Artists Rights

A philosophical question:

Should an artist have a right to a copy of their own work?

What does being an artist have to do with this discussion?

Of course, this assumes that the artist has the right to make the work at all. (Some things never should have been made at all, such as many weapons.)

I claim that an artist has an inalienable right to make and keep a copy of their own work, if the work is ethical to make at all. The artist may choose to not make a copy for themselves (perhaps because it would be too expensive to do so), but they cannot sign this right away. If this right is inconsistent with copyright and patent laws, then it shows that the law is wrong, not that the artist is wrong.

-- RedHat

Note that this claim does not include:

The right to use the work of art.
The right to distribute more copies of the work.

Those are separate questions. -- BlueHat

Discussion:

Is there any way to keep this from becoming a flame war? -- BlueHat

What do you mean by "right to a copy"? Right to do what? In the case of a picture, "use" presumably means "look at it". If they can't do that, what can they do? What good would the right be?

A possible basis for the "right to a copy":

A work of art is a creation of the artist's mind (and hands, etc.)
The artist has a moral right to remember the creation.
The artist should have a right to ensure that the information needed to recreate the work of art is not arbitrarily or accidentally destroyed.

#2 above seems to use 'right' where 'responsibility' might have been intended. Is that so?

No. The artist is not required to remember the creation. The artist might choose to forget the creation, or have a stroke, or die. But if the artist chooses to remember it, they have an inalienable moral right to do so.

Copyrighted works are 'expressions of an idea'. You can't copyright the idea, only its expression.

Artists can create and then have no further concern for their creation. Consider a sidewalk caricature artist, a jazz soloist, an extemporaneous performance artist, ...

Consider this: under current copyright law, any person has the right to create works-for-hire, and works-for-hire assign copyright to the employer. Sure, non-exclusive agreements can be worked out, but perhaps there is more compensation possible with an exclusive agreement. Saying that an artist has a moral right to retain some control over their creative output means they lose the freedom of choosing to work-for-hire. This argument only works if you morally equate work-for-hire to slavery or some other form of unfair contract.