This post is going to be much less defensive than if I'd written it as originally intended several years ago.

Back when I included this on a list of potential blogging topics, my not being on Facebook received protestations from some people in my life which were mostly of the "that seems silly and pointless" variety. With a corner seemingly turned ( Read more... )

It has now been ten years since I first posted a holiday message on here, and a great deal has changed since then, so I wasn't sure what note I should strike this time around...

I ended up settling on something with some parallels to last year's holiday post (but nevertheless providing a balance of cynicism and resolve when it comes to both the ( Read more... )

The most commonly reported statistic on Star Trek tie-in fiction is that its readership is generally about 1-2% of the larger audience for the franchise as a whole.

In the hope that a rising tide raises all boats, and a larger audience for Star Trek: Discovery equals a larger audience for the tie-ins, let's move some paper and list the most recent ( Read more... )

With the thirtieth anniversary year of the original Highlander having come to a close and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Highlander: The Series now upon us, I wanted to create an outline for the multiple continuities that exist in that franchise similar to the approach I took with The Terminator and its sequels so people will (hopefully) be less ( Read more... )

Staying in the habit of holiday posts usually makes for a fun and lighthearted occasion, as it did in 2015, but this year has taken a turn worse than most...

As such, I had long since decided that I was going to offer up "Christmas at Ground Zero," the holiday classic from the album Polka Party! by Weird Al Yankovic, only to find that its themes ( Read more... )

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I fell out of the habit of holiday posts for a while before returning with them in 2013 and 2014, so I thought I'd endeavour to maintain the habit now while still mixing it up with this song from "Regional Holiday Music," a third-season episode of Community--not in an effort to be raunchy, but because the song is surprisingly catchy:

Click to view

Happy ( 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... )

For all that I have now spent decades loving The Terminator and its various spinoffs and sequels, that franchise has grown to have many contradictions and inconsistencies depending on who is controlling the rights and licences at the time ( 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... )