I don't mean to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?

River Tam beats up everyone: my daughter, yesterday.

( copyright and Hollywood; copyright and music sampling )

I'm going to be on a panel at the International Communications Association early next year, whose theme is "Borderlands," and of course I decided to talk about concepts of copyright, plagiarism, creativity and ownership in fan cultures, inspired in part by bonibaru's recent comments. I want to use as examples some good fan vids. I've got some great SV ones I could use, but what I really need are Star Trek or Star Wars (or something else of equal cultural fame) so that most of the audience will recognize them. Ideally, the vids will be either slashy or funny, and set up so that I can show a 30-second clip and then talk. "Kid Fears," for example, is a very nice Star Wars vid that just won't work for this purpose because you need to watch the whole thing to get the story. I really need suggestions -- I can buy videotapes if necessary -- isn't a research budget a beautiful thing? -- but any format is good.

Reviews ahead: Tori Amos, Susan R. Matthews, David Gerrold, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, and Kembrew McLeod, not in that order.

Kembrew McLeod, Owning Culture: One of the book's major points is that the concept of intellectual creations as property inflicts further harm on marginalized groups whose contributions (spirituals, tribal medicinal knowledge) never count as property and get appropriated by powerful interests that know how to make property out of the raw stuff of culture. Additionally, ownership of intellectual property allows corporations like Disney to censor and control the public discourse about Disney properties. The book has some nice examples, and piss-poor followup -- for example, one case he lists as undecided was settled two years prior to the book's publication date, as I found as my first Google result. The book is too jargony for my taste; McLeod's "articulation theory" is a label, not an explanation, and I don't think it does the work he wants it to do, unless all he wants to say is that intellectual property works in different ways in different contexts. Sometimes theory-talk is a substitute for insight.

McLeod's lack of knowledge of the law is a major problem in a book about law's interaction with culture. He says there's no "fair use" concept in trademark, which is just not true. The federal trademark statute defines fair use, and the Ninth Circuit has established a separate kind of fair use that courts around the nation now use. He doesn't know the difference between a denial of certiorari by the Supreme Court (which expresses no view on the merits; it just means the Supreme Court won't hear the case) and an affirmance (which makes the lower court's ruling the law of the land, instead of just the law in some geographic subunit). He even confuses the Ninth Circuit -- the Court of Appeals for Hollywood, as well as some other, less important places like Alaska and Hawai'i -- with the Supreme Court. I know Judges Kozinski and Reinhardt, not to mention others, would like to think that, but it just ain't so. (Side note: for whatever reason, the federal judiciary now spells the Aloha state "Hawai'i," so I'll follow that convention.)

To a certain extent, McLeod's harmed by the fact that the legal system increasingly shares his concerns about censorship, at least in trademark and copyright. Many of the important decisions postdate his publication date, but some of the key ones don't, and his argument is weakened by failing to acknowledge in law the discontinuities and spaces for opposition he insists we recognize in culture. Oh, and his argument that 2 Live Crew's appropriation of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" was clearly a parody of the original song is mystifying -- check it out for yourself here (scroll down to the appendices for the two sets of lyrics) and shows how his ideological position affects his interpretations of the law. Yeah, like my former boss, I can see how a parodic character may reasonably be perceived, but that's a far cry from, say, Weird Al's "This Song Is Just Six Words Long." Now that's clearly a parody.

Bottom line: If you want an introduction to how rap got commercialized, how collage art exists in relation to art photographers, how pharmaceutical companies perceive native medicinal knowledge, or things like that, he's got good source material. But there's nothing else here, and you'd be wise to follow up with some extra research once he gets you started.

Now for the fiction:

Susan R. Matthews, "The Devil and Deep Space." Another adventure of Andrej Koscuisko, the reluctant torturer who enjoys his work too well for his own comfort. Nothing could really match the impact that "An Exchange of Hostages," which introduced Jurisdiction and its policy of legally sanctioned torture, had on me, but this book is a satisfying continuation. Unfortunately, like "Hour of Judgment," it ends at what seems to be the midpoint. I'm not disappointed in the structure, I'm just sad I can't find out what happens. I like the character of Jennet ap Rhiannon, the creche-bred woman who finds herself in command of the Ragnarok -- in command in name, but her story is about whether she'll be able to command it in fact. I didn't particularly need to know more about Andrej's homeland, but the parts of the story set on his planet were interesting. I didn't like "Avalanche Soldier," so I'm pleased to see Matthews return to this complex, fast-changing universe.

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, "Agent of Change." Meh. Two uberpeople fall in love and get in trouble, not necessarily in that order, helped at critical moments by the intervention of -- I kid you not -- the Great Turtle. Not the one from Stephen King's "It," but still. It's not incompetently written, but it's not particularly interesting, either. The worst part is that the protagonists -- the guy a former planetary scout and current superspy, the girl a hardened mercenary -- are repeatedly described as looking around 25 and 18 years old, respectively. Without either some mention of plastic surgery (and the guy probably has had some), or some non-Earth counting of years, that's just preposterous. Even the cover artist couldn't buy it, as you can see.

David Gerrold, "Yesterday's Children" (rev. ed.). The author rewrote the ending about 8 years after first publication, and it's still a problem. The story is about a decrepit, poorly crewed ship in the middle of a grueling war. The ship was patrolling a supposedly quiet sector of space until it caught an enemy ship on its sensors. Or did it? A lot of technobabble about a de-Trekified (this was originally supposed to be a Star Trek script) warp drive, with no real payoff. The book says something about war -- long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of terror -- but it's less fun to read about the boredom than you might think. Near the end, the book veers into a weird theory of "psychometrics" or some such nonsense, which is bizarre, not well set up early on, and makes the main viewpoint character seem paranoid and, at best, lucky. Maybe this is also a truth about war -- the made-up quotes that open each chapter suggest Gerrold thinks so -- but I just didn't get it. Gerrold's "War Against the Chtorr" series is much more enjoyable; in fact, I'd recommend it if you like Earth invasion stories.

Tori Amos, "Scarlet's Walk" (with bonus DVD). This disc continues in the vein of the studio disc of "To Venus and Back," with Amos's unique idiolect. I've always loved the interiority of her songs, the sense of meaning that flits alongside the bizarre lyrics and allows you to pour your own emotional content into a song. The music on "Scarlet's Walk" is more contemplative, not as angry as that on "Little Earthquakes" or "From the Choirgirl Hotel" or even "Boys for Pele." "Sorta Fairytale" is a good first single; although Amos is never predictable (who'd've thunk she'd cover Eminem?), it does reflect the overall tone of the album. There's no Cruel, Iieee, Caught a Lite Sneeze, or Hotel. Since those are my favorite songs, it's clear that this isn't going to be my favorite album. Nonetheless, the songs hold up to several listens thus far, and people who like her shouldn't skip it. I found the DVD unnecessary; I'd got myself convinced that there were real extras on it, but it's just 3 songs, 2 set to the same video footage (cut differently, but still the same) and 1 to a slide show from the same shoot. Not worth your money. I was amused by the little plastic frog that came in the package, and bemused by the stickers.