- Borders bankruptcy hearing: To nobody's surprise at all, Judge Glenn agreed at yesterday's hearing to grant Borders a 120-day extension of its exclusive right to present a reorganization plan (order, Doc. 966; opinion, Doc. 969, both PDF). What is most disturbing about this proceeding — as is increasingly clear from the tenor of Judge Glenn's various rulings and opinions, and is required by the Bankruptcy Code (so don't get the idea that I'm criticizing his judgment or anything like that) — is that the parties who are most held hostage by this situation have exactly zero representation on the Creditors' Committee. That's right: There is no author/artist/musician/etc. representation on the Committee, because the direct creditors are the publishers/distributors/record labels/etc. In more high-falutin' terms, licensors have no right to speak, because it is presumed that the licensees will adequately protect the licensors' interests.
Now that you're finished laughing, let's go on to another bit of non-news...
- GBS proceedings: Nothing happened at Wednesday's hearing. The parties asked for more time; Judge Chin granted more time; and the smoke-filled rooms will be abuzz with dealmaking until the next hearing, currently scheduled for 1000 on 19 July 2011.
- I'm still mulling over some indirectly important decisions, such as the patent decision from the Supreme Court earlier this week that will have a large potential effect on both copyright piracy and fair-use determinations. However, that's definitely for another time and forum; a blawg is ill-suited to sophisticated legal argument, and each of these cases is going to get into questions of cross-statute borrowing of reasoning.
- Finally, literary agents are still neither licensed nor regulated. If they had been, a current brouhaha would not be occurring (and SFWA members, among others, know exactly what I'm talking about).
This just in: Osama bin Laden is still dead.