The Playgoer: Policing NYT Policing Copyright Dispute Regarding Policing Blanche DuBois

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Friday, February 06, 2009

Policing NYT Policing Copyright Dispute Regarding Policing Blanche DuBois

Isaac has a good fisking of Patrick Healy's NYT article yesterday about the unfortunate copyright fight going on over the new downtown show, Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire.

"I really wish," laments Isaac, "that Patrick Healy had focused his word count more on the intellectual property issues at stake here, as this case could actually make a good case study for educating readers of the Times about some of these issues."

Oh, how many times have I said so myself, Isaac. But you see, educating readers about theatre is not really the mission of the New York Times, um, "theatre" desk. If you want to do that go to school, man. Arts are dessert, not spinach!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

link to isaac, please.

Playgoer said...

Sorry, careless oversight. Duly rectified.

Anonymous said...

copy-edit alert: unlike 'playwright' there is no 'w' in 'copyright' [because etymologically, it is about RIGHTS -- not about something that has been WROUGHT]

Playgoer said...

How embarrassing! Title heading duly corrected. At least I got it wright--I mean, right!--in the body of the post.

Man, looking at the comments so far, it's clear this post was fraught with errors! My apologies, dear readers. Such is blogging without a net. Or an editor.

Anonymous said...

You really must have been in a rush. There's also 'desert' when you mean 'dessert'.

Playgoer said...

Oy! You're right.

The Arts landscape in America right now is indeed a deSert...but that's not what I meant.

Abigail Katz said...

Spelling issues aside, I must agree with Isaac. Copyright is a very important issue in theatre, and the more professionals in the arts are educated about it the less risk they will be taking when mounting productions. It will also give artists leverage (or at least the confidence of being informed) when negotiating agreements. Of course we all want to put the art first but we have to be savvy about the business side as well!

isaac butler said...

Garrett-

You crack my shit up, man. Thanks for the link!