Joyce Carol Oates wrote this in form of seven reverse order tweets today and it was easier to read copied and pasted:
The issue of "creativity" could be translated into plainer terms: hours spent in work. It requires many hours to write a novel--more than most sane people would wish to expend in the effort. (Yes, you may think some of us write more quickly than others. But not easily.) If prose fiction, poetry, music are simply appropriated--all that time is "stolen" from the creators. Making pots & writing require TIME & in this way are exactly analogous. Appropriating a novel reduces the need, or wish, to buy the physical object, "book." Thus, it is theft of a specific kind.Posted by Dr. Frank at June 17, 2013 03:20 PMWriters, poets, musicians are reluctant to complain because on the whole they--we--enjoy what we do, else we would not be doing it; yet, you would not argue that a teacher should not be paid because she enjoys her work, on the whole. "Money flows away from the artist" is a remark made now with disconcerting frequency, & generally that is so, with uncommon, highly publicized exceptions...