Comics and Copyright, and other things

[rivkat]

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.

Comments

[ethrosdemon.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would help you that if when you analyze yourself with a Kantian paradigm you keep in mind he only ever traveled twenty miles from his place of birth in his entire life (it might be 50, the exact number always escapes me). That way you can feel very post-modern and remember he was working with a very limited concept of reality.

That being said, I donate blood quite often. I am on The List. That means the blood bank calls my flippin' house when they get short since I have O- blood. I actually have what amounts to track marks from all the blood I've given. And they *still* bruise me and send me home looking like I got shot with a .44 in the arm.

This appears to be a more pointless post than I intended when I hit reply. Oops, sorry lol

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

You're a better person than I am, Gunga Din. It's good that people like you exist; I'm O positive, so they don't harass me as they would if I were O neg. But the sign for the blood drive was up, and they weren't doing much business -- setting up shop in a law school during the last two weeks of the semester wasn't particularly well-planned marketing. So I had no excuse not to donate.

And yeah, not really a Kantian. But it's the way I steel myself for the bloodletting experience.