derivative work

Another in a series of interesting links & quotes from writers & creators about their ideas about ideas and information. Mercedes Lackey, a popular fantasy writer & protegee of Marion Zimmer Bradley, has this interesting essay on plagiarism. I’ve extracted relevant quotes: … People tend to use th[e] term ["plagiarism"] incorrectly all the time. … [...]

Le Guin editorial on how she has used race in her books, including the Earthsea books, and how the Sci-Fi miniseries got it wrong, wrong, wrong. A Whitewashed Earthsea – How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books. By Ursula K. Le Guin

Thank you, global warming purveyors: Tahoe City — Global warming seems to have reached the lowest depths of Lake Tahoe, scientists warned Monday, potentially complicating plans to preserve the lake’s fabled water clarity and biological health. A new study by researchers at UC Davis suggests the lake has heated by nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit since [...]

This isn’t completely new news — I’ve been following the story for a few days (weeks?). The Dover, Pennsylvania, school board was taken over by anti-evolution Christians who wish to teach “intelligent design.” But in reading another story [in Salon.com, 12/13] about the situation, I started to get annoyed & ranty. School boards are political [...]

Unbelievable: At times the federal appeals court has been unfathomable to its critics. Last December, for instance, it considered the last-minute appeal of Billy Frank Vickers, scheduled to die for the killing of a grocer in 1993. With the inmate already given his last meal, the judges deliberated until 9 p.m. and announced they were [...]

frank rich does it again with a rather fabulous editorial (“The Plot Against Sex in America”) in the 12/12 NYT. He ties together the current right-wing furor against the movie “Kinsey”, the knee-jerk media self-censorship of all things “indecent” or political, and junk science being pushed by the Bush administration.

A good friend taped the Emma Goldman documentary a few months ago, but I hadn’t watched it until this weekend — I was captive in a TV room while packing, and didn’t want to take a VHS tape to my new home which will have neither a VCR nor a TV. A few nits to [...]

Grokster cert granted [12/10] Customs seizure of the Stripburger comic book parody of Richie Rich (“Richie Bush”) — it was “clearly piratical.” Covered by

Jason Schultz (EFF) has a new article in Salon.com [subscription or ad] about the problems of patents (mostly software or business method, I’ll note) being sold with dot-bust companies. In a nutshell, patents lock up ideas rather closely; when patent-holding companies go bust, those patents are placed in the hopper with all the other “property”, [...]

according to scotus blog, the court granted cert in grokster. [order 12/10] Opening briefs (and neutral and supporting amici) due Jan. 24. Opposition brief (and supporting briefs) due Feb. 28. Oral arguments in March.

Canada’s Supreme Court has given its official advisory opinion re: same-sex marriage, basically giving the green light to federal legislation to authorize same-sex marriage nation-wide. The Yukon Territory and six of ten provinces have already struck down opposite-sex-only marriage requirements, allowing couples to marry regardless of gender. [cite - from ping] — News | canada.com [...]

The film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” is being edited to “remove references to God and the church.” Apparently Pullman is understanding, and recognizes that “You have to recognise that it is a challenge in the climate of Bush’s America.” The book is all about “God and the church.” If they cut that [...]

altercation / 2004-08-17 Name: Brian Thomas Hometown: Portland, Oregon Eric, I’ve been out on the streets of Portland, Oregon five days of every week registering progressive voters. Today I met up with Portland’s most famous author and anarchist, Ursula K. LeGuin (The Dispossessed, The Left-Hand of Darkness, The Earth-Sea Trilogy, etc.) while she was buying [...]

salon.com’s wednesday morning download rags on the Band Aid project, but i liked this comment: And where can you find this delightful song? Well, if you live in the United States, where it’s not available for sale, you can do as I did and go to your favorite file-sharing network and download a copy — [...]

open source gaming: Wired News: Gamers Eye Open Virtual Worlds Lots of interesting implications: May solve the problem of over-reaching EULAs that ban all kinds of lawful & fair uses May stop the kinds of top-down censorship and controls that are characteristic of the EA / Peter Ludlow / Sims story A perfect example of [...]

someone keeps stealing my letters…: Just Letters i tried to get people to dance with their letters, first by demonstrating (wiggling a letter around flirtatiously) and then by spelling out lets dance … nobody else seemed to pick up on it. or maybe they just weren’t interested? longest lasting words that i placed on the [...]

Thanks to the Third Circuit, I have a new word for the day: “aleatoric”. It means “characterized by chance or indeterminate elements” according to m-w.com. Hmm, I think. Like Jackon Pollock. Or Pollack. So I went online to figure out whether it was in fact Pollock or Pollack, which I did simply by Googling “Jackson [...]

right hook on salon.com covers the right-wing press so you don’t have to. Writing in the Christian news outlet Agape Press this week, Pugh takes note of Christian activist Joe Glover’s directive that Evangelicals, flush with Republican wins from the White House to Capitol Hill, now have every right to demand that gays be booted [...]

File-Sharing 8/4/2003 – London, UK my thoughts on file-sharing? well, as i’ve said before i’m happy and flattered if anyone makes the effort to listen to my music, regardless of the medium by which it’s delivered. i’m glad that the apple i-store exists, because that seems like a potentially healthy way of dealing with this [...]

two major networks who are permitted to broadcast their for-profit programming and advertisements, for free, over the airwaves, have decided that, in accordance with their “no advocacy” policy, they will reject ads from the Universal Church of Christ (UCC) which, according to them, is “advocacy”: The ads say: “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do [...]