Recently, I’ve spent time on Netflix catching up on nearly all the TV series based on various Marvel and DC Comics properties. By and large, in their own context, these shows are very good; and in some regards, they’re exceptional. Certainly, the overall quality of these programs is consistent with the general renaissance of the small screen that has taken ...
In Part I of this essay, I responded to a post written by Parker Higgins for Techdirt, criticizing him for trying to pack a big, unexamined conclusion into a small article. Asserting, as Techdirtians are want to do, that copyright is the omnipresent saboteur in our otherwise grand, digital machine, Higgins blames copyright’s complexity and length of terms for causing ...
Given the way information tends to distort at lighting speed these days—particularly through the filter of tech v copyright referenced in my last post—I’m not surprised to read articles like this one by Ellen Duffer writing for Forbes on a thesis proposing reasons why Google Books is “good for publishers.” And it’s not that everything she says is incorrect so ...
View image | gettyimages.com With the release this month of Netflix’s first official feature film Beasts of No Nation, the rental-turned-streaming service continues to prove itself a fierce competitor in the filmed entertainment industry—not only as a producer of award-winning projects, but as the preeminent, game-changing distributor having a dramatic influence on both traditional distribution models and viewer habits. This ...
In Part I of this essay, I argued that although Shakespeare’s plays do comprise myriad precedent works, his biography and manner of production provide little guidance for a conversation about the role of modern copyright as it relates to derivative works and the need to build upon existing works. And when it comes to skepticism about the incentive role of ...
