Thread: Vantage points
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Old 12-29-2012, 03:17 PM   #6
Cady Goldfield
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 1,035
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Re: Vantage points

Regarding proprietary material, some thoughts on a couple of vantage points:

Some of the things IMO are proprietary in the sense that they are personal training methods that were not meant for indiscriminate public broadcast. The core concepts are not themselves proprietary, but the means for developing the skills are someone's creative approach and invention, devised not in a vacuum, of course (everyone stands on the shoulders of giants, after all), but nevertheless a unique and individualized system of training.

It's one thing for IP teachers to state to those training with them that they should (or must) share it with their own students; another thing altogether, for relative- or complete strangers on the Internet to demand specifics about training, videos, etc.

When there is no personal relationship or oversight by the original teacher, information can be scattered to the four winds and claimed by many as their own... with no guarantee that they are actually doing it the way (and to the same result) as the originator. There has to be some modicum of quality control over the material. I'm not talking about stylistic tweaks - but of wholesale misinterpretations of the core concepts and bodywork themselves that lead to something else that does not have the integrity of the original.

That said, some teachers will say that their arts are self-selecting, meaning that even if their personal, creative training methods are broadcast and scattered to the winds, out on YouTube in numerous instructional videos, or "stolen" by casual seminar attendees, only the most dedicated individuals will actually do the work and make something of it.

So, they either try to maintain some kind of oversight, so people at least know and honestly state where their methods came from, or they let it go and let the chips fall where they may.

Or, they copyright their method and system name, and treat it as a business. Or, they only teach the whole enchilada to one or two people, and give the rest varying degrees of various skills, and forbid them to go out on their own and teach it (but if they do, they have to call it something else).

But for us to claim that all material should belong to the world and everyone, including unique training methods that some individual's hard work and creativity devised... well, that should be up to the individual creator to decide. Why is it so difficult to consider this? Why can't I play "Rite of Spring" on my penny whistle and claim that I wrote it? Maybe because some people will suspect I ripped off Stravinsky, no? But I can claim that I am doing a cover of Stravinsky and have adapted it for penny whistle. That, people might accept. "Rite of Spring" may belong to the world as a treasure of human creativity; anyone can play it, whether in a symphonic orchestra or on a tin whistle, but it is still Stravinsky's creative invention, proprietary to him, and he must be credited as its creator if we are to maintain our own integrity.

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 12-29-2012 at 03:32 PM.
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