Gao Xingjian Quotes

I'm pretty ruthless about that; I think when you sign over your story, you sign over your story.

I think that one of the most useful applications of the Creator's Bill of Rights is that it clearly indicates for creators what rights they have at the outset.

I want all of my films to belong to me.

I believe that artists should be paid for their creativity. There's no other industry where people can come in and take what you create for free and give it away for free and that's acceptable.

A lot of artists are much more concerned about how their work is used and how it's disseminated. That, to artists, is as important as the money, for some people.

If we're talking about someone creating something new, those rights are fairly well defined (in the United States, at least) under existing copyright law. But then there's often discussion about the rights of people who produce works under work-for-hire arrangements, which can be far more subtle and nuanced.

Hollywood wants to own everything. I don't want to own anything. I don't want people just to make content, I want to empower and teach them to create content they own that they can exploit in any medium.

Certainly, my many years working in the comics industry, creating products that I do not own, has made me rather fierce on the subject of giving up rights.

I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.

I don't take story input from fans.

I was just finishing high school and entering college in 1988, when the Creator's Bill of Rights was drafted, and had already set my sights on building a career as a writer of comics. Discovering the Creator's Bill of Rights - in an issue of 'The Comics Journal,' if I'm not mistaken - I accepted it as gospel.

The way I look at it is that once you create a piece of art, and it's out in the world, there's nothing you can do about it. People can use it the way they want to. There's nothing you can do about it. All you can hope for is that people that are using it are using it with the best intent.

As you know, in America there's no rights for the artist, so whatever films I've made kind of belong to the studio, so if they want to remake it they can.

I think as an artist or a writer it's OK to want to control your own work.

The funny thing in France is that writers are not allowed to retire, because the French government say you are still earning money from books you wrote 20 years ago.

If people have bought something of mine, they know by now that I will decline writing it for the movies.

The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea.

In America there's no rights for the artist, so whatever films I've made kind of belong to the studio.

It's just hard. I wish the studios felt there was more value in these themes and these pieces of material - that they're worth protecting more. Because then it just wouldn't happen. If the studios cared, the stuff would be stopped in a second.

But here's the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.

Before our albums are released I feel like we still own it, that we have control over our music. But once it's out there in the world it's no longer ours.

I've made six films for Disney, and they have a clause in their contracts called the morality clause that I've always refused to sign.

If we want good stories, writers should be given their due.

Writers should be respected.

We need to create technologies - and a culture of respect, and an updated legal doctrine, too - that allow creative folks to make money from their own efforts.