Other than a single oblique reference to attending an official Star Trek convention in my last entry, I haven't really posted around here about the fact that I've been doing a bunch of con-related travelling lately--especially to Worldcon, having gone to both Dublin 2019 in Ireland and DisCon III in Washington this past December ( Read more... )

While most people this week were paying more attention to the ruling that "Happy Birthday" is in the public domain after all (a case I alluded to briefly in my last post about copyright)--and I was certainly entertained to see every same-day show I watched after that ruling feature a rendition of that song--another ruling, involving copyright law ( Read more... )

It's been a while since I've talked at all about copyright issues with fictional franchises around here--whether it was related to the legal status of fan fiction or more ambiguous media tie-ins--but enough has been going on in that realm lately that it seems worth geeking out about once more.

First off, the Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sued ( Read more... )

While most people, especially in the States, have been wrapped up with Super Tuesday (I Grok Barack, if you're curious), I noticed something else happening online...but first, I should probably provide a bit of background.

After the release of Serenity, Pocket Books had a contract to publish original tie-in novels based on the franchise. (They had ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to post my thoughts on the Organization for Transformative Works ever since first hearing about it at jack_pride's delightful Christmas shindig, and then doing an embarrassing amount of my own research over the holidays.

Whenever that comes, it'll be a very long and (in all likelihood) very legalistic entry--which may bore some or all of ( Read more... )

I was rather annoyed to discover last night that someone on eBay has been repeatedly selling a set of items pilfered from the Web, all of them related to Firefly and Serenity...including printed copies of my own Firefly Timeline, with my name removed.

There is a current auction of one of these sets, but a quick look at the seller's feedback ( Read more... )