It is such an outrageous assertion of copyright control, it makes me sick. And that an author would take the stand in support of such a bold-faced attempt at silencing scholarship for the sake of profit makes me even more sick
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interesting. you're much smarter about these things than i am, but wouldn't this be considered a derivative work? i mean, didn't gregory hamilton have to get permission from l. frank. baum before he published "wicked?"
i read the article and came away from it not thinking that she was being greedy at all. i mean, she created these characters, so why should someone else be making money off of it? maybe i'm just being naive.
he's not making money off the characters so much as off the work he's done analysing them (and the books in which they exist). it's no more a 'derivative' than The Spenser Encyclopedia or A Faulkner Encyclopedia or any number of other literary encyclopaedias, which are critical material and do not require authorial permission (not least b/c the authors are dead, of course).
again, the only distinction is that there is a possible popular market for this. no one gets rich writing a Shakespeare encyclopaedia (of which there are several), and nor are there movie studios involved trying to protect their 'branded content'. but someone might make a little money of this venture, so down the litigators swoop...
all of those things you mentioned are now in the public domain, and that's the difference, i think. a shakespeare encyclopedia isn't an issue because there's no copyright law protecting that work.
you can't print anything relating to mickey mouse without disney's approval - does that bother you, too?
but properly cited scholarship comes under the realm of fair use.
as far as disney goes, scholars can publish cultural studies work about mickey or any other character as much as they like. preventing them would absolutely violate the first amendment. that's a lot of articles. i doubt quite seriously anyone approached the Disney Co. before publishing "How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic"
"but properly cited scholarship comes under the realm of fair use."
i actually am not sure that's a totally true statement.
and maybe i just get the impression that this case is more fictional and fun than a serious study along the lines of your "imperialist ideology" example.
we might just disagree. maybe i've been working in rights & clearances too long?
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i read the article and came away from it not thinking that she was being greedy at all. i mean, she created these characters, so why should someone else be making money off of it? maybe i'm just being naive.
Reply
again, the only distinction is that there is a possible popular market for this. no one gets rich writing a Shakespeare encyclopaedia (of which there are several), and nor are there movie studios involved trying to protect their 'branded content'. but someone might make a little money of this venture, so down the litigators swoop...
Reply
you can't print anything relating to mickey mouse without disney's approval - does that bother you, too?
Reply
as far as disney goes, scholars can publish cultural studies work about mickey or any other character as much as they like. preventing them would absolutely violate the first amendment. that's a lot of articles. i doubt quite seriously anyone approached the Disney Co. before publishing "How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic"
Reply
i actually am not sure that's a totally true statement.
and maybe i just get the impression that this case is more fictional and fun than a serious study along the lines of your "imperialist ideology" example.
we might just disagree. maybe i've been working in rights & clearances too long?
Reply
Reply
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