Nina Paley

Grand Fucking Jury

Pardon my French – or is that legalese?

As of today, I’m required to serve as a grand juror for the next two weeks. Meaning I had to cancel my only paid work for the month, speaking at Alma College in Michigan. The court said essentially, “tough shit.” Ironically, if I’d been mugged on the street for the same $ amount, I could initiate a trial in the very same criminal court I’m “serving” in!

Unlike trial juries, Grand Jury allows no excuses; they don’t interview you. If you’re breathing, you serve. The fact that I’m morally opposed to the drug laws that half the cases are based on is irrelevant; I’m simply advised not to vote on those.

I’m also sick – still coughing even after a month with this virus, whatever it is – but don’t have insurance or a regular doctor to write the official written excuse on official doctor letterhead. Besides, that would only postpone this; once you’re called, they keep calling you until you’re seated. They mentioned that sometimes jurors get sick while serving; one collapsed on duty recently. If I actually collapse, they’ll send a doctor. Otherwise, tough shit.

On the brighter side, I get to see up to six cases a day. Lots of fascinating stories, especially the ones that aren’t about drugs. And however much it sucks to be a juror, it sucks worse to be anyone else in that room.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why I have such a bad attitude about the law, maybe it’s because I broke federal law to make my film, and could have faced jail time myself? Or that most people I know are technically criminals also?

Don’t expect much from me until after November 23rd. I do get weekends off. And tomorrow, which is Veteran’s Day.

More examples: TMI?

OK my peeps, your feedback on the preceding post has been excellent. Here are 3 more images to compare and contrast:

What’s happening here? Do we even need to put it into words?

How about this? Does the addition of the flowers help, or hurt, or just make it different?

Same idea, different rendering. This one has still more information – which might be confusing the point. It’s cuter, but it might be Too Much Information. Or maybe it’s Just Enough.

What do you think? The more I understand how you “read” these images, the better I’ll be able to “write” them. Big thanks to you.

How much hand?

I’m working on a new project – a book, or comic book, or illustrated book, or graphic something about free culture/free content. I’ll probably use a mix of styles and techniques, since that’s how I roll. But I’m trying to figure out the dominant one. And the question is: hand drawing with ink on paper, or drawing directly into the ‘pooter using a vector drawing program (Flash)? Behold two approaches saying basically the same thing:

“HOW MEMES REPRODUCE”

How Memes Reproduce

The image above was “drawn” with the Cintiq, directly into Flash. I like it because it keeps the focus on the idea and not on the humans.

EarlyMemeFlower

Same idea, different technique. It’s much “warmer” and friendlier. But it draws you into the humans, more than the meme they’re sharing. Drawing humans like this, they each need genders, clothes, and other identifiers which are mostly irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make. On the other hand, warmer drawings may attract more viewers, which is desirable, and may be sufficient for the idea anyway.

What do you think?

Update: per Richard O’Connor’s suggestion, a hybrid:

MixedMediaMeme2

The problem with this is that the meme looks sterile, while the people look warm and alive. I’m trying to express that it’s the memes that are alive; that we humans are just their humble servants.

Thoughts?

“Intellectual Property” is Slavery

Brain01

“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.”
— John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government

“Most thinkers…hold that you own your own life, and it follows that you must own the products of that life, and that those products can be traded in free exchange with others,” claims Wikipedia’s latest entry on property. “Every man has a property in his own person,” says John Locke. Ayn Rand (who I generally can’t stand, but who I’m happy to quote as a passionate defender of the sanctity of property) wrote, “Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.”

You also have a property in your own MIND. That which lives in your mind, is your property. And everyone deserves Rand’s “right to translate one’s rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results” – in other words to freely think, express, and own the contents of their own mind. That is what “intellectual property” should (but doesn’t) mean: everyone’s right to their own mind.

Instead, legally defined “Intellectual Property” means exactly the opposite: it transfers ownership of the contents of your mind to others. It alienates the ideas in your mind, from you. Is there a song running through your mind right now? It doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to Warner-Chappell. You are forbidden to express it; “performance” requires permission. “To think, to work” – interpret – “and keep the results” – record and sell copies of – the song in your mind, are illegal.

Thus Intellectual Property gives alien, private owners title to our minds. We may think culture (songs, text, images) only in secret; any expressions of cultural thought belong not to the thinker, but to the IP owner. Your thoughts are “derivative works”; someone else has title to them. You may have “Porgy and Bess” in your mind, but interpreting or singing it out loud is forbidden. That part of your mind belongs to Gershwin’s heirs and their lackeys.

Wikipedia’s entry on Chattel Slavery states: “The living human body is, in most modern societies, considered something which cannot be the property of anyone but the person whose body it is.” The living human mind should be the same. Legally defined “Intellectual Property” is, quite simply, someone else’s ownership of your mind. If they own the right to express what lives in your mind, the right “to think, to work and keep the results,” then they own your mind; they own you. What can we call that, except slavery?

Weezer gets it right

Content is Free, Containers are not; the commerce in mass art is all in the packaging. Hats off to band Weezer for devising the most brilliant CD packaging ever:

It would be even better without the copy restrictions on the content, but they seem to comprehend that those are irrelevant to making money. It’s all in the packaging, people.

Nell Minow: Film Reviewer, “CEO Killer”

So there I was reading an old New Yorker, and came across this article about a lawyer who exposes overpaid corporate CEOs. The name and the picture looked familiar. Could it be the same Nell Minow who interviewed me about Sita Sings the Blues? Why yes, it is! Turns out the “Movie Mom” is kicking ass and taking names in CEO land.

“I believe that what we’ve seen recently is a corporate takeover of the capitalist system, to the benefit of certain actors in that system and to the detriment of everybody else.” —Nell Minow, aka “the Movie Mom”

Filed under awesome.