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cesperanza should be particularly interested in this NYT story about directors claiming copyright in their particular stage directions for plays, whether the plays themselves are copyrighted or not. It's a very good story, though it contains a legal error about the amount of statutory damages available (it's $150,000 per work infringed maximum, no matter how many times you infringe, so it's hard to imagine how to get up to $3 million based on one play). There are also some resonances with debates about fandom -- how, if at all, can we compare the director's contribution to the play as performed with that of the playwright? Does making the director into an auteur necessarily involve diminishing the contribution of the playwright? As with many relationships, legal categories come in and cut up once-fluid bonds, ending the living give-and-take that produced the stage directions in the first place.cesperanza should be particularly interested in this NYT story about directors claiming copyright in their particular stage directions for plays, whether the plays themselves are copyrighted or not. It's a very good story, though it contains a legal error about the amount of statutory damages available (it's $150,000 per work infringed maximum, no matter how many times you infringe, so it's hard to imagine how to get up to $3 million based on one play). There are also some resonances with debates about fandom -- how, if at all, can we compare the director's contribution to the play as performed with that of the playwright? Does making the director into an auteur necessarily involve diminishing the contribution of the playwright? As with many relationships, legal categories come in and cut up once-fluid bonds, ending the living give-and-take that produced the stage directions in the first place..