Ramblings to distract myself before making dinner

[shadowkat]

Since job thing-a-mig is currently driving me batty, am distracting myself flitting about on my lj and looking at emails, and pressing the back button alot. Currently feel as if the universe is biting its thumb at me, and saying n'yah, n'yah, n'yah.

Things that I've distracted myself with today:

1. Copyright battle between Universal and CafePRess. Which has the Firefly fandom up in arms. I wandered over and put in my two cents at Whedonesque. Okay it was more like my five cents, but whatever. It is an interesting case - not the part about the infringement, the Serenity artwork in question was clearly in violation of Universal's copyright - or at least what I saw of it was, no what is interesting about it is the possible defense. Or rather in non-legalese, the thing that has the browncoats so pissed off. Universal as everyone knows used the existing Firefly fanbase to sell Serenity. Instead of spending millions of dollars on a promotional marketing campaign for the film, they went the guerilla marketing route and had the fans sell it to fellow fans. This saved them quite a bit of money, it also cost them a bit - because fans tend to only pass the word to freinds, family and well fellow fans - and those people would have seen the movie without a marketing campaign. The tv shows fanbase can't sell the film to the mainstream - non-cult, non-fan audience, which is off-net. And like it or not, for a movie or tv show to do *really* well or at least well enough to justify a sequel - it has to appeal to that broader audience. (Cases in point: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter). So in a way, Universal's gamble didn't quite work out the way they wanted it to. My question is when Universal asked the shows fans to market the film did they give them permission to produce t-shirts, cups, fan-art on posters, etc - and did they do it in writing? If the fans can prove they did, and prove that it was not permission just for "promotional" reasons - then Universal may have a problem.


2. President Bush has expressed his dissatisfaction with what is happening in Iraq. He doesn't think things are going well over there - Or so I was told by ABC News. LOL! Say what you will about the current US Prez, but he certainly has a gift for stating the obvious. Now if only he'd admit that he's dissatisfied with the current economy, health insurance, and unemployment situation in the US and thinks that yes, perhaps the anti-trust law needs to be strengthened again to discourage all these stupid mergers and acquisitions that are causing people to get laid-off right and left.

3. Good news Studio 60 fans, while the show is not doing great ratings wise (no surprise there, after this week's episode, I've decided that I'm not the only one who is thinking it is too bright for tv - I think the writer of the show has also decided it is too bright for tv and has decided to tell us so. That said, die-hard fans, all 1000 of them, still adore it.), the income level of the fans watching is in the networks happy radar range - 69,000 and above. In short they are rich folks. No, wait, they aren't counting me. The currently unemployed folks. Goes to show you, market research is hardly an exact science. Also the network is behind it. Even though the network is currently trying to avoid bankruptcy and about to layoff a thousand employees, but hey, we'll ignore that, because Prez Bush says the economy is doing just peachy (if you say so, Mr. President) and guess what NBC Nightly News is beating ABC and CBS? Hee. Again no surprise. Considering it's the only one of the big three that is not touting the corporate line and actually presenting the news. ABC's Gibson's conservatism has begun to annoy me. I didn't like Katie Kouric when she was doing the Today Show.

4. Am tempted to swipe buffyannatator unpopular fandom opinions meme - it provides multiple opportunities for me to make sarcastic remarks, which will undoubtedly piss off my flist. So am resisting. We'll see how long that lasts. Been pressing the back button all day long.

5. Oh and a bit of good news, the New Jersey Supreme Court has figured out why not permitting same-sex marriage is a bad thing and granted certain legal rights to homosexual partners that used to only be granted to heterosexual ones. Okay for people who know zip about Property and Family Law - I'll clarify - basically, when two people get married this grants the person's spouse certain legal rights in case say their partner gets ill or dies or has a kid or they buy a house together. The reason people get married (ignoring the whole religious aspect of it for a moment) is so the state recognizes them as a couple and grants them certain legal rights as a couple. They can file taxes jointly (which in some instances gives you a tax break), if they buy a house - it is in both of their names and if something should happen to one of the two, the other one automatically has right of ownership. If someone is hospitalized, their spouse or partner has the right to oversee their care, sign off on surgery, ensure their bills are paid, etc. If they die, the surviving partner gets the shared property - it does not go "intestate" or to surviving family members. If one is working and has insurance and the other doesn't - the insurance can cover both as a "married" couple. That's why it is important. The religious/morality bit should not come into play here at all - if it does come into play - then you fall into a dilemma because - hello, last time I checked there was another nifty constitutional clause stating "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state". Us agnostics and athesists would really like that clause to stay in there.

Comments

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

I wonder why the government didn't go the civil union route earlier? No doubt they were afraid of offending the religious, but there's a lot of differences even between religions regarding sacraments. For example, my Methodist father-in-law baptized our kids, and I had to get special permission from the priests for the kids to get their First Communion. It always makes me amazed when people talk about how marriage is sacred and under the purview of God, since it basically started out as a business transaction.

ABC is becoming like Fox. Big mistake, when the national mood is changing. There's a reason Bill O'Reilly's ratings are going down and Keith Olbermann's are going up. I saw part of the press conference this morning and Bush looked, as always, resentful that he had to cajole the nation to go along with his plans. He has done the one deadly thing in politics--come to believe his own spin. He actually thinks that because he never sees dissent that it doesn't occur. He is convinced that he is in the right. But the slow, five-year build-up of bad economic indicators is coming to a head. *Lots* of people are underemployed and existing on credit. I read some economic news yesterday regarding the housing market that scared the pants off me. I spend a lot of time hoping that due to human nature there will always be a need for lawyers!

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Yeah I'm really worried that Universal is going to drag this young woman into court because she just isn't doing enough to satisfy their complaint. It turns out that she DID get a C&D, but she merely removed obvious logos, and thought that that was enough to comply. That picture of the ship I showed you? She removed the word "Serenity" but left the Chinese characters and the quote, so it is still too obviously a trademark violation.... Someone at Whedonesque posted a link to a website called http://www.chillingeffects.org/ and I'm hoping they will give her some good advice (it would be so much wiser for her to close down her cafepress shop completely right now).
Personally I took down every single thing that was even remotely Firefly/Serenity related, because I'm a big coward (but I did leave my Discworld stuff up! LOL)

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

3) Yay!!!

4) You should! I will too. And then we can read each other's opinions and get really annoyed. But then we'll remember that diversity is the spice of life, and it'll all be good ;)

5) Well, yes. All excellent points. Too bad a good majority of Americans (and to be fair, a good number of Canadians too) don't quite see the situation the way you do! Alas.

last time I checked there was another nifty constitutional clause stating "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state". Us agnostics and athesists would really like that clause to stay in there.

Well, I'm a "mainstream" Christian and I'd like that clause to stay in there too :)

[tyreseus.livejournal.com]

hello, last time I checked there was another nifty constitutional clause stating "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state". Us agnostics and athesists would really like that clause to stay in there.

Well, technically, the concept of "separation of church and state" - as we know it - is largely a matter of judicial opinion. Religious folks argue that while the state can't establish a religion or prohibit anyone from believing as they will, it doesn't prohibit religious folks from advocating and pushing for laws which reflect their beliefs. There's no convincing them, however, that their right to push laws which reflect their beliefs doesn't extend to the point of blatant discrimination.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

I'm glad New Jersey decided discrimination against gay and lesbian couples is unconstitutional, but I'm disappointed they left the door open to civil unions or another institution. Seperate but equal isn't equal. It's not "just" about the rights and responsibilities... there's also social status that comes from announcing you're "married" that announcing your "civil union" doesn't quite match. In that respect, the New Jersey court bowed to the religious conservatives who's most often made argument (when you discard the unscientific crap) is that legalizing gay marriage legitimizes gay relationships.