The Correlation of Copyright and Creativity

A while back I tripped across this Op Ed piece by Scott Turow and some of the Author's Guild Boys. It introduces the idea that the rise of Shakespeare and his Renaissance playwriting cohorts depended on the establishment of tickets being sold for the shows they wrote. Now, I think that particular premise is pretty much bull - Michelangelo didn't get paid per view of the Sistine Chapel and artists are no less creative when they are pleasing wealthy patrons than when they are pleasing the masses. I, personally, think Shakespeare and his contemporaries are in our current lexicon more because our record-keeping improved with the Guttenberg press than because they were getting paid by the public for the fruits of their intellectual labor. I honestly don't know what the payment structure was for the ancient Greek poets, but I'm inclined to think the rise of literary awesomeness depends more on a civilization that allows leisure to appreciate art as much as a civilization that monetarily rewards it.

But the correlation between creativity and reimbursement is an interesting idea nonetheless.

Why is this topical? Well, there's this Bill in Congress about copyright protection as it applies to the internet... and I'm currently in China where copyright protection does not exist. A threat to the protection of intellectual property raises interesting questions.

Would I be an author if I knew I couldn't make a living? If I knew there was no hope of it because the things I had created would be taken from me with no promise of reimbursement? I don't know. I like to be able to eat, so I'd have a lot less time for writing if it couldn't put food on the table. I'd still write. But would I bother to put my work into the public eye?

I don't think Shakespeare wrote because he was getting paid per ticket, but if there hadn't been the promise of a living - in any form, whether a patron or theater-goers - it's entirely possible he would have stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon and been a carpenter who wrote dirty limericks in his spare time.

I'm already in this, and I don't want to give it up, so I hope that regardless of what changes occur in intellectual property in the next few decades, that there are still opportunities for making money in some way, shape, or form with a pen. I'm versatile.

It's an interesting concept to consider. Does the fact that you can make a living as a writer create the atmosphere in which great minds can grow? Or are the two completely unrelated beyond the most general coincidence? Your thoughts?