讲 座 信 息

主题：Beyond the Canvas: Identity Consistency and Judgments of Copying in Visual Arts

时间：2024年12月20日（周五）13:30-15:30

地点：浙江大学紫金港西区成均苑8幢1017

摘要：Laws are always ambiguous, with room for various interpretations (Valverde, 2011; Lukes & Scull, 2017), especially those related to intangible rights (He, 2022). When legal norms regulating behaviors are ambiguous, how do individuals discern between norm abidance and norm violation in their daily lives? Why are similar behaviors seen as legitimate in certain situations but criticized as transgression in others? While juristic studies focus on the substantive content of the behavior, law & society studies emphasize individual characteristics of the norm target (Settersten 2004, Mamo 2007, Villalobos 2014, Ridgeway 2014), especially community-based status. A common perception is that people tend to be more lenient with individuals who are “authentic,” i.e., dedicated to their community (Chambliss, 1973; Reilly, 2018).

Yet, one question unanswered is, how can we account for the uneven judgments directed at those 'strangers' outside one's immediate community? Observations suggest that individuals might criticize one stranger while tolerating another, even if both exhibit the same potentially norm-violating behavior. Given that community membership does not make a difference here, why does this discrepancy occur, and what mechanisms are at play? To address these questions, I conducted fieldwork in Montreal from February to June 2023 to explore visual artists' framings of imitation and copyright infringement. Contrary to the widely held belief that esteemed artists are given more leeway, I discovered that early-stage artists are often treated more leniently for imitation, whereas established artists face greater criticism.  

Analysis reveals that, two major mechanisms are at play here in shaping people’s legal consciousness. One is "labeling," where positive labels may be ascribed to peers, portraying imitation as unintentional or justified. The other is "expectation," where challenged expectations on artists can lead to harsh judgments. The question is, which mechanism will dominate in specific cases? This study finds that, it largely relates to the consistency of potential transgressors' artist identities as perceived based on their extant work portfolio, or simply, perceived identity consistency (PIC). In general, artists tend to interpret imitations as copyright infringement or even "imposture" when they disrupt the PIC of the potential transgressor, but label them as "normal referencing" when they don’t. That is, the judgment on copyright violations of strangers is not solely based on the content of individual works or the potential transgressor's reputation, but the interaction between the two as perceived. Further analysis elucidates that, for professional artists, perceived identity consistency encompasses multiple dimensions, namely style, career stage, and effort.

主讲人：贺巧玲，浙江大学社会学系百人计划研究员

麦吉尔大学社会学博士，研究兴趣主要包括法律社会学中的如下议题：法律全球化、制度移植与产业发展、法律变化与社会意识、知识产权的社会实践等。其研究发表于Social Problems, Asian Journal of Law and Society, Asian Education and Development Studies 等期刊。

评议人：沈阳，浙江大学社会学系新百人计划研究员

波士顿大学人类学博士，研究领域主要包括宗教人类学（含世俗主义相关问题）、仪式与社会理论、知识论等。其研究发表在Material Religion, Journal of Chinese Humanities等杂志上。

主持人：戴良灏，浙江大学社会学系百人计划研究员

哥廷根大学社会学博士，研究领域包括科学社会学，科学与技术研究（STS），社会网理论，认知图等。当下重点关注科学知识生产过程中的跨学科合作问题和学术劳动问题。相关研究论文和报告发表在Nature，Natureindex，ACM-KDD，EASST Review，Social Network Analysis: Interdisciplinary Approaches and Case Studies等刊著上。