I was somewhat underwhelmed to read in Empire this month about alleged tensions on the set of the film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (as I insist on calling it) between Sean Connery and director Stephen Norrington. After 7 pages, it emerges that this consisted of little more than not getting on very well and Norrington on one occasion goading Connery to punch him, which Connery declined to do. Oh, and one of the stages got flooded. Ho. Hum.

It is particularly unfortunate that we only get to read one side of the story: Connery is certainly a bona fide movie star, but he has always seemed to be quite precious about it (okay, I admit it, I just don’t like his politics).

But the real problem with this article, and the reason for this rant now, is that it doesn’t touch on either the ongoing travesty that is Hollywood’s inability to “get” Alan Moore (the best thing that can be said about “LXG” - as they like to call it - is that it isn’t quite as godawful as From Hell) or the legal battle that Moore faced when some no-mark sued him for plagiarising his never-before-heard-of yet vaguely similar screenplay. That’s a far more interesting story.

It’s also a missed opportunity not to mention the Black Dossier, the latest League comic which is currently unavailable in the UK due to several potential copyright issues.

Alan Moore is a funny one. In a recent article in the Megazine, Alan Grant describes Moore as a “character developer” as opposed to a creator. This seems like a gross insult to the man until you realise that it happens to be true. Name an Alan Moore classic comic and the chances are it is derived from something else. There are exceptions - V for Vendetta, Halo Jones, DR and Quinch - but most of his best work has been based on other people’s creations.

None of that is to deny his genius. But it does make one wonder why he is so extraordinarily precious about his own intellectual property.

Thanks to all concerned for all the positive comments I’ve had regarding my post last week on intellectual property. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the response despite the article’s glaring flaws.

One of the things I meant to write about, which Jock reminds us of (via Mises Blog) was the whole Radiohead/In Rainbows phenomenon. Amazon currently rates this album, released this week, at 2 in its music sales chart, and 1 in rock and indie. Not bad for something being given away for free a few weeks ago (speaking personally, I really didn’t think much of the album being a pre-Kid A kind of guy, but each to their own).

It does make me wonder however if the future of physical music purchasing lies in the 70s. Back in the days of vinyl, bands would often turn their LPs into wonderful must-haves, with large, glorious artwork, books and sleevenotes. The scrappy booklet that can be found inside most CDs doesn’t compare. Already all major releases (including Radiohead’s) have a limited edition; at what point will these become standard issue?

Doctor Vee also highlights another omission: the argument in 2007 about whether or not to extend the copyright of recordings, lead by the rather deep pocketed Paul McCartney and Cliff Richard. He points to a paper by Rufus Pollock arguing that the optimal length of copyright from an economic viewpoint should be around 15 years. I haven’t read the full paper yet but it looks interesting.

Anyway, it made a nice change from the endless strings of memes and goodwill messages that dominate the blogosphere at this time of year.

Eqypt are set to pass a law forcing royalties to be paid to, erm, Egypt, every time anyone makes a copy of a pyramid or an ancient Egyptian relic. This presumably means I’ll owe them money every time I press the arrow (^) key. But of course, this isn’t the first time a government has passed a special law to protect a specific piece of intellectual property: after all in the UK we have given Peter Pan protected status specifically with a view to bankrolling the Great Ormond Street Hospital, and who could object to giving money to sick children?

This is a rather extreme example of the what is increasingly emerging as a major faultline in civilisation which seems set to dominate much of the 21st century. On the one hand we have global multi-media empires which look set to exploit - and extend - IP as much as possible. What some economists call “superstar economics” means that a piece of IP - pretty much any piece it seems can be exploited for millions, even billions of euros at a global level. On the other hand, there is the open source movement, the idea that the future lies in collaboration and sharing. Largely voluntary movements such as Creative Commons may seem benign enough, but Bill Gates has already denounced open source as a new form of communism, and beyond the obvious face offs such as Napster, we have yet to see how more sophisticated ideas about opening up other mediums and industries might challenge the status quo. One thing to look out for in my opinion is how the movement for opening up access to public data develops. Already there are rumblings objecting to the idea that people should have free access to something that the government has been flogging to private companies for years. Crown copyright has effectively lined the pockets of companies such as Dod’s for years; what will lobbyists do if large amounts of what companies such as this do suddenly becomes available to every Tom, Dick and Harriet? Somehow I doubt Dod’s is going to take this lying down.

One thing is sure, the traditional industries are feeling insecure and starting to behave in a manner not unlike a cornered animal. The ridiculous behaviour of the Performing Rights Society, described on this blog last month, is far from unique. Buy or rent a DVD, or go to the cinema, and it is now par for the course to essentially accused of theft by the very company you have just increased the coffers of in the form of their insulting and bossy FACT warnings (to be fair, their recent cinema adverts are somewhat gentler and might even be accused of having a sense of humour, if you don’t mind being talked down to by a cartoon rodent).

Over the past few days there have been a number of articles in the press about the music industry (and now MPs) taking a stance against websites such as eBay selling on tickets. We are now to understand eBay and the like as being virtual “pimps” - an analogy which is fine so long as you accept that the same basic description applies to estate agents (indeed any kind of agent) and indeed anyone working as a middle man in any industry (including, erm, record companies).

Harvey Goldsmith is proposing legislation to make it illegal to resell tickets to music gigs along similar lines to the existing legislation that applies to football matches. Yet this legislation is there for a very specific reason: it is designed to prevent football hooligans from buying their way onto their rivals’ terraces. Whether you approve or disapprove of this legislation, its intent is to stop people from being maimed and even killed; Goldsmith is calling for nothing more than the protection against their own gullibility.

Much of what seems to be developing appears to be perfectly legitimate. For example, what’s wrong with creating a futures market for ticket sales? It sounds like a perfectly good service for sports and music fans.

The solution to all this seems to be obvious to me: rather than trying to shut down the auctioneers, who are only providing services at the price people are willing to pay, why not sell all tickets in this way in the first place? The music industry appears to take great delight at how quickly they sell out of mega-gigs, yet all that ensures is that the tickets go to the most enthusiastic, the luckiest and the most organised. The average punter loses out at every turn. Surely auctioning tickets would not only ensure that the company (and artist) gets the right price, but would limit the potential resell value. We don’t need new laws, we just need new business models.

(The music industry in particular doesn’t seem to get market economics. If it isn’t complaining that the value of tickets to gigs is to high, it is complaining that the value of CDs is too low. The CEOs of Sony, EMI et al wouldn’t look out of place in the management board of a tractor factory in Stalin’s Russia)

But it doesn’t end there. Both global patent and copyright laws have been extended in recent decades. The original idea behind such laws appears to have been forgotten and pure greed has taken its place. Globalisation means that the earnings potential from a new idea has massively increased; yet at the same time we’ve artificially increased it further still, and long lives will extend this still further. To take one example, J.K. Rowling, a rich woman who can afford the very best in healthcare, is likely to have a very long life. Let’s assume she lives to 100, in 2065. The copyright on her books will stay with her estate until 2135. That means that her great-great-great grandchildren will still be profiting from their ancestor’s books. Is there really any justification for that? I’m all for an artist’s work being protected, but when a work becomes a global brand, doesn’t there come a point when the money made from it is no longer reflective of that work’s value and more based on the value of the marketing behind it? Doesn’t there come a point where these laws no longer protect creativity but stifle it?

Compare Batman to Robin Hood. Anyone can make a Robin Hood movie; the character is in public domain. To make a Batman film (or comic for that matter), you need the permission of Time-Warner. Who does this serve? Isn’t Batman now an iconic enough figure in popular imagination in such a way that is bigger than any corporation?

It is, I readily acknowledge, a moot point. But I’m less concerned about the here and now than I am about the prospect of a century of corporations owning vast catalogues of intellectual properties archived from the 20th century and trying to find ever more creative ways of exploiting them. As a civilisation, we’ve never had to face such a privatisation of ideas before. Technology will make it easier for corporations such as Disney to take legal action against anyone using their IP without permission - on the web and, without wanting to get too sci-fi here, ultimately in your mind? - yet what moral rights do they have over such cartoon characters that have become part of our folk memory?

It strikes me that all this could take a turn for the much worse and inevitably there will be a backlash. And ultimately this is deadly serious because it goes far beyond books, music and cartoon characters; much of the value of our stocks and shares are rooted in intellectual property; challenging the laws allowing Marvel to keep hold of Spider-Man could have enormous consequences for instance. And that means huge vested interests are at stake here.

As with land, I can’t help but feel that the debates on intellectual property that were raging at the turn of the last century will increasingly be revisited in the not so distant future. At stake is nothing less than who owns our very culture.

I loved Elizabeth, the original Shekhar Kapur / Cate Blanchett film. Sure it was historically inaccurate, but it was done with such aplomb. Basically the film was The Godfather Part I in a frock.

So I was expecting Elizabeth: The Golden Age to be the Godfather Part II. Sadly, it was rather closer in quality to Part III, with the excrutiating romantic subplot, but without the downbeat ending. At least no-one makes pasta at any point.

First of all, the two most interesting and potentially cinematic aspects of this period of Elizabeth’s life were the rivalry with Mary Queen of Scots and the Armada. Neither of these are handled particularly well. What we get instead is a silly romantic triangle between Elizabeth, her lady in waiting Bess Throckmorton and (Sir) Walter Raleigh. Raleigh is an interesting figure in his own right, but hardly a central part of Elizabeth’s life, so it is questionable why he is included at all. Worse still, he is elevated to the status of Greatest Living Englishman, singlehandedly discovering America, defeating the Spanish and (almost) bedding the Virgin Queen. Legend aside, only the former has any basis in fact. Francis Drake is reduced to a two line, two scene part, ceding his role entirely to Raleigh (they should have gone the whole hog, Monty Python style and referred to him as “Sir not appearing in this film”). I’ve got only one word for that: bowls.

As for Elizabeth, Blanchett remains a fantastic actress and does the best with what she’s been given. But ultimately, the characterisation of her is unbelievably crass; it boils down her being a middle aged woman in dire need of a shag. While this is a fairly interesting refrain up to a point, bringing Raleigh into the equation leads to the film getting swamped in melodrama. Poignancy is sacrificed in favour of operatics.

As for Mary, while she is ably performed by Samantha Morton, she is given almost nothing to do. I would suggest that this should have been the central relationship in the film, yet Elizabeth’s initial refusal to execute her and final acceptance that she should is got out of the way in the course of a single scene, all tension lost. At least she gets a good death scene, dolled up to look all the world like Björk.

The film alleges that the Babington Plot was botched deliberately to force Elizabeth to execute Mary and thus give the Spanish a pretext to invade. But the more famous conspiracy theory - that Walsingham framed Mary to get her out of the way - would have been much more interesting to film (Walsingham in general is presented in a remarkably sympathetic manner - he gets away with brutally torturing people and still gets to be the good guy - Donald Rumsfeld must love this film). Indeed, none of the court intrigue of the first film is retained - the conclusion we are invited to believe is that only Catholics are capable of such cloak and dagger stuff. Indeed, a more anti-Catholic film you are likely to be hard pressed to find. It’s almost like the English’s revenge for Braveheart (albeit directed by an Indian).

The final invasion is disappointing. This is one of the greatest sea battles in history; all we get are a few close up shots of sailors crawling around with missing limbs and Clive Owen looking all moody and heroic. What we wanted was something like a reined in version of the fight scenes in Pirates of the Carribbean; what we got was TV movie cheapness.

There’s a motif throughout the film of people going on about wind - obviously foreshadowing the events leading to the destruction of the Armada - but quite what point they are trying to make evades me. Sure, I get the fact that there was a “wind of change” going through Europe at the time, but I get the feeling they are trying to make some kind of more deeply profound point which I missed completely.

The first film ends on an ambiguous note, with Elizabeth adopting the persona of the Virgin Queen. This film ends with her effectively becoming the persona. This itself should be an ambiguous ending, but what happens is that the botched invasion convinces Elizabeth that she is chosen by God and she essentially is Born Again. Fair enough, but the director appears to agree with her; the wind that destroyed the Spanish fleet is all-but suggested to be the Holy Spirit Itself. Maybe it is my atheism showing through, but to conclude this is to paint Catholics as not only bad during this period of history, but as fundamentally Godless; this is a pretty brave theological statement. But it also makes for boring cinema. So you got lucky, Liz, get over yourself. Isn’t the randomness of history so much more interesting than lazy notions about destiny?

Ultimately, the core cast are excellent (apart from Clive Owen who is just Clive Owen), but the film is one long list of missed opportunities. Where the first film gave us shades of grey, here we have only black and white. Ultimately this smacks of a political agenda that simply gets in the way of what should have been an excellent film.

Paul Walter blogs about the brief return of Radio Caroline, which was also discussed on the Today programme today.

One thing that seems to have been forgotten about the pirate radio controversy in the 60s is that the Minister in charge of shutting them down was one Anthony Wedgewood Benn. These days, both Benn and Caroline are categorised under the same heading of “cuddly national treasure”. Still, it is a shame that the Today programme didn’t interview him about it. That of course would mean getting Tony Benn to defend government policy and remind us that, contrary to careful brand management, he was once part of the establishment. Nevertheless, it is a shame that the BBC, which was chomping at the bit at the time to get Caroline banned, now portrays it as a nice harmless thing. If that is the case, why is the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act 1967 still in force? Isn’t the BBC failing in its duty to educate and inform, in favour of kitsch nostalgia?

On an only partially related note, the last time I went to the cinema, they showed a ridiculous new FACT advert before the film warning us of the evils of piracy. It ended with “Love film. Hate piracy.” I wonder how Johnny Depp feels about that?

An article in the Guardian got me thinking: is the title “Ms” really unkown to women under 30? A straw poll of under 30 women in my office slightly reassured me as they all use the title, but then it is a very political office.

The phenomenon however is wider than just this title. Only that morning I was listening to a CWU spokesperson talking about the postal strike and repeatedly referring to “postmen and postwomen” - when did the gender neutal term “postal worker” cease being used? And over the past few years, the “chair” versus “chairman” war seems to have been decisively won by the latter (on that, I really do get tired of people making the trite argument that “I am not a piece of furniture” - you’re not a man either Ms Widdecombe, or hadn’t you noticed?).

And then there is Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I went to see this film on Wednesday and to my great unsurprise it was utter tosh. It was surprisingly old fashioned tosh though. In particular, unless I had simply not noticed in the first film, but the Sue Richards/Invisible Girl/Jessica Alba character appeared to have reverted to a 50s stereotype. The main subplot revolves around this character’s determination to make a husband out of “Mr Fantastic”, to settle down and to have kids (casting Jessica Alba as a blonde wallflower has got be the worst casting in history). Some weird alien pops up on her wedding day, threatening not only the city but the whole world, and all she cares about is that her wedding is spoilt. Over the course of the film, she “learns her lesson” and decides to let the boys have their fun after all. Throughout, she plays the doting lover/sister/friend role inspiring the menfolk to go and do great things while she merely gets killed (although she does get better). Oh, and she has an obligatory nudie scene. The only other female character has a similarly inconceivable transformation, from uptight army captain to screaming brainless girlfriend desperate to get her hands on a wedding bouquet. Most excrutiating of all, the male characters keep referring to “eggzodig daansaas” (Ioan Gruffudd fake New York pronunciation) when they mean “strippers,” but then I suppose this is a PG-13.

Okay, maybe comic book movies have never been the epitome of feminism, but this is a far cry from Michele Pfeifer’s Catwoman in Batman Returns. The point is, we seem to be drifting backwards. And maybe I’m missing something but women under a certain age don’t seem particularly concerned about this. In part, I think this is a backlash against a feminism that seemed too uncompromising and content to cast women as victims rather than encourage them to take control of their own lives. I don’t believe that is an accurate caricature, but it is certainly one which a lot of young women I’ve known over the past decade in politics have felt strongly about. Ten years ago, Natasha Walter was writing the New Feminism and the “laddette” culture was at its height. The laddettes are wearing glossier lipstick now and drinking Bacardi Breezers instead of lager, but the trend appears to have continued. The fact that we’re even having debates about abortion laws in Parliament suggests there has been a sea change. Yet in that time, we have seen more women than ever active in politics and business. So what exactly is going on?

It would be worth exchanging symbolic things like the words “chair” and “Ms” if what we get in return is true equality, but I’m not sure that is what is happening. It appears to be dividing on class lines. At a working class, uneducated level, things seem to be moving backwards and the rise of gang culture is hardly striking a blow for women’s lib. Meanwhile middle-class girls are outcompeting their male counterparts in school and going on to bigger and better things. There does seem to be a link with the decline of social mobility, but it does seem that the time is long overdue for a noughties equivalent of the Female Eunuch.

The good thing about this article is that I can now claim this blog was inspired by a newspaper columnist, which seems so much less geeky than the alternative.

An interesting-ish article on comic book films in today’s Times, but why is Dominic Wells’ piece headlined “Kapow! The new film superheroes.”

The use of sound effects in the headline on an article in a national newspaper about comics is an inside joke. Either Wells and/or his sub-editor are unaware of this, or they are deliberately taking the piss. If the latter, then they are being too clever by half.

Some interesting stuff here about 2000AD in talks about a new film, although I’ve heard that so often over the past decade I’m past caring. More intriguingly, the success of A History of Violence has apparently opened up the possibility of a Button Man film, also originally written by John “Dredd” Wagner. It remains to be seen if this develops into a Jason Statham-starring no-brainer or something more interesting.

But Zach Snyder doing Watchmen? Ugh. His one innovation on 300 was to add war rhinos. Do I really need to say any more? For some reason, Hollywood seems determined to do everything it can to make a nonsense out of everything Alan Moore ever wrote.

Last year, one of my friends commented that the problem with X-Men: The Last Stand was that it should have been two films: there was simply too much plot to fit in just one. I disagreed: the problem was it just wasn’t a terribly good film. Less would have been more, no Brett Ratner at all would have been even better (not that the box office agrees with me on that point). I’m torn however in the case of Spider-Man 3 - was it a case of trying to squeeze too much into 2 hours, or should they simply have tried to do more with less in the first place? (more…)

Appalling media misinformation about kryptonite today.

As any fule kno, kryptonite doesn’t have to be green, that is just the type that kills Kryptonians (not ’sap them of their powers’ as the BBC and others put it - that’s gold kryptonite). In fact, white kryptonite is supposed to have a lethal effect on plantlife, but it also appears to be useful for stabilising bizarros.

Of course, if you read the small print, it turns out that the story is based on the fact that the newly found compound has ‘almost‘ the same elements as the kryptonite shown in the recent Superman Returns film, except it doesn’t contain fluorine. This is a bit like saying that oxygen is the same as water, except for the fact that it doesn’t contain hydrogen. It’s also a completely different formula to the one in Superman 3:

The chemical composition for the Kryptonite that Richard Pryor’s computer screen reads: Plutonium: 15.08% Tatalum: 18.06% Xenon: 27.71% Promethium: 24.02% Dialium: 10.62% Mercury: 3.94% Unknown: 0.57%.

But the worst thing about this story is that it turns out that Ananova doesn’t know the difference between Serbia and Siberia.

In fact, on the last count, 24 news sources found via Google News made the same elementary mistake.