Abraham Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” places self-actualization as the pinnacle of human behavior. To illustrate what the phrase "self-actualization" meant , Maslow said:
“a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves.”
Of course, the thing that is important to note about Maslow’s hierarchy is that physiological needs are at it’s base, i.e., a person’s basic needs must be met before 
that person can reach self-actualization. In other words, “a guy’s gotta eat”!
Maslow’s theories shed some light on the ongoing social debate on the Internet regarding whether musicians would continue to produce quality music if copyright as we know it were to be abolished. A different argument, though very related, is whether money motivates one to be creative.
One movement advocate such ideas is the "Free Culture Movement." Less extremist, perhaps, is Stanford professor, Lawrence Lessig's "Creative Commons" group, which advocates modified forms of traditional license agreements as a social compromise to "reconcile creative freedom with marketplace competition." For other research regarding this debate, see also this interesting discussion on the site Against Monopoly and watch Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig's video on TED entitled "How creativity is being strangled by the law."
The underlying assumption of some of these parties involved in the debate, which is ostensibly grounded in the record and movie industry's recent campaigns against infringers, is that all intellectual property should be free for the public to use without payment and that the antiquated copyright laws should be modified or abolished. In my opinion, this extremism ignores the foundation principle of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that in order to achieve self-actualization, an artist's or musician's base needs must be satisfied.
Proponents of the free culture movement observe that creativity and survived many years without the structural form which copyright superimposed upon it. Indeed, it is often observed that the great works of Mozart were created without the existence of copyright laws. Let us not forget, however, that Mozart wrote many of his works while being employed by benefactors such as the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, Heironymus Colloredo and Emperor Joseph II of Vienna, names that are certainly not as prominent as Mozart's. In fact, where would the world of the arts be without the billions of dollars that have been donated by benefactors such as J.P. Morgan, James Smithson, Bill & Melinda Gates, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefellar, just to name a select, if not elite, few. So, while it is true that "a musician must create music," it is also true that a musician has to eat.
Long before the existence of copyright laws, there was a strong relationship between money and the creation of arts and music, and it will be that way until we abolish our system of currency as we now know it. Walk around any great city and witness the existence of hundreds of pieces of commissioned artwork. Listen to the commissioned works of Mozart, Beethoven and other great composers, who existed at the hand of benefactors. Walk through the Museum of Modern Art and look at the works of art generously donated by J. P. Morgan and other benefactors. Whether it be a king or a record label, money benefits art. Creativity, like it or not, is often inspired by the almighty dollar, whether that is represented by paper currency or some other bartered for compensation which meets our base needs as human beings.
That's not to say that people would not continue to make music or art if they were not compensated for it - they would. That is an entirely different question in my mind. People's hobbies and past time activities are in a slightly different class than, say, Don Henley. If great singer-songwriters such as Henley could not make a living at playing music and writing songs, I would venture to bet that most of us would never had heard of The Eagles. Again, even a musician has to eat. If the musician cannot meet his base needs doing what he loves to do, a musician will meet those needs some other way and, therefore, there would be less time to do what he loves to do.
The only legitimate question remaining, then, is how should a musician get paid for the music he or she creates? How should the songwriter get paid for the songs he or she writes? The answer, in the United States, is by virtue of the rights created in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, which gives Congress the right:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Investors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The portion of this Clause dealing with the arts is further codified in the various Copyright Acts and amendments thereto. In a nutshell, the Copyright Act creates a legal fiction, intellectual property rights, which gives creators certain exclusive rights in their works, including the rights to produce copies, create derivative works, perform or display the work, and to sell and assign the works, among other things.
The laws in the U.S. are based loosely on English concepts and laws that date back to the 17th and 18th century and are a direct result of the invention of the printing press. The first actual copyright law was the Statute of Anne, or the Copyright Act 1709. The concept of a copyright is a three hundred year old concept that has survived the evolution from printing press to piano rolls to digital media, and I have little doubt that it will survive the technological age, despite the rumblings of these groups.
As the law often does, though, albeit ever so slowly in most instances, it must evolve to encompass these new technologies and the debate that is ongoing will help us formulate new and improved amendments to the laws that will hopefully address the perceived dichotomy between the rights of free speech and free culture and those of the creators and owners of intellectual properties to receive just compensation for their efforts and investments.
In the end, this blog is the my response to viewing Larry Lessig's video, recently posted on the TED website, entitled How creativity is being strangled by the law (See the link above). In it, Lessig harkens back to the days of Sousa when children sat on the porch and sang songs, and used the analogy of Sousa decrying the advent of the phonorecord as the demise of creativity. He points out that in our current state, copyrights should be "democratized" because the new generation uses copyrights to create something different, as "tools of creativity" and "tools of speech." And since every such usage requires a copy, he continues, every such usage is presumably an infringement of someone's copyright. His solution is that the artist can simply license the use of their creation for free in the instance of "non-commercial" usages, and still retain the rights to exploit it commercially. He refers to this as the "Sousa Revival."
But my question to Professor Lessig is why does the fact that an entire generation of Internet users are using copyrighted material to create derivative works mean that the rights of copyright holders have to be abolished? Why do the creative urges of those who utilize other people's copyrights to create different works supercede those of the people who created the original works? Why should they?
Second, it is important to note that people would generally not pay money to hear most children sitting on the porch singing their songs, unless that child happens to be a Don Henley. That is the difference between most of the music on, say MySpace for example, and the music found on iTunes. There is a tremendous difference in the value of the spontaneous, albeit creative, songs of a child and the intricate lyrics and melodies which are the product of a genius the likes of Don Henley.
Let me illustrate the principles with an example for the world of physical property. Person A has a piece of property populated with a lot of trees. Person B, owns the lot next door, which is flat and has a nice stream of water running around its perimeter. Person C comes along, see this situation and, overwhelmed with creativity, cuts down Person A's trees and builds himself a house on Person B's lot and claims it as his own. When Persons A and B confront him, stating that the law says he cannot do what he did, Person C responds that his creativity is being strangled by the law and, therefore, the law should be abolished. Is this a good argument? This is the argument of the Free Culture Movement and the Creative Commons.
Just as the law creates real property rights so that a person owns in a plot of real estate, the law creates intellectual property rights so that person can own an intellectual creation. Abolishing the one makes no more sense than abolishing the other.
Now, imagine that Person A's lot was full of reeds and twigs and Person B's lot was full of ravines, rocks and arid soil. Person C would never stop to take a second look! The argument of these movements misses the concept of intrinsic value.
What I do like about Lawrence Lessig's movement, Creative Commons, is that it is based on the Copyright Act. It is essentially using existing copyright laws to create a unique license which strikes a balance between fair use and full copyright reservation. In the end, however, the license are based on the rights already granted in The Copyright Act, proving that the current laws allow for the very thing that these groups seek. I can agree with him in that respect.
