- Borders Bankruptcy Update: Books-a-Million has pulled out of its partial purchase arrangement and option. This is not entirely surprising, although it is somewhat disappointing. What this means is that those thirty-odd Borders locations that appeared to have been granted a reprieve are going to close after all. What this means for proposed purchase(s) of Barnes & Noble is another thing entirely, especially since people are talking about "synergy this" and "synergy that" regarding potential purchasers... and those of us with medium-term memories have some idea of the pitfalls that raises.
- The 1709 Blog deserves a far-wider readership than it gets, because it provides excellent analysis of copyright issues from a European perspective that Americans just usually don't consider or comprehend. For example, consider this cogent analysis of trademark versus copyright protection for characters and settings, or a report on a colloquy with an actual creator of intellectual property about piracy. And unlike most lawyers, Dr Phillips does not consider the English language merely a platform for pontification. Recommended for authors, even those without law degrees.
- I am not at all amazed by the fight between the center and the right over the US debt ceiling and government spending. I've known from the beginning that Obama is no liberal; he's a centrist with some liberal impulses. So it looks like we'll have a bad alternative imposed on us by an unelected dictator... because I sure as hell had no say over who the next Speaker would be in the last election, given that I live in a rotten borough.
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Law and reality in publishing and entertainment (seldom the same thing) from the creator's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into politics, military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting. |
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