Darth Vader bandit in police custody; Grant T. Stanley of Elite Torrents, the folks known for releasing ROTS early, got five months of ‘home detention.’
Look sir – infringers.
Remember the Shepperton Studios Stormtrooper Armour? Well, it’s not authorized by a long shot – Lucasfilm sued them and won. Ouchies. (via TFN)
That’s the blogosphere for you
A student taking a course in cyberspace law learns how Lucasfilm bought out one domain…
The Wookiee costume is a bit much – is a lame domain like PhantomMenaceNews.com worth a Wookiee costume? I don’t think so.
Also, the domain in question seems to be not owned by Lucasfilm at the moment. (Going to the actual site will get you ads and popups. Nothing NSFW, just annoying.) And this list of websites from Echo Station (not updated since August 1999, as good a time capsule as I could find) lists that the site had no DNS (translation: not pointing anywhere) at the time. The Wayback Machine is more of the same.
The law firm does exist. But the story as a whole I’m giving a hearty ‘maybe.’
Infringer pleads guilty
Old kerfuffles, long gone…
Were the Jedi Archives in Attack of the Clones based on the Long Room Library at Trinity College of Dublin? The pics are certainly persuasive, and the resemblance was enough that the college was considering legal action back in 2002. Other than some law blogs, I can only find one reference to the matter… The library’s website is mum.
Lori Jareo: The Roundup
The blogosphere has been fairly quiet on the Lori Jareo front lately, but via Lee Goldberg we have another sighting – Publisher’s Weekly.
Entries on Jareo and Another Hope have also shown up on Wookieepedia and Wikipedia.
Meanwhile, here’s a timeline of CJ’s coverage:
Thursday, April 20th: A user asks about the Amazon listing for Another Hope on the starwars.com VIP thread. Lucasfilm Licensing editor Sue Rostoni (‘Eeusu Estornii’) says it’s “Not one of ours” and passes the word onto Lucasfilm’s legal department. Word spreads and writer Lee Goldberg blogs about the incident.
Friday, April 21st: Writer John Scalzi blogs about Jareo; his post will become one of the most-linked items regarding Another Hope. The news also makes Fandom Wank, spreading rapidly across the general fandom community. Publishing blog Galleycat also posts about Jareo.
On Friday afternoon Jareo and Wordtech take down the book site thenaberriegirls.com, leaving a brief message that the book has been removed from Books in Print and “will be removed from book distribution channels effective Tuesday, April 24, 2006.”
Saturday, April 22: Teresa Nielsen Hayden posts about Jareo on Making Light; Star Wars author Karen Traviss immortalizes Jareo in Mando’a; items on several fannish Livejournal communities.
Sunday, April 23rd: Amazon removes reviews that don’t address the actual work. Thenaberriegirls.com ceases to direct to anything. Calm analysis of the situation begins to appear.
Monday, April 24th: Several sporkings of the books text appear on Livejournal; more analysis. Amazon page remains up.
Tuesday, April 25th: First mainstream news coverage from Sci-Fi Wire. Another Hope finally becomes unavailable for order on Amazon.com.
Wednesday, April 26th: Book pulled from Amazon; Column on Jareo and fan fiction appears in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Thursday, April 27th: Time magazine writer Lev Grossman discusses Lori Jareo and fan fiction on NPR.
Et tu, Anne#2?
Apparently, Anne McCaffrey is trying to beat Anne Rice in the “Most Obnoxious Fantasy Writer” contest…
Not mentioned in Exhibit D, or elsewhere, is the fact that Mr. Austin had his lawsuit papers secretly served to her at Dragon*Con, because it was the only way to reach her in person.