Tag Archives | IP

iRad I.3 in Print, iRad I.2 Online

The third issue (Spring 2013) of The Industrial Radical will be back from the printers and on its way to subscribers shortly, featuring articles by Less Antman, Jason Lee Byas, Kevin Carson, Nathan Goodman, Anthony Gregory, Trevor Hultner, Charles Johnson, Joshua Katz, Thomas L. Knapp, Abby Martin, Chad Nelson, Sheldon Richman, Jeremy Weiland, and your humble correspondent, on topics ranging from NSA surveillance and whistleblowing, the Turkish revolt, the Boston lockdown, the Keystone XL pipeline, intellectual property, and the futility of gun control in an age of 3-D printing, to compulsory schooling, American militarism, conscription, worker exploitation, property rights, prison ethics, rape culture, the pros and cons of communism, and the dubious legacy of Margaret Thatcher.

The Industrial Radical I.3 (Spring 2013)

With each new issue published, we post the immediately preceding issue online. Hence a free pdf file of our second issue (Winter 2013) is now available here. (See the first issue also.)

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Mars Attacks! or, Other Business Models Are Possible

As everyone knows, without copyrights there would be no way to fund creative art, particularly expensive art like motion pictures.

Meanwhile, in the real world, and in a mere 10-hour period, Veronica Mars fans have pledged $2 million via Kickstarter (at an average of $62.50 per backer) to produce a Veronica Mars movie.

(I’ve never watched the show, so my gladness is generic and political rather than specific and fannish.)


It Could Be Smugglers, It Could Be Pirates

So, in a quiet little move that will probably attract scant attention, Disney has bought Lucasfilm and is planning a third Star Wars trilogy.

A New Hope indeed.

Now my feelings about the Disney company are much like the Rebel Alliance’s feelings about the Death Star (mainly for their fantastically excessive abuse of the bad-anyway IP system). All the same, I can’t help thinking this might be a positive development. Lucas’s strengths are in coming up with ideas, and directing big special-effects scenes; but his weaknesses are in writing scripts and directing actors. That’s why the original trilogy was better than the prequels. And the original 1977 film (the only entry in the original trilogy to be written or directed by Lucas) was good because Lucas was still listening to advice in those days, from his movie-industry friends like Spielberg and Coppola, and even from the actors (which is why Luke doesn’t shout “Nooooooo!” when he finds his dead aunt and uncle, as Lucas had intended); but Lucas has long since become a white hole, from which information can exit but never enter. While the Avengers films have had their flaws, Disney has made some creative, outside-the-box choices for directors and screenwriters there; and for all my grumbles I even liked John Carter more than most people did. So I think wresting the lightsabre from Lucas’s cold live fingers might open similar opportunities for the Star Wars franchise.

There was a time when I would have been worried that Disney would try to make Star Wars too cutesey. But it hasn’t done that with the Avengers; plus after Jar Jar there’s not much deeper one can sink into that particular hole.


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