Okay, I'm not a Supernatural fan so my attention drifted once you brought the show up, but there is something in what I did read I'd like to comment on--
...but rather between all of them together and those wielding the financial power, TV networks and film studios.
That is so true! Joss Whedon's battling with "the money men" over Buffy and Firefly is one relatively recent example, but I believe Gene Rodenberry had his own issues with them over Star Trek in its younger years. There is a real fence there. I think a big part of the problem comes down to how copyright law is still more 19th century than even 20th much less 21st. I mean while Gene Rodenberry, Joss Whedon, and Eric Kripke might be the ones who had the Big Ideas, and as such should be the ones that ultimately control them, that's not how the system works. I mean the academic quote I saved when I first learned it, and repeat whenever I get the chance, that really addresses the problem is, "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."
In the system--as it works right now--the people who control the Big Ideas aren't the ones who had them, or the folk. It's the ones that make their money off of them, and they make decisions based in financial interest, not creative or civic.
no subject
...but rather between all of them together and those wielding the financial power, TV networks and film studios.
That is so true! Joss Whedon's battling with "the money men" over Buffy and Firefly is one relatively recent example, but I believe Gene Rodenberry had his own issues with them over Star Trek in its younger years. There is a real fence there. I think a big part of the problem comes down to how copyright law is still more 19th century than even 20th much less 21st. I mean while Gene Rodenberry, Joss Whedon, and Eric Kripke might be the ones who had the Big Ideas, and as such should be the ones that ultimately control them, that's not how the system works. I mean the academic quote I saved when I first learned it, and repeat whenever I get the chance, that really addresses the problem is, "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."
In the system--as it works right now--the people who control the Big Ideas aren't the ones who had them, or the folk. It's the ones that make their money off of them, and they make decisions based in financial interest, not creative or civic.