Men can now own our brains..?!

[doyouwantachuffedybadge]

If nothing else, this story is a great advert for never getting married...

www.stuff.co.nz/national/126570671/artist-broken-after-judge-rules-copyright-of-her-work-must-be-shared-in-divorce?cid=app-android&fbclid=IwAR1_pWcZnUGgGTGX5MGIwbQjo4OD26DwmQhiKR6FNmQnA1RYtEP7tc8vCNk

The thread title has no relation at all to the story.

The same thing happened to Picasso after his divorce from Olga. Common with artists and musicians I believe

@AICM

The thread title has no relation at all to the story.

Of course it does - this court case means that not only can her ex husband have money from her work, he also owns copyright to it which affects future sales. He gets to make as many copies of her work as possible and sell it for whatever he likes. Its about control. As a creative, this frightens me very much. It's one thing to gain money from your ex partner's work, but quite another to have rights to the intellectual property of their creative work.

And this only applies to women, not men?

@AICM

And this only applies to women, not men?

Examples here of wives benefitting from copyright claims over their husband's ideas.

www.google.com/amp/s/news.artnet.com/v/s/news.artnet.com/opinion/can-ex-walk-away-copyright-art-divorce-thorny-artists-rights-questions-answered-1906778/amp-page%3famp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%253D%253D#ampf=

If it applies to men and women equally,it's not sexist.

I'm not surprised intellectual property is considered property for the purposes of divorce. You can sell the copyright, so why shouldn't it be considered a marital asset? I'm a bit surprised NZ courts had ever ruled differently.

What the final settlement should be, though, is tricky because the handling of copyright for individual pieces can have an impact on the value of the artists body of work as a whole. Courts have dealt with this before with companies, though. I don't think it being art should make it different.

Sounds like a very acrimonious divorce, though and that's obviously going to heighten feelings and the risk that he would act maliciously.

Well, as someone who has never been married, and therefore has never looked into the contract, I ask why anyone would consider getting married if your art would become owned by your partner? Is anyone not worried that your thoughts would become owned by someone else?

@doyouwantachuffedybadge

Well, as someone who has never been married, and therefore has never looked into the contract, I ask why anyone would consider getting married if your art would become owned by your partner? Is anyone not worried that your thoughts would become owned by someone else?

Almost everyone who works sells their thoughts. Why should non-artists who marry artists be obliged to put the results of their own labour into the pot on divorce but the artist be allowed to hoard their own?

All those people developing paints or materials, legal concepts, safeguarding processes, cakes, sort algorithms, scientific theories, user manuals, network protocols, new medicines etc. they all sold their thoughts to others one way or another.

My exh attempted to lay claim on my intellectual property after we separated. I wrote a book and a song I wrote was used in a film- both of these were created after our separation, but legally he could have received half my income from these. Luckily it didn't work out in his favour but I wonder if marriage is really worth it for a lot of people.

Whether this disproportionately affects women over men, I couldn't say; however , I recently learned that Karl Marx's wife wrote most of his work, so I wonder how often that pattern is repeated in other marriages.

I don’t think this is a feminist issue - the issue is whether creative output can be viewed as a financial asset. I actually think it’s a good thing that it is seen as something of value.

But @PollyWog very interested to hear more about the Marx thing as a bit of a tangent

If it was me I would burn every piece of my work I could get my hands on. And then I would refuse to produce another piece of work that he might profit from. Or I would produce wonderful works of him with a tiny penis and suggest he sell them.

Then I'd go to court to get it confirmed that future copyright was my own and not shared after which I could start painting again.

@FlipFlops4Me

If it was me I would burn every piece of my work I could get my hands on. And then I would refuse to produce another piece of work that he might profit from. Or I would produce wonderful works of him with a tiny penis and suggest he sell them.

Then I'd go to court to get it confirmed that future copyright was my own and not shared after which I could start painting again.

I would go the opposite and put everything on digital download for free and then just start again. No point in him trying to sell them if they are free to print out and that would legitimately be a clean break.

@FlipFlops4Me

If it was me I would burn every piece of my work I could get my hands on. And then I would refuse to produce another piece of work that he might profit from. Or I would produce wonderful works of him with a tiny penis and suggest he sell them.

Then I'd go to court to get it confirmed that future copyright was my own and not shared after which I could start painting again.

Sounds like his barrister might remind the Court of s25(2)(g) MCA 1973.

This ruling seems like it would be something that would benefit more women than it would negatively affect.

This strikes me as being a very concerning shift. It's one thing to award a share of income deriving from a work, product or service developed during a marriage, but to award a share of decision-making over that work, which essentially this ruling does, seems to overstep the mark massively.

It's a bit like awarding the right for a divorced spouse to say which work contracts an ex-spouse should take, just because the training that qualified ex-spouse did to do the work took place during the marriage.