Comics and Copyright, and other things

Two great tastes that taste great together: Salil Mehra of Temple U. has a fascinating article about Japanese manga, specifically the unauthorized versions called dojinshi that circulate widely without much fear of the ostensible copyright owners. The article argues that the profitability of manga shows that even a fairly commercialized market for unauthorized uses (the biggest yearly dojinshi convention apparently clears $10-15 million a day) can allow, even help, a robust market for copyrighted works. Not high theory, but highly interesting.

I gave blood today. It's my only purely Kantian activity. Kant maintained that we ought to do right things because they are right things; if we do them because they give us satisfaction, we are not acting properly. I sure hope he was wrong. Anyhow, I hate the whole thing. It hurts, I have sluggish blood that takes forever to fill a pint bag, I bruise, and the first time I did it I fainted. Today was a near repeat of that first command performance, and also the snacks were lame. Blinking up at people who are asking if you know who and where you are is not big fun.

Good news, my debate coaches are in town, which means we'll have a nice dinner. They're going to see "Proof," with Anne Heche, which Z & I saw a few weeks ago and really enjoyed. It's about the strangled cries of math geeks in love, and it's funny and affecting; though it's ultimately built on a reasonably predictable narrative arc, the dialogue is good, the performances solid, and the exact resolution is unclear for long enough for the end to satisfy. Also, Anne Heche's romantic interest has a kind of a Paul Rudd thing going on, which I liked.