Online research in philosophy

Artists inspired by music and musicians -- Composers inspired by art and artists -- Twin talents : artist-musicians and musician-artists -- Musicians pose for the artists : a history of portrait iconography.

I propose a minimal account of authorship that specifies the fundamental nature of the author-relation and its minimal domain composition in terms of a three-place causal-intentional relation holding between agents and sort-relative works. I contrast my account with the minimal account tacitly held by most authorship theories, which is a two-place relation holding between agents and works simpliciter. I claim that only my view can ground productive and informative principled distinctions between collective production and collective authorship.

In THE IDEA OF AUTHORSHIP IN COPYRIGHT, Professor Lior Zemer attempts to conceptually reorganize copyright's entitlement structure by positing the public as a joint author of every copyrighted work. This Review delineates and critiques the main points of Zemer's thesis and analyzes the practical implications of his work. It then looks beyond Zemer's specific recommendations and suggests how his perspective may provide a useful basis for further scholarly contemplation. Specifically, it proposes that a different way of addressing Zemer's concern for the public domain is to denominate the colloquial author as a steward. Understanding the colloquial author as a steward of her work is consistent with the view that copyright ownership involves duties to the public as well as rights. This model facilitates the appropriate balance between public access and ownership rights because its underlying premise is that ownership rights exist to further a greater societal need.

Recording has transformed the nature of music as an art by reconfiguring the opposition between the aesthetics of perfection and imperfection. A precursor article, ‘The Art of Improvisation and the Aesthetics of Imperfection’, contrasted the perfectionist aesthetic of the ‘work-concept’ with the imperfectionist aesthetic of improvisation. Imperfectionist approaches to recording are purist in wanting to maintain the diachronic and synchronic integrity of the performance, which perfectionist recording creatively subverts through mixing and editing. But a purist transparency thesis cannot evade the fact that the recorded image is crafted; against creative editing, however, the imperfectionist ideal of the ‘complete take’ is humanistic and anti-mechanistic, and not mere Romantic illusion. The article concludes with a discussion of the question of the artistic status of recording, and contrasts the possibility of a non-acousmatic sound art with the essentially acousmatic art of music.

Philosophers are interested in the phenomenon of thought insertion because it challenges the common assumption that one can ascribe to oneself the thoughts that one can access first-personally. In the standard philosophical analysis of thought insertion, the subject owns the ‘inserted’ thought but lacks a sense of agency towards it. In this paper we want to provide an alternative analysis of the condition, according to which subjects typically lack both ownership and authorship of the ‘inserted’ thoughts. We argue that by appealing to a failure of ownership and authorship we can describe more accurately the phenomenology of thought insertion, and distinguish it from that of non-delusional beliefs that have not been deliberated about, and of other delusions of passivity. We can also start developing a more psychologically realistic account of the relation between intentionality, rationality and self knowledge in normal and abnormal cognition.

Authorship of a painting affects the evaluation of the artwork. In particular, prestigious authorship predicts an evaluation bias in favor of eminent artists. In the recent years, however, the art appreciation movement has focused attention on youth art. This reverse prestige bias effect raises a number of concerns about the virtue of art and the art evaluation bias. In this study, we asked what specific aspects of children's artworks contribute to the accentuated aesthetic response. Recent theories suggest that the final evaluation of aesthetics is emotionally driven. We proposed that youth authorship would elicit a stronger positive emotional response from the viewers than prestige authorship. In 4 experiments, we examined the effects of prestigious authorship and emotional authorship on aesthetic, creativity, and proficiency evaluations. Experiment 1 was a survey of expected qualities of artworks by artists of various backgrounds (e.g., famous artists, youth, or athletes). The results served as baselines for discussion in subsequent experiments. In Experiment 2, participants judged artworks presumably produced by famous artists or children. We predicted higher ratings for youth. In Experiment 3, participants judged artworks presumably produced by famous artists or athletes. Assuming that athletes do not receive the same compassion as children, we predicted the ratings to be higher for the famous artists. To emphasize the role of compassion, participants in Experiment 4 judged artworks presumably produced by privileged or underprivileged youth artists. Inconsistent with the emotional hypothesis, artistic preference was equal in these two groups. Alternative explanations are offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Over the years we have heard the debate as to whether authorship emanates solely from the individual or from the cultural context in which they inhabit. Writers such as Professors Woodmansee, Jaszi and Cohen have asserted a cultural theory of authorship. On one hand, there is the liberal philosophy of autonomous creativity evidenced in the notion of a "romantic author" (after the period known as romanticism). On the other hand we have more of a communitarian notion - that the author acts in a cultural context and authorship to some extent must be linked back to the social existence within which the author is situated. This article argues that for too long we have privileged the notion of the romantic author so much so that it is hard to argue for any other approach to copyright than one that focuses primarily on the author and their assignees such as publishers or associated commercialising agents such as recording companies. Furthermore it suggests that this approach fits awkwardly with the burgeoning networked society fuelled by the Internet to the point where it threatens innovation and the potential for productivity. To this end the article argues that we should more explicitly acknowledge the contribution of culture to authorship and more so the role of each and every individual in assisting and nurturing that authorship, as well as the contribution of users to creativity through consumptive, productive and transformative use of copyright works.

Copyright law recognizes authors as the first owners of copyright. However, there is paucity of literature in copyright analysis of the author and the rights which should be granted by virtue of the very act of creativity in the production of literary and artistic works. This indicates insufficient attention paid to a concept that is so central to a law that primarily aims to encourage authorship for society's benefit. The idea of the author and authorship as a creative process is central to copyright analysis. Deeper analysis of the author and creative authorship will provide insights into how the law can work towards encouraging better author-reader connection and create a more efficient market for literary and artistic works to provide rewards to authors to encourage greater production of works to benefit society. This article proposes that conceptualizing authors as the most important figure for the grant of property rights will facilitate greater production of works that society will be willing to pay for in the market. This paper concludes that copyright is a law to encourage authors to create literary and artistic works for society. The rights granted under the law should encourage creative authorship, rather than a recovery of investment, and that public interests are served best by a law recognizing the creative author over the economic investor.

Bringing together an international collection of experts, this work explores various philosophical issues surrounding modern music recordings. With perspectives from practicing musicians, musicologists, sound artists, and recordings engineers, this reference asks how theoretical issues related to their work relate to the context of making and using recordings. Additional questions asked by this study include What kind of “spatiality” is generated through recordings, and by what means? What is the nature of “recorded space”? Do recordings reflect musical reality or create one? and What are the philosophical bases of an “ethics” of recording?

Appropriation art has often been thought to support the view that authorship in art is an outmoded or misguided notion. Through a thought experiment comparing appropriation art to a unique case of artistic forgery, I examine and reject a number of candidates for the distinction that makes artists the authors of their work while forgers are not. The crucial difference is seen to lie in the fact that artists bear ultimate responsibility for whatever objectives they choose to pursue through their work, whereas the forger's central objectives are determined by the nature of the activity of forgery. Appropriation artists, by revealing that no aspect of the objectives an artist pursues are in fact built in to the concept of art, demonstrate artists' responsibility for all aspects of their objectives and, hence, of their products. This responsibility is constitutive of authorship and accounts for the interpretability of artworks. Far from undermining the concept of authorship in art, then, the appropriation artists in fact reaffirm and strengthen it.