surfacedwithin the artistic community itself, as wellas in the worlds of advertising and publish-ing.” Although many of these innovative toolsfor cutting and pasting are still relatively ex-pensive and unavailable, they may be more ac-cessible in the future. With wider deploymentof such techniques, artists, photographers, andmusicians may find it increasingly difficult totrack or trace the uses of their work. NotesJoyce Hakansson:

Now, talent, creativity, works of art are alsoin an intangible fashion being transmittedand we are not aware of the fact that we arestealing; that we are, in fact, impinging. Weare encroaching on somebody’s rights. Thathas to be transmitted. The new technologyis now putting things in a new format and wehave to be taught to look at it in a new way.44

Thus one question for the creative commu-nity is: How do you proceed?

Computer Networking

Computer networking makes it possible touse distant computing power to analyze dataor generate new images; to consult with one’scolleagues and jointly write papers; and to ex-change ideas or reports. However, such shiftsin the way information and knowledge are cre-. — —

“Ibid.“Interview with Lauretta Jones and Bonnie Sullivan,

graphic artists in New York City, March 1985, For example,Jones worried about continued reuse of her images, done easilywithout her permission, once her client has a copy of her disk,on which the image was fixed. Sullivan found that using a verysophisticated computer graphics system that required that shestore her images on hard disk, placed her image files in a com-puter system in which she had no control. Finding that otherusers had access to her files without her knowledge or acquies-cence, Sullivan chose not to work on the system until users couldagree to control and respect controlled access to one another’swork.

44Jovce Hakansson, OTA Workshop on Technology and theCreative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.


Box 5-4 Art of Digital Retouching

Photo credit: Pacific Lithograph Co., San Francisco, CA

This demonstration of digital retouching was put together by Pacific Lithograph Co. What ap-pears to be two separate photographs is actually only one. By digitizing the photograph of the fourhikers, it becomes possible to capture and then manipulate information about color, patterns, andtexture.With a Chromacom machine, a computer-driven device, it becomes a simple matter to copythe color texture at one point and slide it over to another. Distinctive patterns are copied exactly.Thus the three people standing in the top-me were not remooved instead they were “washed over”with sky and mountain bits, taken from the scene. Each mow of the cursors brings the seams ofthe changes closer and closer together. While requiring skill, the digitizing process appears to bealmost a routine operation.

Ch. 5

ated and distributed can have a tremendousimpact on the worlds of scholarship and crea-tivity. For just as the centralization of book-making and publishing led to the developmentof authorship and standardized texts, so mightelectronic networking speed the decentraliza-tion of information distribution, which, in turn,may to lead changes in the processes by whichresearch is conducted and art is created.

These changes are already becoming visiblein the academic world, where scientists areusing computers and telecommunication linksto conduct research and communicate with oneanother on networks supported by the Depart-ment of Defense (ARPANET), the NationalScience Foundation (NSFNet), and the Depart-ment of Energy (MFENET).45 The number ofnetworks and users are growing rapidly, notonly for scientific communities, but also inother academic disciplines.

BITNET, for example, used by scientistsand other scholars, provides linkages to morethan 175 institutions of research and highereducation in the United States and has directlinks to networks in Canada and Europe. Usersof BITNET and other networks send eachother messages, text files, and computer pro-grams. ” Those who use computer networkingdescribe it as an essential tool in their work.(See table 5-l.)

Some networks serve not only as mecha-nisms for exchange of data and information,they also provide the means to access distantcomputing power for conducting research. Onesuch example is the National Magnetic FusionEnergy Network (see figure 5-2), which con-nects a total of 4,000 users in 100 separate loca-

—‘“For a description of the operation and scope of those net-

works see, Dennis M. Jennings, I.awrence H. I.andweber, I raH. Fuchs, David ,J. Farber, and W. Richards Adrion, 1’Comput-er Networking for Scientists, Science, vol. 231, No. 4741, pp.943-950.

~, Files, for example, can include any type of machine-reada-ble document, such as memoranda, research proposals, manu-scripts, and letters. Just as networks transmit messages fromone computer to another, networks also transmit informationfrom one computer to another, in the form of data or computerprograms. See Ira H. Fuchs and Daniel J. Obserst, Report orI.Vetworking, OTA contractor report, June 1985.

—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment “ 141

Table 5-1 .—Electronic Networking: Academicand Research Uses

“1 have found the network to be extremely useful thus farIn furthering my collaborative efforts with researchers in othercities The ability to transmit both raw and transformeddata and computer printouts of analyses rapidly between lo-cations greatly facilitated the collaborative efforts. It was pos-sible, indeed in cases easier than if we’d been in the samecity, to receive data, run an analysis, ship results, discussthe results, and plot next strategies for analysis with col-leagues in Boston and New York . Further, I am activelycollaborating in a research grant at --– with – -- –and we both have found the ability to send copies of meas-ures, initial data, and other forms rapidly to each other hasgreatly facilitated our work

., “We use BITNET for electronic mail dialogues withauthors in all stages of publishing business, Including theshipment of complete book manuscripts to our editorsTwo encyclopedia projects are underway at remote locations.We currently carry on conversations with the authors and edi-tors of the projects, but when they move into the copy-editingstage we plan to have a constant flow of articles, back andforth project editors to our in-house manuscript editors, andvice versa"

“Last summer,... I moved shop from – toI was able to ship the majority of files from both

the CS/SOM DEC-20 and the IBM 4341 quickly and effortless-l y t o ––– via BITNET “

... “I have used BITNET on several occasions to send datato and receive data from users at [several different universi-ties]. [It] has made the scientific interactions with research-ers at these institutions much easier than it would be withoutthe network. Unfortunately several institutions with which Iregularly communicate are not on the network.”

Other faculty members used the network while they wereon academic leave to advise graduate students who wereworking on their dissertations. “Using BITNET, question andanswer exchange or draft approval could take place withinthe same day. ”SOURCE BITNET Network lnformation Center. EDUCOM Princeton, NJ

tions, all of whom are involved in multi-insti-tutional research efforts.47

Electronic networks can also provide accessto vast electronic libraries. Although few re-searchers today report using their time on elec-tronic networks to search on-line bibliographicand content databases, more are likely to doso in the future. Eventually, researchers con-ceivably might acquire all they need—people,research tools, current data and information,

‘-Figures provided by the Office of Fusion Energy, U.S. De-partment of Energy, and the National Magnetic Fusion EnergyComputer Center, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,University of California.


Figure 5-2.— National Magnetic Fusion Energy Network

Hanford Engineering University ofDevelopment Laboratory Wisconsin

1 \ Argonne Grumman AerospaceUniversity of I \ Nat, LabWashington University of Illinois \ New York I

Lawrence BerkeleyLaboratory

University ofCaliforniaBerkeley

NMFECC

LAWRENCELIVERMORE ANATIONAL

LABORATORY/

University ofCalifornia

Los Angeles

TRW Inc /

UniversityColumbia University

\Cornell

University Massachusetts

\

Institute of/ / T e c h n o l o g y

PLASMAORATORY

Y

GENERALATOMIC

/ \NATIONAL

LABORATORYFusion Engineering

Science LOS ALAMOS-‘ University of Texas Auburn University

Applications SCIENTIFIC-Inc. LABORATORY

SOURCE National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computing Center, Lawrence Livermore

and published literature-via these electronicnetworks.

In such a fluid, interactive system, the pos-sibility of discovery or invention on-line, oncea vision of the future, is now a reality. As scien-tists and researchers work in this environment,intellectual property concerns are likely to ariseon such issues as determining originality andassigning patents. International transmissionof data, software, and other information mayfurther complicate this situation.

It should be noted, however, the informationdistributed on networks differs in one key wayfrom information published in technical andscientific journals. Works transmitted elec-tronically are likely to be still in progress, withmultiple authors, each at a different stage ofrevising the work. Eventually, scientific re-search may actually be published on such net-works instead of on paper. This practice wouldhave far-reaching consequences for scholar-

— Dual 56 ki lobi t satel l i te I inks

— Medium speed land IineNational Laboratory

ship. As Ithiel de Sola Pool has noted, “Theproliferation of texts in multiple forms, withno clear line between early drafts and finalprinted versions, will overwhelm any identifi-cation of what is the world’s literature. “48 Asin the days prior to the printing press, origi-nality will be hard to verify and authorshiphard to establish.

Who Can Participate

The new information and communicationtechnologies and networks may determine, inpart, who can participate in the creative proc-ess. These tools, like their earlier counterparts,can increase the need for some skills and re-duce the need for others. In the past, for ex-ample, the invention of letters and the devel-opment of written language increased the need

48Ithiel de Sola Pool Technologies of Freedom (Cambridge,MA, and London, England: The Belknap Press of HarvardUniversity, 1986), p. 212.

Ch.

for analytic skills and diminished the need forsome of the poetic skills that facilitated mem-orization. Similarly, the new information tech-nologies are bringing about changes in theskills required to participate in the creativeprocess, helping to determine in this way whocan take part in this process. The effect, how-ever, differs depending on the product. Al-though these tools decentralize and democra-tize some kinds of activities, they might beerecting barriers to entry for others.

Until recently, computer technology was theexclusive province of a technological elite.Use of computers required a special set of skillsand knowledge held by highly trained comput-er scientists and a select group of self-educatedcomputer hobbyists or hackers. Today, ad-vances in hardware design and operation, aswell as improvements in software design andapplications, have brought computer technol-ogy to the public as well as to artists and scho-lars. Now everyone can use new technologiesto expand and enhance their creative powersand vision.

Before the advent of computer synthesizersor software tools such as MacPaint, innate abil-ity and years of training were needed to playa musical instrument, compose a tune, or cre-ate an illustration for printing, While todaytools substitute for neither artistic talent nortraining, they do open new avenues for crea-tive expression and communication of the un-initiated. Using a personal computer, one cangenerate melodies, explore harmonies, and playan instrument, bypassing the study and prac-tice that separated the musician from the non-musician.49 Digital synthesizers, sound sys-tems, and recording systems can further ex-tend the reach of both amateurs and profes-sionals, and at increasingly lower costs.50 Nowa musician can create highly sophisticatedsound in his basement or in a studio, usingtools that were once available only in a univer-sity music research Laboratory.51

‘” hlusic in the (’omputer Age, Compute, January 1985,Scott M ace, ‘‘ F;lectronic orchestras in Your I.i\’ing

Room i ” Infoworld, Mar, 25, 1985, pp. 29-33,hlichael Kowalski, 01’.+4 Workshop on Technologies for In-

formation (’reation, I)ec 6. 1984.

5—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment c 143

The technologies that make such things pos-sible are now more widely available, as the caseof computer graphics illustrates. A few yearsago, these technologies were only available tocomputer scientists and engineers involvedwith computer-aided design, data analysis, andmathematical modeling. Now a wide range ofsoftware applications are readily available foruse in diverse fields. This software does notpose problems for novices since they providewhat has come to be called “a user-friendlyoperator-machine interface."52 In this way, ob-jects, ideas, and projects of study can be ex-pressed and represented graphically for busi-ness, education, and personal use. For example,using stylized, highly professional fonts andfigures that can be “called up” on a personalcomputer, one father, as figure 5-3 illustrates,composed a rather artistic letter to his son, offat camp.

Advances in hardware and software are alsoenhancing access to information itself, and toresources that can provide information. Elec-tronic networks such as the Source or Compu-Serve can put people in touch with vast infor-mation resources such as on-line informationservices, electronic databases, and new formsof information sources, such as communitybulletin boards.

Searching the literature with on-line comput-erized databases has, until recently, been doneprincipally by trained information specialists,such as librarians or technical specialists em-ployed by large companies. Such searches notonly required the use of highly specialized andarcane computer commands but also highlyspecialized knowledge of the databases them-selves. More accessible software designed toreach on-line databases makes it easier forusers of personal computers to retrieve infor-mation. Similarly, improvements in the designinterface of on-line systems themselves facili-tate search and location of information. Thesedevelopments enable medical professionals,market managers, or off-campus students toturn on their personal computers, connect with

“Andries \’an Dam, “Computer Software for Graphics,Scientific American, 101.251, September 1984, pp. 146-159,


SOURCE John Willis, Frederick, MD, 1985

Ch 5—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment ● 145

on-line information providers, and obtain thematerials they need.53

Information can be acquired electronicallyin other ways as well. Public bulletin boardsallow individuals of all ages, interests, andlevels of expertise to access information. Manyhundreds of such bulletin boards are now oper-ating nationwide. These facilities provide a va-riety of information, from answers to a userquestions by other users, to digital informa-tion tidbits, opinions, articles, or even entiremagazines. Many also provide access to pub-lic domain soft ware. Use of the board requiresa phone line, a personal computer and diskdrive, a modem, and software that makes theconnection to the board. Most boards can bereached without charge by dialing a local phonenumber. 54 For many people, fellow bulletinboard users become more than a source of in-formation; they comprise a community.’;

These new opportunities for both technicaland nontechnical users have not diminished

‘See for example, ‘‘A New Shortcut to Electronic Librar-ies, ” Business $Ireek, May 28, 1984, p. 106

‘See Steven I.evy, “Touring the Hulleting Boards, ’ Popu-far (’omputing, February 1984.

A t the OTA W“orkshop on Students Perceptions of the In-tellectual Property Rights Issue, May 20, 1985, one high schoolstudent explained that he had two sets of friends: 1 ) friendsfrom school that he might call on the phone and talk about home-work or other things; and 2) friends from the computer whosereal names might not be known but who are a constant sourceof conversation and recreation on-line. Notes this student: ‘‘ Mjrcomputer probably doesn ‘t stay off more than half an hour af-ter I get home. and before 1 go to bed. So it’s on for essen-tially 6 hours ‘‘

the need for training and education in variousfields. Despite potentially broad and instantlyavailable access to information, users still mustlearn to use these tools to their fullest capac-ity. Given this need, education and trainingmight best be used to help progress from de-veloping routine skills to adopting more inno-vative processes, focusing less on the trans-fer of facts, and more on understanding howto find and use information.56

As Ithiel de Sola Pool notes in Technologiesof Freedom:

The technologies used for self-expression,human intercourse, and recording of knowl-edge are in unprecedented flux. A panoply ofelectronic devices puts at everyone’s hand ca-pacities far beyond anything that the print-ing press could offer. Machines that think,that bring great libraries into anybody’sstudy, that allow discourse among person’sa half-world apart, are expanders of humanculture. They allow people to do anything thatcould be done with communication tools ofthe past, and many more things too.’”

“ For example, some companies provride corporate trainingin on-line searching to give the end user. such as the researchchemist, the skills that would enable him to use highly techni-cal on-line databases, such as Chemical Abstracts. I n learningto use such search systems, researchers find they understandmore fully both the possibilities and limitations of the data-base, and are able to use information professionals even moreeffecti~’ely for more complicated searches. See ‘‘on-I.ine I,iter-ature Searching Catches on Among Researchers, (’heroical &rEn@”neering News, May 7, 1984, pp. 29-31,

‘-Pool, op. cit., p. 226.

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON RESOURCES AND MATERIALSIn the process of creating, artists, scholars,

and others build on the works of the past anddraw on those of their contemporaries. Inpreliterate societies, the poets, storytellers, andartists drew their content from national lore.The epic poem served, in effect, as a culturaldatabase. In more recent times, the universityand other institutions of learning have houseda nation’s accumulated wisdom. Individualsgained access to this knowledge either throughtheir own education and training or through

informal or self-initiated activities. Modern in-formation technologies are greatly expandingour capacity to store, input, search, and dis-tribute any type of information that can be rep-resented in digital form.

Traditionally, the library has been a key re-pository for information resources. Today, theNation’s approximately 110,802 libraries sup-ported by universities, education, research, andbusiness institutions, and by local communi-


ties (see table 5-2), remain committed to orga-nizing knowledge, supporting continuing schol-arship and learning, and offering open-endedaccess to the universe of knowledge.58

This universe of information has grown ex-ponentially, doubling steadily every 15 yearsor so.” Scientific journals now number 50,000worldwide and 6,500 in the United States. Sim-ilarly, scientific books published in the UnitedStates now number 20,000 annually. ’()

Works in other fields have grown as dramat-ically as those in science. For example, between1900 and 1970, the libraries of major universi-ties in the United States doubled their bookholdings every 17 years.61 The Library of Con-gress, the “Nation’s Library,” has more than80 million items in its collection, including over20 million books and pamphlets, Its collectionscontinue to grow at the rate of 7,000 items aday.62

““see, for example, Scholarship. Research and .4cces.s to In-formation, A Statement from the Council on I.ibrary Resources,Washington DC, January 1985,

“.See King Research Inc., Impact of Information Technt~l-ogy’ on information Sertrice Pro\’iders and 7’heir (’lien te]e, OTAcontract report, July 1985,

“’Derek de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1963).

“ Isabel Cil]iers, 4’ Impact of the Information SOciet} on theInformation Profession, ” Information Age, vol. 7, No. 2, April1985,“% Peter T. Rohrback, FIND: Automation at the l.ibrar.}’

of Congress, The First Twent?,-five )’ears and lle-~’ond (\$’ash-ington, 1)(’: The I.ibrary of Congress, 1985).

Table 5-2.— Libraries in the United States

Libraries N umber

P u b l i c ( C e n t r a l ) 8,768’Total public outlets = 70,956 which “Includes 6,056

branch Iibraries

A c a d e m i c 4,924

S c h o o l , p u b l i c 70,400School, private 14,300

Special . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,410Includes. Federal

LawMedicalReligiousCorporate

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 110,802SOURCE National Commission on Libraries and Information Science

As the amount and use of information in-creases in all sectors of society, other publicand private institutions have joined librariesto provide information and services.63 Thesenew institutions describe and synthesize in-formation, provide logical access to it, evalu-ate and analyze information, and store and pre-serve materials. (See figure 5-4. )

Dramatically affecting the ways informationis stored, organized, accessed, reprocessed, andused, the new technologies may have a radicalimpact on libraries and analogous institutions,They permit libraries and information provid-ers not only to enhance and expand the serv-ices they offer, but also to provide new serv-ices that were previously unavailable. 64 Usingelectronic networks and databases, location orsize are no longer the sole determinants of theservices that such institutions can provide. 65

Computer databases, themselves, now con-stitute a new kind of library. Members of thelegal profession, for example, now rely exten-sively on on-line databases such as WESTLAWand LEXIS (see figure 5-5). Users can accessmany different kinds of information rangingfrom bibliographic, full text, or abstracted ma-terials to compendiums of processes on physi-cal and chemical properties. These data maybe compiled separately or jointly by govern-ment agencies, academic institutions, libraries,information analysis centers, clearinghouses,publishers of books, journals, newspapers,newsletters, and business and industry.

Databases have also been created by indi-viduals, small groups, and communities ofusers with shared interests. Developed to meetparticular needs, they have often come to lifespontaneously and informally. Some are acces-

b’$ee 1;.~, Brinberg, “Information in the U.S.–An Indus-try Service Industry, ” Information and the Transformation of.%ciet~’, G.P, Sweeny (cd. ) (New York: Else\rier North- IlollandPublishing Co,, 1982),

“See for example, Patricia Battin, “The I;lectronic I.ibrary:A Vision for the Future, ” EDUCOM Bulletin, summer 1984.Ilattin describes the application of computer and communica-tion technologies to library processing activities over the past15 years. In addition see, Peter T, Rohrbach, FIND: A utoma-tion at the Library of Congress, The First Twent~’-fi\’e Yearsand Beyond (Washington, DC: I.ibrary of Congress, 1985).

“see Battin, op. cit.

Ch. 5—Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment ● 147

Figure 5-4.— Public and Private Institutions Providing Information Products and Services

—

Description & synthesis Logical access

Editingunits

Translatingunits

Information

Speech Writing analysis centers

UnitsInformation brokers

Technical writingunits Financial

institutions

Engravers

PhotoprocessingLibraries

units

Publishersbook stores

Word processing units Museums

Printers DocumentRecording

companies

Film companies OCM unitsD a t a b a s e / Records

producers management units

/

Word processing unitsComputer centers

Book storesOCR units

Bibliographic

Clearinghouses utilities

Physical transformation Storage & preservation

SOURCE Kinq Research Inc June 1985

sible only to authorized individuals; others areopen to the public. Spurred by the desire toshare ideas or obtain needed information, userscreate these new information resources on elec-tronic bulletin boards or computer networks.66

Computer engineer and software designer LeeFelsenstein envisions thousands of such usercommunities providing information within andacross communities and serving as the com-———.——

“’Take the example of database teaching ideas brought to-gether by members of the math/science forum on CompuServe.The database came about when one participant in the forumasked others if they had examples of effective approaches toteaching physics. Almost immediately, several members of theforum responded. In turn, other suggestions and revisions orexpansions of the original set of ideas were shared. Thus theentries in this database increase just as they do on databaseswhich compile information about published literature or lawsand legal decisions. In this instance information is upgradedand revised, not by professional editors, librarians, or research-ers, but by users themselves.

cSu

53

munity memory" owned and shared by all par-ticipants. 67

Other kinds of technology-driven resourcesare also emerging. Laser-read optical storagesystems are being used to store and retrievevisual images, such as photographs, maps,drawings and paintings. At the SmithsonianNational Air and Space Museum, for example,videodisks derived from 1 million photographscurrently stored at the museum will be usedto capture the entire history of aviation.68 Tenarchival videodisks are planned, each contain-ing color and black-and-white photographs ofU.S. and foreign aircraft, as well as the ar-

“Interview, Apr. 15, 1985.‘“SW M. Woodbridge Williams, “ 100,000 Photos on a Plat-

ter,” Photo District News, July/August 1984.


Figure 5-5.— Institutional Users of Computer Readable Databases

Legal

IndustryPublic libraries

Not for profit

GovernmentAcademia

Information brokers

SOURCE Martha Williams (ed), lnformation Market lndicators, September 1985

tifacts and people associated with the devel-opment of aviation and space flight.69

The use of videodisk for this and similar proj-ects offers significant advantages over printtechnology. Once they have been stored onvideodisk and indexed by location on the disk,subject matter, and cross references, the pho-tographs become database entries—inter-active, and easily accessible. Searching be-comes a dialog between the searcher and thedatabase or electronic library. In this dialogthe searcher is not limited by old structuresof knowledge that have been built into tradi-tional library indexes; he can put togetherwhole new combinations of ideas.70

Electronic databases and libraries are power-ful tools and important resources because they

. - .- ..- .“It is interesting to note that most of the photographs are

in the public domain. Some, however, are still under copyrightand will require permission for use by the photographer. As aresearch project, the developers hope that such permission willbe given. But there are some members of the photography com-munity who view the “precedents” of this project with alarm.(Interview with Philip Leonian, New York City, November 1984.)

“’James Ducker, “Electronic Information–Impact of theDatabase, ” Futures, April 1985, vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 164-169.

provide greater access to more indices andsource material than single libraries contain.Like computer databases, videodisks make re-sources such as photographs more accessibleto more people. Similarly, digital libraries ofsoftware routines and tools, and optical disklibraries of motion pictures, offer these mate-rials to larger audiences. Eventually, librariesof audio data may be compiled for musical com-position.

In creating new ways to capture and handleinformation, the use of information technol-ogies may conflict with traditional methodsof scholarship, which require a clear record ofeach contribution and a published work thatis fixed. A computer-readable database, for ex-ample, can archive information in permanentform. But at the same time, this informationwill be in constant flux if it is continuously up-dated, revised, and deleted. These capabilitiesraise concerns for many in the research com-munity. As the Council on Library Resourcesrecently described the problem:

Scholarship is personal, but its results arenot private. To judge the validity of scholar-

Ch.

ly work, the records of past and present re-search must be open to scrutiny. This is theonly way the intellectual audit trail that isat the heart of discovery can be maintained.Limitecl or conditional access to bibliographicrecords (or information about information inany form) is of particular concern .71

A second problem arises out of the increasedcapacity to manipulate information in comput-er databases. Accuracy, reliability, and qual-ity are concerns for both author and publisherwhen they enter their works or products in adatabase. Although in some instances, theauthor may cooperate with the publisher in de-veloping abstracts of technical works or books,in others, the author does not play a role. In-stead, teams of editors and research librarians,or others who are developing or assembling thedatabase, may abstract the works. In all cases,authors and publishers want to assure that theabstracted or summarized work maintains itsintegrity.

The issue of information presentation, integ-rity, and documentation of sources is also be-coming a problem for artistic creators, suchas photographers and artists whose imagesmay become part of large electronic libraries.

—.——‘Scholarship, Research, and Access to Information, A

Statement from the Council on Library Resources, Washing-t`on, D.C. January 1985.

5— Impact of Technology on fhe Creative Environment ● 149

Although most creators want others to learnand benefit from their works, they also wantassurance that their personal contribution isrecognized and kept intact.

A final concern for all creators, be they scien-tists, scholars, artists, or individual learners,is one relating to cost and access. As more data-bases and electronic libraries develop, infor-mation that was once available in journals orother paper forms may now appear only in com-puter-processable forms. Now providing com-puter database services, academic and publiclibraries face new and increasing costs. Somehave been able to pass on costs of on-linesearching to users rather than subsidizingthose costs within the library budget. But,while grants and subsidies may fund the workof many scholars and scientists and, therefore,cover these additional costs, they will not fundothers, who will be disadvantaged. And thosewho can pay, cannot only tap into electronicresources, they can also take advantage of in-formation brokers and information on demandservices now available at additional cost.72

‘See for example, Da\rid Streitfeld, “Ask and The3’ shallRetrie\’e, ” The W’ashignton Post, Aug. 16, 1985, p. 1~5. A t}rpi-cal information on demand research project may cost a clientabout $300. Clients include businesses, foundations, hobb~’ists,and ini’enters, even writers who are ‘‘reasonably success-ful’’–and can afford to pay, for these services,

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON ROLES,RELATIONSHIPS AND REWARDS

Roles and Relationships pendent on the publisher who had a monopoly

The use of technology in society involves in-on the distribution of works.73

dividuals working in relation to one another. New information technologies, too, can makeThe characteristics of the technology they use creators more or less dependent on others, al-help to define the roles people play in these rela- tering the relationship between author andtionships. Again, the case of printing illus- publisher, film maker and producer, databasetrates how this might take place. Before pub- compiler and distributor, and inventor andlishers became established, authors depended manufacturer. Whether this change in the rela-on patrons to support their work. With the ad-vent of publishers, this dependency ended, tobe replaced by another. The author became de-

‘Benjamin Kaplan, An Unhurried View of Copyright {NewYork and London: Columbia University Press, 1967).


tionship occurs depends on how technologicaladvances affect the costs of new tools, the loca-tion of tools and resources, the restructuringof roles, and the control over the mechanismsfor distribution. The nature and scope of crea-tive endeavors also help to shape the relation-ships among creators and others. Where crea-tors must work in expensive, large-scale,centralized operations, they will be more in-terdependent.

As tools based on new technology becomecheaper, more powerful, more available, andeasier to use, a greater number of creators canuse them to explore and manipulate images,sounds, and information, The increasingly so-phisticated tools also enable the artist to pro-duce a more polished professional work. Mu-sicians, for example, who once depended totallyon recording studios, now may have equipmentin their basements for performing, recording,mixing, and producing musical works.74 Thistechnology can be used to produce tapes that,on the basis of quality, are indistinguishablefrom commercial studio tapes.

Such tools and technologies will also opennew avenues for distribution. As musician,Richard Green, explains:

. . . musicians can for very small amounts ofmoney do their recording project, print un-limited cassettes and distribute them, totallybypassing the larger aspects of the music bus-iness as we call it, Totally bypassing, amongother things. . . . copyright laws [and] govern-ment regulations. There are a lot of bad thingsabout this. The good point about this is thatit allows the individual to disseminate hiswork. 75

In film making, too, highly sophisticatedcameras and audio equipment are no longer theexclusive domain of major studios. Droppingin price, this equipment is more widely avail-able to a growing number of independent filmmakers. These creators find they are able towork cheaply and have the creative freedomthey say would not be possible in Hollywood,

‘Richard Green, OTA Workshop on the Impact of Technol-ogy on the Creative Environment, Apr. 24, 1985.

“’Ibid.

where the average film budget is $11 million.76

Just as audio technologies enable musiciansto create finished products, so too have thetools to create and edit images allowed the filmmaker to produce professional and appealingproducts, on modest budgets, with fundsscavenged from foundations, government, in-dividual investors, and even relatives. More-over, with their greater sophistication and ap-peal, and their more extensive distributionmechanisms, these films are being extendedbeyond traditional audiences on college cam-puses and in art houses. Public and cable tele-vision, as well as local multiplex theaters, arenow showing independent films alongside first-run Hollywood features.77

The world of publishing has similarly beenaffected by the new technologies. Using a state-of-the-art printing system, a publisher such asWestview Press can quickly produce books inlimited editions of between 100 to 2,000 copies.This kind of production run allows the pub-lisher to rapidly accommodate the needs of themarket and to produce highly specialized booksfor limited markets.78 The number of small, in-dependent publishing houses has increasedwhile the older, larger, commercial publishingindustry is becoming more centralized throughmergers and acquisitions. It is estimated thatas many as 200 new publishers start operationsevery month. In the last decade, the numberof publishing houses has quadrupled and nowstands at about 20,000.79

Whether creating and publishing computer-readable databases, monographs, or full man-uscripts, both authors and publishers can usecomputer-driven tools and resources. At thesame time, technology itself is changing the

“Kathleen Hulser, “Ten Cheap Movies and How They GotThat Way, ” American Film, May 1984, pp. 22-25, 53.

77See for example, Julie Salamon, “It’s Boomlet Time forMoviedom’s Little Guys, ” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 28, 1985.Notes Salamon, the number of such film makers is growing:the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers hasgrown to more than 3,000 members from 700 in 1980.

‘“See for example, Lisa See, “Frederick Praeger: Portrait ofa Publisher, ” Publishers Weekly, June 14, 1985.

“see Marc Leepson, “The Book Business, Editorial Re-search Reports,” The Congressional Quarterly, Washington,DC, June 28, 1985.


relationship between the author, publisher, anduser of copyrighted works. Some observers seethis as a dramatic change, where products andservices can be tailored with increasing speci-ficity to meet the needs and requirements ofusers:

The user, in turn, becomes more than justa buyer of titles. Through his selective use ofthe databases, he signals to the publisher hisspecific interests, and through user-drivenpublishing he can become a publisher in hisown right. . . . In fact, one can say that thereis no true end product until the user tailorsthe data into his unique set of ideas, for exam-ple, his own published product.80

With an estimated 20 million printers nowavailable, xerography has “made everybodya printer, according to Paul A. Strassman,former Xerox Vice President.81 Each improve-ment in reprographic technology, such as im-age clarity, color reproduction, speed, and com-pilation, makes it more feasible for creatorsto publish and distribute their own work. Inparticular, where traditional modes of publish-ing and distribution are either not accessibleor financially impractical, this mechanism canmake it much easier to disseminate informa-tion and images. Thus, for example, one caneasily publish a newsletter for a special-interestgroup, a community association, or a groupof scholars. Moreover, the technology permitsmore people to share their work—be it a col-lection of poems, a book of recipes, or a seriesof drawings.

The development of electronic networks thattransmit text, numerical, or graphic images toprinters at remote locations can further expandauthors’ publishing and distribution capabili-ties. The result is that roles once held by sev-eral people are now all held by one person.Starting with a single copy of a letter or arti-cle composed at a computer and transmittedto readers at the other ends of the network,one person can become author, printer, pub-lisher, and distributor of a work.

*’Ilerbert R. 13rinberg, “The Brave New J$’orld of F;lectronicPublishing, ” Publishers it’eekl}’, No\. 23, 19/+4, pp. 3z-05

“’See Michael Kernan, “The Deans of Duplication, ” 7’heJt’zx+ington Post, .Aug, 21, 1985.

While an increasing number of computer-driven tools are dropping in cost, some will al-ways be prohibitively expensive for the indi-vidual artist, scientist, or inventor. Moreover,hand-held calculators or portable computer-aided design systems now exist that are morepowerful than the early mainframe computersystems that occupied whole rooms, certainclasses of artistic work, or scientific problemsdemand even more power and sophisticationthan even these systems provide. Thus, somecreators find that to do their work, they mustbe part of a well-equipped facility, such as acomputer graphics production studio. In otherinstances, the writers, programmers, and ar-tists who choose to work in a highly innova-tive and capital-intensive venture, such asvideotex, may need to join a corporate entityto work in that field. And the scientist whoseresearch requires access to a multimillion dol-lar supercomputing facility has to be affiliatedwith industry, government, or academic insti-tutions.82

Other factors may also limit use of new toolsand mechanisms of distribution. Taking fulladvantage of these technologies may requiretechnical expertise not normally held by authors,artists, or dancers. Thus, technology can re-quire the creator to interact with people withwhom he has never dealt with before.

The System of Incentives and Rewards

The granting of rewards requires that crea-tors and inventors be given a special statusin society. Historically, this did not happen un-til the time of the Renaissance. Before then,creativity was considered the prerogative ofGod. Because the Renaissance notion of crea-tivity deemed the work of any major poet, art-ist, or inventor as a product of a special crea-tive genius, which most mortals lacked, itbecame something to be rewarded. ”

“The capital costs of buying and maintaining a supercom-puter facility requires sponsorship by large institutions. Onceestablished an individual user could simply buy time in smallamounts still supporting only a fraction of the true costs of main-taining the facility.

“’Pacey, op. cit, p. 87.


The technology of printing fostered this no-tion of the individual, as creator. With the in-vention of the printing press it was possiblefor a single author to produce a work, no longerdependent on communal efforts. Moreover,conventions such as standardized texts anda title page were developed, making individ-ual attribution practical. Today, the new in-formation technologies are affecting society’sattitudes about creativity, regarding both howit treats the creative genius and how it assignsrewards.

The intellectual property system can be con-ceived of as a societal device to foster creativ-ity. To be most effective, however, it requiresthat an author’s particular contribution andwork can be clearly identified. The new tech-nologies are undermining this assumption.They foster multiple authorship and intangi-ble works. Thus, instead of a situation in whicha single author, artist or scientist creates onesingle product, such as a book or mechanicaldevice, now many authors work jointly andtheir individual contributions are often diffi-cult to distinguish from one another. Moreover,to the extent that they are working in and onelectronic media, their materials may be con-stantly changing.

Examples of multiple authorship are foundin the world of arts and entertainment, as wellas in research and development. Whereas tradi-tionally, a song was the work of a composerand a lyricist, whose particular contributionwas easily discerned and rewarded by the in-tellectual property system, today the creationof a song, the production of a film, the devel-opment of computer software or an electronicdatabase, and the design of a new hardwaresystem, may involve many different creativeinputs, connected in a myriad of ways. Creat-ing a seaside landscape with computer-gener-ated imagery, for example, may entail one art-ist creating the atmosphere, another texture,and others rocks and beaches. In the final exe-cution, a software program will “glue” it alltogether.

When designers, artists, musicians, and pro-grammers are parts of teams that receive jointremuneration as teams, individual authorship

may not be an issue. To avoid problems ofdividing rewards, some creative teams haveformed their own companies or economic units,jointly sharing their creative expertise, the de-velopment costs, and eventually, the profits.Many computer software efforts have beenbuilt by such creative entrepreneurial teams.

In other cases, teams of creators and scien-tists are salaried and supported by an institu-tion such as a software development company,an advertising agency, a hardware manufac-turer, or a university or a government labora-tory. In these circumstances, the creative con-tribution of the employed inventor or artist isoften treated as a work-for-hire. The work ofthe individuals in the team might be recognizedin the process of applying for an institutionalpatent or copyright. In scientific fields, tech-nical papers are commonly authored jointly .84

Although there are many independent writ-ers, artists, composers, and poets involved increative activities, most information productsand services are developed by employee work-ing teams who rarely receive financial rewardsin direct proportion to their particular contri-butions. 85 Attribution is normally to the sourceof publication, not to the writer. Profits flowfor the most part to the investors, not to thosewho found the data, organized the presenta-tion, or created an efficient expression.

Nevertheless, there are many creative effortsthat go unrewarded or unrecognized, and it isthese examples that free-lance creators oftencite when calling for changes in the present sys-tem. Some free-lance graphic artists and pho-tographers believe, for example, that as crea-tors, they should maintain control over theirimages even when their materials have been

“’Like creators employed by businesses, scientists are paidsalaries, but the relationship between this compensation andthe incentives to create intellectual property is weak. Gastonstudied the reward system in British and American science andaffirmed what has generally been believed: that scientists arerarely motivated by salary or other compensation. Rather, theyoperate more under nonpecuniary incentives such as distin-guished titles at universities, distinguished levels of member-ship professional associations, honors, prizes, and fellowships,editorships of journals, and citation in journals. See JerryGaston, The Reward System in British and American Science(New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1978).

“’see Christopher Bums and Patricia A. Martin, The Eco-nomics of Information, OTA contractor report, 1985.

Ch. 5—impact of Technology on the Creative Environment . 153

commissioned as works-for-hire. This attitudeis becoming more pronounced as creative ma-terials become easier to manipulate and reuse.”While creators want their works to be widelyseen and distributed, they also want adequatecompensation for derivative uses, which bringadditional profits to publishers. They are con-cerned, moreover, that the images attributedto them are, in fact, of their own creation.

The new information technologies can alsoaffect how society views the work of the crea-tor and the values it attributes to his work.The growing economic value of information inthe arts and entertainment industries fuel pub-lic perceptions of superstars, superbooks, com-puter millionaires and the like. In focus groupsessions conducted by Yankelovich, Skelly &

“See the Graphics Artists Guild and the American Societyof Magazine Photographers, Testimony Regarding M’ork-for-Hire Under the Cop~rright Act, before the Judiciary Commit-tee, U.S. Senate, Oct. 1, 1982. See also additional testimon~’presented by Robin E3rickman, Graphic Artists Guild Member.

White for OTA, participants pointed out thatrock stars, movie actors, and information in-dustries were making a lot of money. They wereskeptical of the claim that such individuals orcompanies would be seriously affected by per-sonal copying. 87 And yet many book, film, andcomputer companies are small, high-risk, low-profit operations. Similarly, many free-lanceartists and performers barely make ends meet.

It should be noted that the intellectual prop-erty system is only one means by which soci-ety supports the creative environment. In ad-dition, there still exists public and privateprograms providing grants and patronage. Tothe extent that alternative mechanisms willaffect public policy choices about intellectualproperty rights, they are discussed in otherchapters of this report.

87Yankelovich, Skelly & White, Inc., Focus Group Sessionsin Philadelphia, PA, and Greenwich, CT, October 1984.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE INTELLECTUALPROPERTY RIGHTS SYSTEM

As we have seen in this chapter as well asin previous ones, the intellectual property sys-tern governs the relationships among individ-uals involved in the creative environment. Itdetermines who are creators, what tools andresources are available to them, and how andunder that circumstances their work will bedistributed to the public.

Technology is affecting the creative environ-ment in a number of ways that are likely tohave implications for the intellectual propertysystem. These can be summarized under twomajor headings: 1) changing players in thecreative environment, and 2) the emergence ofnew opportunities.

Changing Players in the CreativeEnvironment

Traditionally, the intellectual property sys-tem was a simple one, involving only a fewplayers–the creator, publisher/distributor,

and user. New participants have come on thescene as new technologies have emerged. Thusin addition to the writer and artist, we nowhave the composer, photographer, and the filmmaker. In addition to the publisher, we nowhave the record company, the television pro-ducer, and the cable operator. And added tothe reader, we have the radio and record lis-tener, the television viewer, and the computeruser.

With the new information technologies, thenumber and variety of players have increasedmany fold. Moreover, now more than ever be-fore, technology is affecting the roles that eachplayer plays and his relationship to others inthe system. Today the user, whether he is deal-ing with audio, visual, or computer-generatedmaterials is not just a passive receiver. He canat the same time be a creator or a distributorof his own or others’ materials. In this sense,for example, the personal computer user whomake copies of software for several of his

154 ● Intellectual Property Rights in an Age of Electronics and Information— . —

friends while making one for himself, is, in fact,acting as a distributor. And the university thathouses educators and researchers is increas-ingly claiming rights as the creator of theirworks.

Above all, these changing roles and relation-ships may affect the consensus on which sup-port for the system has traditionally rested.Many of the new players, not a party to theagreements of the past, may hold different val-ues about who should have access to what ma-terials and who should be provided rewards.One such newcomer on the scene is the com-puter hobbyist who finds the thrill of creatingsomething useful and successful more impor-tant than either owning the copyright or be-ing recognized as the author.88

Given the trend identified in this chaptertowards joint authorship and the increasinglyfluid creative process, controversies may alsoemerge among players about the distributionof rewards. Describing the culmination of thedevelopment of the Data General Eclipse MV/8000, Tracy Kidder depicts the dilemmasaround the distribution of rewards:

Long before it disbanded formally, theEclipse Group, in order to assist the companyin applying for patents on the new machine,had gathered and had tried to figure outwhich engineers had contributed to Eagle’spatentable features. Some who attendedfound those meetings painful. There was bick-ering. Harsh words were occasionally ex-changed. Alsing, who during the project hadset aside the shield of technical command,came in for some abuse—Why should hisname go on any patents, what had he done?Someone even asked that question regardingWest. Ironically, perhaps, those meetings il-lustrated that the building of Eagle really didconstitute a collective effort, for now thatthey had finished, they themselves were hav-ing a hard time agreeing on what each indi-vidual had contributed. But, clearly, the teamwas losing its glue. ‘It has no function any-more. It’s like an afterbirth, ’ said one old handafter the last of the patent meetings.89

88Stephen Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolu-tion (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984), pp.43-44.

“’Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine (Boston, MA:Little, Brown & Co.), p. 288.

As the economic value of information-basedproducts and services increases, disagreementssuch as these may become more intense.

The technology will also affect the expec-tations of the user, making him more or lesswilling to comply with the rules of the system.As the Yankelovich study suggests, the moretechnology to which people have access, themore they expect of technology. Youth haveparticularly high expectations. Often they takethe new technologies for granted. As one younguser recounted at a recent OTA workshop, hewas willing to pay for work only if “it was reallyawesome. ’90

The Emergence of New Opportunities

As this chapter points out, the new technol-ogies greatly enhance the creative environ-ment, providing new and powerful tools andnew opportunities for artistic expression, so-cietal advancement, and financial gain. As inthe past, the intellectual property system willestablish the rules by which these opportuni-ties will be taken advantage of and who willget to benefit from them. Because of the en-hanced social and economic value of creativeand scientific works, intellectual property lawbecomes an important public policy tool in aninformation age. It will determine, for exam-ple, whether new technologies are used to in-crease access to the Nation’s information re-sources and if so, by whom, and at what cost.

By virtue of their ability to increase access,these technologies may pose problems for theintellectual property system and for the in-tegrity of the creator’s work. As noted in thechapter, they allow users to access and manipu-late creative works with ease and speed previ-ously unheard of. While this may enhance theirability to work jointly and create new prod-ucts and services, it will also make it more dif-ficult to identify or trace cases of copyrightinfringement or plagiarism that may occur.This is significant for the creator’s motivation.For, as we have seen, the creator is as oftenconcerned about the integrity of his works ashe is about his own financial gain.—— —

“OTA Workshop on High School Students Perceptions ofIntellectual Property Issues, May 20, 1985.

Documents

Chapter 5 Impact of Technology on the Creative Environment