Shakespeare, a poet, wrote the line “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” for the character Jack Cade in the Henry VI cycle, and it refers to Cade’s vision of a utopian, social revolution in which he would be dictator. Of course, the irony is that when it comes to establishing or maintaining autocratic rule, one must ...
I am dying to hear the rationale for this one. According to several stories this morning, Quentin Tarantino is suing Gawker for leaking and promoting access to the full screenplay for a feature in late-stage development called The Hateful Eight. According to the LA Times, the director says he’s depressed over the leak and is shelving the production, but meanwhile, ...
Last week, Pandora CEO Tim Westergren, appearing on a forum called PandoMonthly, said a strange thing while defending against criticisms streaming services received in 2013 from name-brand artists. He said the following: “The industry has for a long time been propped up by a product where you’re paying $20 for something you really wanted to pay $1 for. Maybe you ...
The subject of copyright terms kept popping up last week, so I’ll take the message and dive in. I should be clear that I don’t have a strong opinion as to exactly what terms would be optimal at this point. Or to be more accurate, I don’t have the legal experience to account for all the implications of moving the ...
As the debate will no doubt rage (or stomp its feet) on the subject of copyright review in the coming year, one subject that will assuredly be on the table will be the terms of copyright (i.e. how long ownership can last). There is a persistent assumption that these terms are somehow the exclusive privilege of large corporations. As Robert ...
