Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.
Beware the Ides of April
Slightly late Monday Miscellany. On Tuesday. (So sue me — I need the business ;-)
First, let's get one thing out of the way: I know perfectly well that technically, the Ides of April does not fall on the fifteenth. It's just so appropriate, though.
It's pretty apparent to me that Chief Justice Roberts does, indeed, have a sense of humor. How else can one explain today's two Supreme Court opinions? Unanimity is hard enough to reach on that court; two unanimous opinions on the same day is even harder. And, best yet, they're both on taxes, and both rather easy cases.
Then, on the other hand, there's the leniency toward corporate misconduct that has become the trend in law since the early 1980s, and only accelerated under this Administration. What bothers me the most about the news frenzy surrounding white-collar-crime prosecutions of senior corporate officers is not the substance — even when the prosecutions seem somewhat dubious — but the self-reinforcing frenzy itself.
As usual, a couple of bizarre notes from the music world. First, in one of his usual rhetorical overstatements, Norman Lebrecht claims that Karajan killed classical music. (After his book of a couple of years ago, shouldn't we just give Lebrecht the executioner's axe and be done with it?) There's more than a hint of truth to this accusation, but not for quite the reasons that Lebrecht asserts: In a very broad sense, performing classical music is a collaboration, and the problem with Karajan was that he was willing to collaborate only with himself. I suppose that beats focussing on acoustic instruments, though.
Then there's the question of territorial rights, which tends to get both the questions and the long-term interests inverted. In the long term, it is not in authors' interests to subdivide territories for territorial rights; that only encourages Balkanization of both markets and accounting, not to mention other rights. Unfortunately, getting to the long term requires surviving the short term, so this argument is — naturally — extremely unclear.
I was absolutely shocked to find some decent reporting at Variety on Tim Robbins's NAB keynote address. (OTOH, the reporter isn't a Variety lifer, so maybe I shouldn't be quite so surprised.) Robbins's speech also bears some consideration in the publishing industry, but it's not going to get any.
Last, and far from least, the reporting of the Harry Potter Lexicon case is only making clearer that Warner Brothers' trademark interests, far more than Rowling's copyright interests, are driving the lawsuit. Although Rowling's testimony yesterday was from a copyright holder/creator's perspective, the questions from plaintiffs' counsel — representing her interests — were from a trademark and dilution/disparagement/passing-off perspective, even when put in the formal language of copyright claims.
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constitute legal advice for your situation. It does not create an attorney-client relationship or any other
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Archives
Warped Weft
Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of
the more infamous threads that have appeared here
by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some
of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.
The Public Library of Law can help you
find the law... but not use it in court, as many of its resources are not in proper form and do not provide
all of the citation information needed in court papers
Legal, free e-books are available through
Online Books (University of Pennsylvania)
and Shakespeare (MIT)
Legal, free music is available through
ClassicCat.net
(what kind of music do you think you'll find here?)
These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree
with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and
represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have
eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.
A blawg is sort of like a blog on legal issues, but
usually has a lot more links to outside resources (other than other blogs) than does a typical blog.
Scrivener's Error is a blawg, not just a blog. You can find other blawgs at <?law blogs#>.
How Appealing
is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal
news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far
better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To
concentrate on the Supreme Court, don't forget
SCOTUSBlog.
Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:
BoingBoing, by speculative fiction writer
(and 'net
activist) Cory Doctorow, is quite hostile to copyright enforcement efforts, particularly
regarding file-sharing
The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a
less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance
Cyberlaw (Stanford) has its agenda
grounded firmly in the so-called "digital commons," which might make a bit more sense if any of the
advocates of that viewpoint understood diddly-squat about population ecology
The American Constitution Society blawg
is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called
"Federalist Society" (which, despite
its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe
that's all to the good.
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Scrivener's Error
at 1024x768.