The Elvis Estate

Here's a recent article I came across:

Throw Away Those Blue Suede Shoes: Impersonating Elvis To Be Banned?

from the ip-law-gone-ridiculous dept

Among the many enjoyable aspects of the Cato conference was hearing Professor David K. Levine from UCLA present some of his research, showing how intellectual property laws often do exactly the opposite of what they're intended to do. It turns out that Prof. Levine and some others have recently started a blog called Against Monopoly, which looks like it'll be a worthwhile read. At the blog there's a great post that points to yet another case of intellectual property being taken too far... in a somewhat bizarre way. It turns out that the guy who recently bought most of the rights to Elvis Presley's "name and likeness" is threatening to require all Elvis impersonators to purchase a license. Apparently, he feels that "unauthorized" Elvis impersonators are diluting the Elvis brand. It's hard to see what sort of benefit it provides either society or the brand of Elvis to limit a good part of what has kept Elvis so popular all of these years, but it looks like (once again) we're seeing a focus on short term gains at the expense of long term business viability.

This is what SUE is all about. Taking Elvis back for ourselves!

Let the adventures begin...

I've started the whole process again. I have to say I'm a little nervous after my last play, The Foreskin of Christ: A Musical. It was as though the play was cursed. I had never had to pull a play from production before, but I know I made the right call. Even when I tried to put the play up again - bad luck and misfires. I don't know what happened, maybe it was the religious GOP groups I posted to - maybe it was a mass prayer that did me in. All I do know is, this is between Jesus and me and I'm going to win.

I finished the first draft of The Thrilling Adventures of Elvis in Space - 2. Boopee has put the original EIS in a podcast, which can be found at www.elvisinspace.com, under the Atomic Radio Banner.