When My Worlds Collide

I enjoy when my interests intersect, especially when it’s either photography and the law or comics and the law. Recently, there have been a few circumstances where that has happened.

The first such instance was a follow up I received from Mike Hipple on a post I made about an over aggressive copyright holder who filed suit against Mr. Hipple. To me, it was a situation that appeared to be a clear example of fair use of a copyrighted work by Mr. Hipple. In order to support his legal defense, Mr. Hipple has recently created a book that he’s selling to help pay the attorney bills. Photographers out there looking to support a good cause (namely, a photographer’s right to take pictures in public places that have art work displayed) would be advised to check it out.

The second occurrence came when Joel Watson, of the hilarious web comic Hijinks Ensue, recently sat down to talk with NYU student George Rohac about issues involving copyright, web comics, and technology. Though not a hard core legal analysis by any means, it was insightful to hear Mr. Watson’s take on copyright issues from the perspective of an artist.

Finally, I was tipped off by comics news blog Bleeding Cool about a podcast featuring a discussion about comics and copyright termination that featured David Nimmer (who needs no introduction in the world of copyright law). This discussion was more about the technicalities of the law than the previous item, and really laid out the various ways that copyright can be terminated under both past and present copyright statutes. Additionally, I am now subscribed to the IP Colloquium podcast, since their show archive seemed to cover topics such as the first sale doctrine, Bilski, and derivative works. For anyone in the intellectual property law field, I’d rate the podcast as somewhere between “really informative” and a “must listen”.