Culture Control

Who controls culture? Do the people who create culture own it? My answer is yes. I do not think that J.K. Rowling owns the culture of Harry Potter, because she did not create the culture. J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter. Its that easy. I think it is wrong that J.K. Rowling sued a little girl over fan fiction, because J.K. Rowling does not own fan fiction in my opinion. The fan fiction is an exaggurated version of the Harry Potter story, written by J.K. Rowling online in a non-profit setting. Voldemort approves though.

If the creators of the objects that a culture evolves around owned the culture, the sixties would be owned by a lot of weed and LSD.

I mean seriously, I understand that good original ideas are hard to comeby, but sueing a little girl for fan fiction she created in her spare time with no profits. I would like to point out that writing is the only part of conversation that is censored and critiqued. What if this fan fiction was verbal? What if people attended shows where this girl created fan fiction with her friends and these kids made a profit? Would J.K. Rowling intervene? The question might sound rediculous at first, but it is such a basic point that is rarely examined. Why is writing fan fiction different than saying fan fiction in front of an audience. The same end is achieved, but the only difference is that one is spoken and one is written.

I suppose that the difference between speaking and writing is that writing can be read over and over again and the words on the page are somewhat permanent. With speach, a set of words that is spoken vanishes without a trace once they are said.