That's what she [redacted]
February 8, 2016 12:52 PM Subscribe
That'swhatshesaid, a one-person play by Courtney Meaker and Erin Pike, consists entirely of lines and stage directions for female characters in the top 11 most-produced plays of the 2014-15 season. The play opened Thursday night for a four-night run at Seattle's Gay City Calamus Auditorium. An hour before curtain on the show's second night, the publisher of Joshua Harmon's play Bad Jews, which is featured in the production, served Gay City Arts a cease and desist order , and the publisher's VP left Pike a voicemail claiming they'd "go after" Gay City Arts if the show continued. Instead, That'swhatshesaid went on as planned--but with a few last-minute changes. Among them: every time a line from Bad Jews came up, Pike merely mimed the stage directions as someone offstage shouted, "Redacted!" Today, according to Meaker, another cease and desist has been delivered--for a play that was not included in That'swhatshesaid because it featured no women.
Pike explained That'swhatshesaid thusly on her (closed) Kickstarter project page:
Pike explained That'swhatshesaid thusly on her (closed) Kickstarter project page:
Theatre has a big, patriarchy-shaped problem. Take a look at any large, established theatre's current season of work-- how many of their plays/musicals are written by women? How many female characters does each play/musical feature? Of the female characters presented, how many are integral to the plot? Are they integral to the plot because of their relationship to a man? What qualities do the female characters have? Are they complex? Stereotypical? Boring? That'swhatshesaid seeks to understand and make new discoveries about the current state of the female actor in popular theatre.
I don't know what the second c&d letter was about, but the first one was legitimate, and this author comes off badly because of it. Respect other artists' work.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:59 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:59 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
That'swhatshesaid, a one-person play by Courtney Meaker and Erin Pike
The play in question does not contain a single word authored by Meaker or Pike. It is disingenuous and disrespectful of the actual (uncompensated) writers of the play (two of whom were women - Nina Raine and Amy Herzog) to use this phrasing.
posted by saeculorum at 1:08 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
The play in question does not contain a single word authored by Meaker or Pike. It is disingenuous and disrespectful of the actual (uncompensated) writers of the play (two of whom were women - Nina Raine and Amy Herzog) to use this phrasing.
posted by saeculorum at 1:08 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
The claim of patriarchical abuse or misogyny by Pike is confusing, when she is apparently also copying work by the same publisher written by (apparently) women:
From his initial reading of my review, Lazarus claimed he didn’t know That'swhatshesaid used other properties owned by Samuel French, which include The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez; 4,000 Miles by Amy Herzog; and Tribes by Nina Raine.
(I'm assuming, of course, that Amy and Nina are names for female authors.)
It sounds like there is a potentially interesting story about how copyright works in theatre. I remember doing AV stuff for musicals in high school, stuff like Annie and Little Shop of Horrors and our school had to pay a lot to rent the scripts, scores, set designs, and so on. I kind of wish there was a better media outlet than The Stranger to report on this sort of thing.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
From his initial reading of my review, Lazarus claimed he didn’t know That'swhatshesaid used other properties owned by Samuel French, which include The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez; 4,000 Miles by Amy Herzog; and Tribes by Nina Raine.
(I'm assuming, of course, that Amy and Nina are names for female authors.)
It sounds like there is a potentially interesting story about how copyright works in theatre. I remember doing AV stuff for musicals in high school, stuff like Annie and Little Shop of Horrors and our school had to pay a lot to rent the scripts, scores, set designs, and so on. I kind of wish there was a better media outlet than The Stranger to report on this sort of thing.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Is this not a textbook example of fair use? I don't understand why it's not ok to critique the work of others by using a part of it. This is literally what the fair use doctrine is for.
posted by sockermom at 1:10 PM on February 8, 2016 [59 favorites]
posted by sockermom at 1:10 PM on February 8, 2016 [59 favorites]
Not really. According to Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, fair use of a protected work may be made for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Note the term “may.” Uses for the above purposes are not guaranteed to be fair; they just might be.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:14 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:14 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Respect other artists' work.
The play in question does not contain a single word authored by Meaker or Pike.
she is apparently also copying work by the same publisher written by (apparently) women:
Commenting on other artists' work by using their words, even women, is kind of Meaker and Pike's point here. And by "kind of", I mean entirely.
posted by Etrigan at 1:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [37 favorites]
The play in question does not contain a single word authored by Meaker or Pike.
she is apparently also copying work by the same publisher written by (apparently) women:
Commenting on other artists' work by using their words, even women, is kind of Meaker and Pike's point here. And by "kind of", I mean entirely.
posted by Etrigan at 1:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [37 favorites]
I'm pretty sure Samuel French knows the law on this better than we do. That's literally what those folks do for a living.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:17 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:17 PM on February 8, 2016
From the articles above, it certainly sounds like an interesting remix that should be covered under fair use.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:18 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 1:18 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm pretty sure Samuel French knows the law on this better than we do. That's literally what those folks do for a living.
The idea that anyone claiming unfair use of copyrighted material must be correct because they are a professional at it is pretty laughable. And that doesn't even get into whether the law, if it is on their side, should be.
posted by Etrigan at 1:19 PM on February 8, 2016 [50 favorites]
The idea that anyone claiming unfair use of copyrighted material must be correct because they are a professional at it is pretty laughable. And that doesn't even get into whether the law, if it is on their side, should be.
posted by Etrigan at 1:19 PM on February 8, 2016 [50 favorites]
If the source material was anything other than the eleven most produced plays I should have more sympathy for the "respect the artist" argument. The very fact of their success is what makes the commentary relevant.
posted by idiopath at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2016 [23 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2016 [23 favorites]
(Sorry, disclosure, my spouse does this work for a living also.)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2016
Anybody who has ever had any dealings with Samuel French would know this would happen. They are not an organization known for their broad definition of fair use and a laissez faire attitude toward copyright law.
Whether they'd win in court is a more complicated story, but the C&D is completely expected.
posted by zachlipton at 1:21 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Whether they'd win in court is a more complicated story, but the C&D is completely expected.
posted by zachlipton at 1:21 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
I can't tell just from the post how the lines are being used. A show that was just a collection of a few contiguous excerpts from other shows would need to get a license. But a show that freely uses lines from other plays, recontextualized and reinterpreted, should definitely be fair use, and frankly is in the best tradition of art and criticism.
Those of you who think this is theft should consider whether you think book publishers should be able to sue reviewers who quote their text (when the publishers don't like the review, naturally).
posted by grobstein at 1:22 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
Those of you who think this is theft should consider whether you think book publishers should be able to sue reviewers who quote their text (when the publishers don't like the review, naturally).
posted by grobstein at 1:22 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
Yes. Fair use is decided on a case-by-case basis, in court, using a four-factor balance and precedence. Of this I am aware. Precedent clearly indicates that this play falls squarely into fair use.
posted by sockermom at 1:24 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by sockermom at 1:24 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
I'm pretty sure Samuel French knows the law on this better than we do. That's literally what those folks do for a living.
Here's another version of the same logic: I'm pretty sure Donald Trump knows how to do deals better than we do. That's literally what he does for a living.
Translated: that's the number one reason Trump is till atop most national polls. Even though there is "literally" zero evidence that any word in those two sentences is actually factual.
posted by blucevalo at 1:25 PM on February 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
Here's another version of the same logic: I'm pretty sure Donald Trump knows how to do deals better than we do. That's literally what he does for a living.
Translated: that's the number one reason Trump is till atop most national polls. Even though there is "literally" zero evidence that any word in those two sentences is actually factual.
posted by blucevalo at 1:25 PM on February 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
Those of you who think this is theft should consider whether you think book publishers should be able to sue reviewers who quote their text (when the publishers don't like the review, naturally).
Reviewers don't use only quotes in their reviews and then sell them. Come on.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:25 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Reviewers don't use only quotes in their reviews and then sell them. Come on.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:25 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
I wish I could see this play, or even read the script—and I get that I could look up scripts of the ten plays, but I'm very curious about how it's put together, how it's staged, how it is or isn't made coherent.
I think I'd make a case for this being commentary, criticism, and education. But I don't care about the fair use question as much as I simply wish I could see it. I'm very curious about it.
posted by not that girl at 1:27 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
I think I'd make a case for this being commentary, criticism, and education. But I don't care about the fair use question as much as I simply wish I could see it. I'm very curious about it.
posted by not that girl at 1:27 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Pretty sure Samuel French knows the law on this better than we do. That's literally what those folks do for a living.
They know what they can get away with in terms of threatening legal action, and they know how to zealously defend the interests they represent.
That doesn't mean we should automatically treat their litigation position as though it is fact.
The law of fair use in particular seems to be endemically unclear. Accordingly, it is subject to constant push and pull. Content owners would generally like it to be as narrow as possible, so they can earn maximal rents from their assets. But we don't have to automatically give them everything they ask for.
This case is a vivid illustration of how the copyright lobby hurts creativity and experimentation -- ironic because they claim to favor and protect creativity.
posted by grobstein at 1:28 PM on February 8, 2016 [17 favorites]
They know what they can get away with in terms of threatening legal action, and they know how to zealously defend the interests they represent.
That doesn't mean we should automatically treat their litigation position as though it is fact.
The law of fair use in particular seems to be endemically unclear. Accordingly, it is subject to constant push and pull. Content owners would generally like it to be as narrow as possible, so they can earn maximal rents from their assets. But we don't have to automatically give them everything they ask for.
This case is a vivid illustration of how the copyright lobby hurts creativity and experimentation -- ironic because they claim to favor and protect creativity.
posted by grobstein at 1:28 PM on February 8, 2016 [17 favorites]
Reviewers don't use only quotes in their reviews and then sell them.
Are there no professional reviewers? Would a review of a shitty book/movie/album consisting entirely of an especially egregiously shitty line be actionable?
Leonard Maltin's review of the movie Isn't It Romantic consists entirely of the word "No", which I suspect appears in the film. Is he not a reviewer?
posted by Etrigan at 1:30 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Are there no professional reviewers? Would a review of a shitty book/movie/album consisting entirely of an especially egregiously shitty line be actionable?
Leonard Maltin's review of the movie Isn't It Romantic consists entirely of the word "No", which I suspect appears in the film. Is he not a reviewer?
posted by Etrigan at 1:30 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Whether or not this is legal may be questionable.
Whether or not one hiding behind a cease and desist order when a piece uses your Very Popular words to initiate discussions on the treatment of women in theater is cowardly or not isn't a question though (to me at least).
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:30 PM on February 8, 2016 [38 favorites]
Whether or not one hiding behind a cease and desist order when a piece uses your Very Popular words to initiate discussions on the treatment of women in theater is cowardly or not isn't a question though (to me at least).
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:30 PM on February 8, 2016 [38 favorites]
The Stranger's review isn't 100% clear on this, but it certainly does appear that, rather than a sequential, line-by-line rereading, the lines and stage directions are reordered and regrouped in the service of social commentary: Each scene is composed of lines thematically bound by behaviors the culture polices the most in women. We see woman as sex object and temptress. Woman as angel. Woman as angry witch. The girl, the woman-hating woman, the woman who asks questions and apologizes for everything.
posted by duffell at 1:31 PM on February 8, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by duffell at 1:31 PM on February 8, 2016 [13 favorites]
Commenting on other artists' work by using their words
Copyright law seems to offer the possibility that using other people's work without permission can be more than "commentary". Successful fair use defenses have been pretty narrowly applied in the past, so it sounds like it is a matter of the amount of material that Meaker and Pike copied, as well as how it is used — here, it sounds like a lot is copied from other authors to make a new work, and it is featured material, copied expressly to promote an explicitly commercial work. (Unless Meaker and Pike gave tickets away for free?)
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:32 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Copyright law seems to offer the possibility that using other people's work without permission can be more than "commentary". Successful fair use defenses have been pretty narrowly applied in the past, so it sounds like it is a matter of the amount of material that Meaker and Pike copied, as well as how it is used — here, it sounds like a lot is copied from other authors to make a new work, and it is featured material, copied expressly to promote an explicitly commercial work. (Unless Meaker and Pike gave tickets away for free?)
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:32 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am "moved, and uncomfortable" by the description of this production. It's hilarious and sad.
Although I have strong thoughts on the copyright aspect, I'd like to focus first on the point they're trying to make.
It reminded me of an incident several years ago when I posted a (film) script excerpt on a writers' site. On the first couple pages we briefly see some characters as the 20-y.o. college student version of themselves. Then we FF 15-20 years later. I was describing how jaded one woman had become, including a couple lines like: "Some people might call her a MILF. And she might like that."
To my amusement I was severely criticized by a few people for my sexist language, although another woman messaged me to say she A) Liked my writing, and B) "Got" & liked those lines.
As for this, of the Top 10 Plays cited as source material for this production, I've only seen/ read "Other Desert Cities" and "Into the Woods." I'm curious how "Woods" is perceived in this context.
And as for copyright infringement - Technically the stage directions count as part of the copyrighted materials as much as dialog, etc., and they are using that in another play which I assume they are charging admission for. So I'd say this is problematic.
posted by NorthernLite at 1:33 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Although I have strong thoughts on the copyright aspect, I'd like to focus first on the point they're trying to make.
It reminded me of an incident several years ago when I posted a (film) script excerpt on a writers' site. On the first couple pages we briefly see some characters as the 20-y.o. college student version of themselves. Then we FF 15-20 years later. I was describing how jaded one woman had become, including a couple lines like: "Some people might call her a MILF. And she might like that."
To my amusement I was severely criticized by a few people for my sexist language, although another woman messaged me to say she A) Liked my writing, and B) "Got" & liked those lines.
As for this, of the Top 10 Plays cited as source material for this production, I've only seen/ read "Other Desert Cities" and "Into the Woods." I'm curious how "Woods" is perceived in this context.
And as for copyright infringement - Technically the stage directions count as part of the copyrighted materials as much as dialog, etc., and they are using that in another play which I assume they are charging admission for. So I'd say this is problematic.
posted by NorthernLite at 1:33 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Can we stop the Copyright argument? This is a pretty squarely "fair use" case, at least as "fair" as The Daily Show using clips as fodder, or as Fair as Weird Al songs. If you go to "that'swhathesaid", you're not seeing anyone else's play up on stage, you're seeing stage directions remixed and recontextualized, and they clearly mean something different than the way they meant in the original play context.
This is a really interesting portrayal of the way that women are reduced in theater, and it seems like it raises interesting points about agency, voice, and action. That's a way better discussion than this copyright tiff.
posted by DGStieber at 1:42 PM on February 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
This is a really interesting portrayal of the way that women are reduced in theater, and it seems like it raises interesting points about agency, voice, and action. That's a way better discussion than this copyright tiff.
posted by DGStieber at 1:42 PM on February 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
This is a pretty squarely "fair use" case, at least as "fair" as The Daily Show using clips as fodder, or as Fair as Weird Al songs.
Many of us don't agree with that.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:43 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Many of us don't agree with that.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 1:43 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'm going to publish a book that consists entirely of the "Tyrion" chapters from A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll make it a commentary on how little people are depicted in fiction written by non-little people. I'm sure that'll be considered "fair use" as well.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 1:54 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by GhostintheMachine at 1:54 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
In my personal fiefdom I would want fair use to cover a use like this, whether or not it's determined to fit in this case.
The involvement of a talented, respected, high-priced, or otherwise fancy lawyer can mean a lot of things other than "this case is a slam dunk." Actually I'd say it more often means this case is *not* a slam dunk, otherwise why pay that hourly fee. Lawyers take cases they think are interesting or could develop longer term relationships with clients or higher profiles in a field, even if the case at hand is a stinker.
posted by sallybrown at 1:55 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
The involvement of a talented, respected, high-priced, or otherwise fancy lawyer can mean a lot of things other than "this case is a slam dunk." Actually I'd say it more often means this case is *not* a slam dunk, otherwise why pay that hourly fee. Lawyers take cases they think are interesting or could develop longer term relationships with clients or higher profiles in a field, even if the case at hand is a stinker.
posted by sallybrown at 1:55 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm going to publish a book that consists entirely of the "Tyrion" chapters from A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll make it a commentary on how little people are depicted in fiction written by non-little people. I'm sure that'll be considered "fair use" as well.
That's... so not a parallel to what this is.
posted by chonus at 1:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [52 favorites]
That's... so not a parallel to what this is.
posted by chonus at 1:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [52 favorites]
Some, sure, I'm not sure you can say 'many'. From the description it certainly sounds like fair use to me; I've seen youtube videos that consisted of the lines from non-white characters in movies, the entire point being commentary on exactly how few and cliched-to-racist they were. I find that fair use and good commentary, and this sounds the same.
posted by tavella at 1:57 PM on February 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by tavella at 1:57 PM on February 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
Also apparently illegal: any and all remixes, those songs and videos made entirely of single words from televised speeches, any advertisement and political ad used to paint opponents in a bad light.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:59 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by zombieflanders at 1:59 PM on February 8, 2016
More information about the second cease-and-desist letter mentioned in Meaker's tweet:
This morning, the director of licensing and compliance at Samuel French sent Erin Pike and playwright Courtney Meaker another cease and desist order. The letter reads, in part:posted by duffell at 1:59 PM on February 8, 2016 [32 favorites]
It has come to our attention THAT’SWHATSHESAID may have also included copyrighted and trademarked elements from our client, Matthew Lopez’ [sic], THE WHIPPING MAN. Based upon this information we must again demand that you cease and desist from use and inclusion of any and all material from these authors’ works.
The weird thing about this cease and desist letter is that there are no women characters in Lopez's play, The Whipping Man, so there are no lines from The Whipping Man in That'swhatshesaid. This absence of women characters is acknowledged instead by the sound of 72 pages being flipped.
Can we stop the Copyright argument?
That's a way better discussion than this copyright tiff.
I'm not well-versed enough in copyright law to have a well-informed opinion either way (though I do think it's a fascinating subject having taken a class on this in undergrad!) but I think that copyright is totally a fair topic here. It's not as if the copyright angle is a derail on the original post -- it's in fact a major point of the post that there were disagreements over what is fair or not fair to excerpt, and the reactions ("Redacted!", getting non sequitur take downs from other authors, etc.) and I for one am really interested to see what other people's thoughts are on the subject.
posted by andrewesque at 2:02 PM on February 8, 2016
That's a way better discussion than this copyright tiff.
I'm not well-versed enough in copyright law to have a well-informed opinion either way (though I do think it's a fascinating subject having taken a class on this in undergrad!) but I think that copyright is totally a fair topic here. It's not as if the copyright angle is a derail on the original post -- it's in fact a major point of the post that there were disagreements over what is fair or not fair to excerpt, and the reactions ("Redacted!", getting non sequitur take downs from other authors, etc.) and I for one am really interested to see what other people's thoughts are on the subject.
posted by andrewesque at 2:02 PM on February 8, 2016
If you go to "that'swhathesaid", you're not seeing anyone else's play up on stage, you're seeing stage directions remixed and recontextualized, and they clearly mean something different than the way they meant in the original play context.
Maybe. That will be up to a judge to decide, though.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:02 PM on February 8, 2016
Maybe. That will be up to a judge to decide, though.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:02 PM on February 8, 2016
any and all remixes,
...except for the ones that credit the original writers and pay royalties, you mean.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:03 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
...except for the ones that credit the original writers and pay royalties, you mean.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:03 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
According to Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, fair use of a protected work may be made for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Note the term “may.” Uses for the above purposes are not guaranteed to be fair; they just might be.
may1
/mā/
verb
1. expressing possibility.
"that may be true"
2. expressing permission.
"you may use a sling if you wish"
posted by Sys Rq at 2:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
may1
/mā/
verb
1. expressing possibility.
"that may be true"
2. expressing permission.
"you may use a sling if you wish"
posted by Sys Rq at 2:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [6 favorites]
I agree it seems to be an interesting portrayal and commentary that seeks to raise interesting points about theater. I'd be curious to see it or at least read it, and I certainly believe coming up with the idea and organizing the quotes took a fair amount of creative work.
I'm personally a little skeptical, if only because plenty of fantastic roles for both men and women have lines that can seem problematic when taken out of context and have stage directions that are just plain stupid. This, incidentally, is why playwrights generally only license their works to be performed in their entirety, because taking their words completely out of context to construct your own narrative while keeping their name attached to it is something most authors strongly dislike.
But in any case, I don't think it's that obvious of a fair use case. If The Daily Show consisted 100% of other people's material and each clip was fairly lengthy, it would be a very different show. I think you could make a reasonable argument in favor of fair use, but you could also make one against it. The only way to find out costs a whole bunch of money and takes a fairly long time, neither of which a small theater company is unfortunately likely to have.
posted by zachlipton at 2:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm personally a little skeptical, if only because plenty of fantastic roles for both men and women have lines that can seem problematic when taken out of context and have stage directions that are just plain stupid. This, incidentally, is why playwrights generally only license their works to be performed in their entirety, because taking their words completely out of context to construct your own narrative while keeping their name attached to it is something most authors strongly dislike.
But in any case, I don't think it's that obvious of a fair use case. If The Daily Show consisted 100% of other people's material and each clip was fairly lengthy, it would be a very different show. I think you could make a reasonable argument in favor of fair use, but you could also make one against it. The only way to find out costs a whole bunch of money and takes a fairly long time, neither of which a small theater company is unfortunately likely to have.
posted by zachlipton at 2:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
except for the ones that credit the original writers and pay royalties, you mean.
There's a number of ways to remix without needing to pay anyone anything.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:09 PM on February 8, 2016
There's a number of ways to remix without needing to pay anyone anything.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:09 PM on February 8, 2016
Reviewers don't use only quotes in their reviews and then sell them.
I have no idea if it's a clear case or not, but talking about it like this is just as wrong as saying that every use somebody thinks is fair counts as "fair use". There does come a point where something goes from "you took X and then created something that was basically still just X", and "you took X and created Y". Just because something is made of something else doesn't prove what the end product is. Using more than one source of material doesn't 100% prove it's transformative, but even using a single source of material wouldn't prove it wasn't. What a court would say about whether it's transformative enough is one thing, but to not admit the possibility that this could be transformative at all seems ridiculous.
If someone can make a sweater entirely out of yarn and we all realize that it's a sweater and not a bunch of yarn, then yes, theoretically, one could create a piece entirely out of quotations and have the resulting piece be a new work, even if that's not the typical way that criticism is presented. I'm not going to say I know that's achieved, here. But I believe it's possible.
Most music sampling isn't for valid fair use purposes, so that's different. The why matters before the how.
posted by Sequence at 2:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
I have no idea if it's a clear case or not, but talking about it like this is just as wrong as saying that every use somebody thinks is fair counts as "fair use". There does come a point where something goes from "you took X and then created something that was basically still just X", and "you took X and created Y". Just because something is made of something else doesn't prove what the end product is. Using more than one source of material doesn't 100% prove it's transformative, but even using a single source of material wouldn't prove it wasn't. What a court would say about whether it's transformative enough is one thing, but to not admit the possibility that this could be transformative at all seems ridiculous.
If someone can make a sweater entirely out of yarn and we all realize that it's a sweater and not a bunch of yarn, then yes, theoretically, one could create a piece entirely out of quotations and have the resulting piece be a new work, even if that's not the typical way that criticism is presented. I'm not going to say I know that's achieved, here. But I believe it's possible.
Most music sampling isn't for valid fair use purposes, so that's different. The why matters before the how.
posted by Sequence at 2:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Rather than drawing comparisons to theater reviews, Daily Show commentary, or Weird Al parodies, none of which are super applicable here, maybe we can just remind ourselves of the four factors used to evaluate fair use cases:
1) the purpose and character of your use
2) the nature of the copyrighted work
3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken
4) the effect of the use upon the potential market
and try to make a layman's attempt to figure out where this stands from first principles (although it would probably be better to also draw from precedent).
For the first factor, it looks to me that the basic question would be whether or not That'swhatshesaid counts as a transformative work. I would say that re-contextualizing snippets of multiple plays together could very well count as transformative although I guess a lot will come down to the actual execution of it and I could see reasonable people disagreeing here. It's possible that they're just relaying long chunks of women's monologues from the source plays but the reviews make it sound a bit more chopped up than that.
For the second factor, I think you'd have to count it against That'swhatshesaid in that it's primarily a play and secondarily a critical work (like a review).
For the third factor, I can't tell exactly how much That'swhatshesaid is taking from each of the source plays. There are nine plays included (excluding The Whipping Man which has no women in it), so unless this play is exceptionally long, it couldn't be much more than 1/9 of each play at most? And it's only the women's parts of each so maybe 1/18? 1/36? Hard to say without knowing the exact proportions and the significance of each snippet.
For the last factor, I think this ties into the first one. If they're taking short-ish snippets and smushing them together, I'd imagine you'd have a lot of isolated, out-of-context lines or one-sided dialogues which would hardly seem to detract from the market for the original plays. If they're relaying whole monologues or something (which I really don't think they are), then you could likely argue that that's way, way too much to excerpt, especially if they're particularly significant or memorable pieces.
In conclusion, fair use is a land of contrasts. Or something.
posted by mhum at 2:12 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
1) the purpose and character of your use
2) the nature of the copyrighted work
3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken
4) the effect of the use upon the potential market
and try to make a layman's attempt to figure out where this stands from first principles (although it would probably be better to also draw from precedent).
For the first factor, it looks to me that the basic question would be whether or not That'swhatshesaid counts as a transformative work. I would say that re-contextualizing snippets of multiple plays together could very well count as transformative although I guess a lot will come down to the actual execution of it and I could see reasonable people disagreeing here. It's possible that they're just relaying long chunks of women's monologues from the source plays but the reviews make it sound a bit more chopped up than that.
For the second factor, I think you'd have to count it against That'swhatshesaid in that it's primarily a play and secondarily a critical work (like a review).
For the third factor, I can't tell exactly how much That'swhatshesaid is taking from each of the source plays. There are nine plays included (excluding The Whipping Man which has no women in it), so unless this play is exceptionally long, it couldn't be much more than 1/9 of each play at most? And it's only the women's parts of each so maybe 1/18? 1/36? Hard to say without knowing the exact proportions and the significance of each snippet.
For the last factor, I think this ties into the first one. If they're taking short-ish snippets and smushing them together, I'd imagine you'd have a lot of isolated, out-of-context lines or one-sided dialogues which would hardly seem to detract from the market for the original plays. If they're relaying whole monologues or something (which I really don't think they are), then you could likely argue that that's way, way too much to excerpt, especially if they're particularly significant or memorable pieces.
In conclusion, fair use is a land of contrasts. Or something.
posted by mhum at 2:12 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
The 4 Fair use factors:
Is the new work Transformative? I.E. Has the material you have taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning? Are there new Aesthetics or Insights?
Yes. Where this show is taking lines from other plays, they are using them in very different ways, for different plot and thematic reasons than the original work. This is a new Aesthetic and Theme, compared to the original plays.
(1/1) Fair Use
The Nature of the Original Work: The original works are fiction. Factual presentations can be more copied than fictional works. This factor doesn't make it more fair use.
(1/2) Fair Use
The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: is "Thatswhatshesaid" taking enough of the copied works that it's taking "the heart" of the original work? No. More evidence that this is Fair Use.
(2/3)
The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market: Is anyone gonna go see "that'swhatshesaid" instead of "Into the Woods" or "Bad Jews"? Is "That'swhatshesaid" trying to compete with these shows? No, of course not. This isn't like a cover band. This is a very different thing. This is not trying to be any of the things it's copying.
(3/4)
Hey! That's a really really strong fair use case!
oo, beat by seconds.
posted by DGStieber at 2:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [7 favorites]
Is the new work Transformative? I.E. Has the material you have taken from the original work been transformed by adding new expression or meaning? Are there new Aesthetics or Insights?
Yes. Where this show is taking lines from other plays, they are using them in very different ways, for different plot and thematic reasons than the original work. This is a new Aesthetic and Theme, compared to the original plays.
(1/1) Fair Use
The Nature of the Original Work: The original works are fiction. Factual presentations can be more copied than fictional works. This factor doesn't make it more fair use.
(1/2) Fair Use
The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: is "Thatswhatshesaid" taking enough of the copied works that it's taking "the heart" of the original work? No. More evidence that this is Fair Use.
(2/3)
The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market: Is anyone gonna go see "that'swhatshesaid" instead of "Into the Woods" or "Bad Jews"? Is "That'swhatshesaid" trying to compete with these shows? No, of course not. This isn't like a cover band. This is a very different thing. This is not trying to be any of the things it's copying.
(3/4)
Hey! That's a really really strong fair use case!
oo, beat by seconds.
posted by DGStieber at 2:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [7 favorites]
Above and beyond the fair use question, this sounds Amazing.
posted by bq at 2:16 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by bq at 2:16 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
Every supercut from the internet over the last several years: Apparently illegal.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:22 PM on February 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 2:22 PM on February 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
it's interesting how when there's a conversation about sexism in art, we often get bogged down in the little technical side details without discussing the broader work or the critiques it's levying...
posted by nadawi at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2016 [59 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2016 [59 favorites]
Wait, so the cease and desist letter to make them stop using the sound of 72 pages being flipped to represent that a play has no female characters? Is that for real? Anyone want to defend that?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:31 PM on February 8, 2016 [16 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:31 PM on February 8, 2016 [16 favorites]
nadawi: "it's interesting how when there's a conversation about sexism in art, we often get bogged down in the little technical side details without discussing the broader work or the critiques it's levying.."
Don't be disingenuous. Nearly half the links in the FPP touch on the "little technical side details" of copyright vis-a-vis C&D.
posted by barnacles at 2:33 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Don't be disingenuous. Nearly half the links in the FPP touch on the "little technical side details" of copyright vis-a-vis C&D.
posted by barnacles at 2:33 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
i'm not being anything, but thanks for the mind reading
posted by nadawi at 2:34 PM on February 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 2:34 PM on February 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
"it's interesting how when there's a conversation about sexism in art, we often get bogged down in the little technical side details without discussing the broader work or the critiques it's levying.."
Don't be disingenuous. Nearly half the links in the FPP touch on the "little technical side details" of copyright vis-a-vis C&D.
You don't be disingenuous. The side with facts and citations about Fair Use have been saying "the copyright stuff isn't an issue, let's talk about sexism," and the other side is saying "no, i wanna hear more about this legal technicality."
And, more broadly, detail derails don't come out of nowhere- they come about because a lot of people would rather talk about a quibble-that-doesn't-implicate anyone instead of a systemic issue.
posted by DGStieber at 2:36 PM on February 8, 2016 [16 favorites]
Don't be disingenuous. Nearly half the links in the FPP touch on the "little technical side details" of copyright vis-a-vis C&D.
You don't be disingenuous. The side with facts and citations about Fair Use have been saying "the copyright stuff isn't an issue, let's talk about sexism," and the other side is saying "no, i wanna hear more about this legal technicality."
And, more broadly, detail derails don't come out of nowhere- they come about because a lot of people would rather talk about a quibble-that-doesn't-implicate anyone instead of a systemic issue.
posted by DGStieber at 2:36 PM on February 8, 2016 [16 favorites]
I have a question: do any of the plays come off well in this regard? Do any of them look impressive when the women's lines are read without the men's?
Like: if any of them pass the Bechdel test, then you'd imagine that would be a pretty boring moment, where two characters are just talking and nothing seems left out. But there are large parts of some works that actually fail the reverse Bechdel: men never speak to each other, only women, and then only about other women characters, etc. But do any of the most popular plays work like this?
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:46 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Like: if any of them pass the Bechdel test, then you'd imagine that would be a pretty boring moment, where two characters are just talking and nothing seems left out. But there are large parts of some works that actually fail the reverse Bechdel: men never speak to each other, only women, and then only about other women characters, etc. But do any of the most popular plays work like this?
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:46 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wait, so the cease and desist letter to make them stop using the sound of 72 pages being flipped to represent that a play has no female characters? Is that for real? Anyone want to defend that?
I suspect nobody from the publisher has seen the play. They simply got word that The Whipping Man was in some way being referenced in a work they already had a serious problem with and sent another C&D to cover their bases. That's what theatrical publishers do whenever they get an inkling that an unauthorized use may be happening somewhere (or an unauthorized modification to an authorized use).
posted by zachlipton at 2:48 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
I suspect nobody from the publisher has seen the play. They simply got word that The Whipping Man was in some way being referenced in a work they already had a serious problem with and sent another C&D to cover their bases. That's what theatrical publishers do whenever they get an inkling that an unauthorized use may be happening somewhere (or an unauthorized modification to an authorized use).
posted by zachlipton at 2:48 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think there's plenty of room to discuss both sexism and copyright. But I think you at least have to acknowledge the possibility that publishers are using copyright to try to harass and silence legitimate critique. Anyone can serve a cease and desist order, and there's plenty of precedent of people using utterly meritless C&D orders to silence people who they know don't have the resources to fight back.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:50 PM on February 8, 2016 [31 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:50 PM on February 8, 2016 [31 favorites]
Jonatham Lethem addressed the issue of transformative use brilliantly in his 2007 article "The Ecsasy Of Influence." At the end of a lengthy piece celebrating the right of artists to freely use material that has they encounter, he admits that I stole, warped, and cobbled together as I “wrote” virtually every line, and provides a key that names the source of each quotation. Lethem handles his appropriated material so deftly it's hard to believe, even when he reveals the trick at the end, that he's created the entire work from passages from prior works.
If thatswhathesaid exhibits similar creativity, I think it earns a place as fair use even if it's completely made from material written by others. I don't think you can judge whether it's fair use or not without actually seeing the piece, but the intent certainly seems to be transformative.
posted by layceepee at 2:51 PM on February 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
If thatswhathesaid exhibits similar creativity, I think it earns a place as fair use even if it's completely made from material written by others. I don't think you can judge whether it's fair use or not without actually seeing the piece, but the intent certainly seems to be transformative.
posted by layceepee at 2:51 PM on February 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
1. The play sounds brilliant, its message timely and cutting.
2. It also likely runs afoul of copyright law. Such are the perils of remix / mash-up culture.
I'd personally love to see it, especially because of the legal feathers it is ruffling.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:52 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
2. It also likely runs afoul of copyright law. Such are the perils of remix / mash-up culture.
I'd personally love to see it, especially because of the legal feathers it is ruffling.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:52 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm pretty sure Samuel French knows the law on this better than we do. That's literally what those folks do for a living.
I would hazard a guess that there's an equivalently accredited law firm who would agree to differ on that point, if suitably compensated.
posted by Jakey at 2:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [15 favorites]
I would hazard a guess that there's an equivalently accredited law firm who would agree to differ on that point, if suitably compensated.
posted by Jakey at 2:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [15 favorites]
Wow, I love the idea of this.
I kind of like the idea of the play changing to adjust to the c&ds. It makes the backlash part of the play. It's the very thing that's being criticized (the muting of female voices) happening right infront of you.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:02 PM on February 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
I kind of like the idea of the play changing to adjust to the c&ds. It makes the backlash part of the play. It's the very thing that's being criticized (the muting of female voices) happening right infront of you.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:02 PM on February 8, 2016 [14 favorites]
The C&D certainly did its job. Even if it didn't stop the performance, it reframed the dialogue from "Hey, you can't do that, it's going to reveal our plays'/authors'/company's propensity to perpetuate misogyny" to "Hey, you can't do that, it probably violates this law that's interpreted many different ways by many different people and also has this big contingency built in about fairness. Let's talk about that stuff now so we don't have to talk about the other thing."
posted by mudpuppie at 3:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [22 favorites]
posted by mudpuppie at 3:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [22 favorites]
Well, sort of, but it also had a Streisand Effect, in that a lot more people have heard of the performance now than had before.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
The play in question does not contain a single word authored by Meaker or Pike.
Here's a fifty foot long sculptural collage of Life Magazine.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Here's a fifty foot long sculptural collage of Life Magazine.
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Well, sort of, but it also had a Streisand Effect, in that a lot more people have heard of the performance now than had before.
Yep, agreed.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2016
Yep, agreed.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2016
I just love the 72 pages ruffling thing. That's fucking beautiful commentary.
posted by E. Whitehall at 3:29 PM on February 8, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by E. Whitehall at 3:29 PM on February 8, 2016 [15 favorites]
Why can't criticism be in the form of a play?
Does anyone really think much actual profit is being booked, here, even if that mattered in the least?
This all sounds brilliant and perhaps the best reaction would be for playwrights to stop gazing at their own navels.
posted by maxwelton at 3:43 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Does anyone really think much actual profit is being booked, here, even if that mattered in the least?
This all sounds brilliant and perhaps the best reaction would be for playwrights to stop gazing at their own navels.
posted by maxwelton at 3:43 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
"Hey, you can't do that, it's going to reveal our plays'/authors'/company's propensity to perpetuate misogyny"
Is that true of Samuel French and the works it publishes? Not saying you're wrong, just curious if this is actually true. From another angle, for instance, this story could just as easily look like a couple of unoriginal trust fundies who didn't get their way.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:43 PM on February 8, 2016
Is that true of Samuel French and the works it publishes? Not saying you're wrong, just curious if this is actually true. From another angle, for instance, this story could just as easily look like a couple of unoriginal trust fundies who didn't get their way.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 3:43 PM on February 8, 2016
Well, sort of, but it also had a Streisand Effect, in that a lot more people have heard of the performance now than had before.
Particularly since this play ran for four nights in a tiny theater that seats 50.
posted by duffell at 3:47 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Particularly since this play ran for four nights in a tiny theater that seats 50.
posted by duffell at 3:47 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
this story could just as easily look like a couple of unoriginal trust fundies who didn't get their way.
ah the hottest take. congratulations.
posted by nadawi at 3:53 PM on February 8, 2016 [34 favorites]
ah the hottest take. congratulations.
posted by nadawi at 3:53 PM on February 8, 2016 [34 favorites]
this story could just as easily look like a couple of unoriginal trust fundies who didn't get their way.
Please think about what you're saying here. Because Courtney Meaker is, in fact, a playwright.
*shocked, yes shocked that a conversation about a piece of social commentary on the minimization of women in theater has devolved into the actual minimization of women in theater*
posted by duffell at 3:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [52 favorites]
Please think about what you're saying here. Because Courtney Meaker is, in fact, a playwright.
*shocked, yes shocked that a conversation about a piece of social commentary on the minimization of women in theater has devolved into the actual minimization of women in theater*
posted by duffell at 3:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [52 favorites]
The legality of the copyright work is like the most controversial topic... if this was 2006. Now it's been beaten to death. Why discuss it now?
The fact that this discussion centers around a BUT IS IT LEGAL?? question is pretty much symptomatic of an unconscious self-defensiveness against the writers' work, rather than a willingness to discuss the concept in question.
posted by suedehead at 3:57 PM on February 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
The fact that this discussion centers around a BUT IS IT LEGAL?? question is pretty much symptomatic of an unconscious self-defensiveness against the writers' work, rather than a willingness to discuss the concept in question.
posted by suedehead at 3:57 PM on February 8, 2016 [8 favorites]
I get the frustration. I also think it's difficult to have a serious discussion about the content of a play none of us have seen or read, so it's pretty natural for the copyright question to dominate. That's not to say we should minimize Meaker and Pike's work, because I think they've clearly set out to raise some important issues no matter whether their creation falls under fair use or not, but just that it's hard to discuss it. Their Kickstarter did say they planned to film it and post the video online, which would surely be informative if it can happen.
posted by zachlipton at 4:11 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by zachlipton at 4:11 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Please think about what you're saying here.
I thought about it and basically my hot take was that this situation could be described any number of ways, for lack of useful information. For instance, it's really not obvious that Samuel French is maliciously targeting these two explicitly because they are excerpting artists' original works about women, specifically, especially when SF seems to have a history of pursuing any copyright violations it finds for material it owns the publishing rights to (as well as even allowing fair use under the specific, if narrow, guidelines for which fair use was intended). But if there is evidence for actual gender discrimination on the part of SF's legal department as it dealt with this event, then let's bring that evidence to light. This is definitely within the journalistic purview of The Stranger or any reputable publication, for instance.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:18 PM on February 8, 2016
I thought about it and basically my hot take was that this situation could be described any number of ways, for lack of useful information. For instance, it's really not obvious that Samuel French is maliciously targeting these two explicitly because they are excerpting artists' original works about women, specifically, especially when SF seems to have a history of pursuing any copyright violations it finds for material it owns the publishing rights to (as well as even allowing fair use under the specific, if narrow, guidelines for which fair use was intended). But if there is evidence for actual gender discrimination on the part of SF's legal department as it dealt with this event, then let's bring that evidence to light. This is definitely within the journalistic purview of The Stranger or any reputable publication, for instance.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:18 PM on February 8, 2016
As someone who has had local theater people try to explain to me why they can't or can (under certain conditions) put on a play/reading in my little theater, I remain baffled by copyright law when it comes to plays. It seems designed to
Having said that, I refuse to believe that any of the plays used in this piece would suffer even a tiny bit of lost revenue. It's like saying creating a book of recipes from a restaurant (remixed with satirical commentary) is going to be used by the audience as a substitute for eating there. Or from buying a non-mixed recipe book, because if you actually want to create the recipes you are not going to be able to do so from the mixed up version.
posted by emjaybee at 4:23 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Having said that, I refuse to believe that any of the plays used in this piece would suffer even a tiny bit of lost revenue. It's like saying creating a book of recipes from a restaurant (remixed with satirical commentary) is going to be used by the audience as a substitute for eating there. Or from buying a non-mixed recipe book, because if you actually want to create the recipes you are not going to be able to do so from the mixed up version.
posted by emjaybee at 4:23 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
Dude. You used the phrase "unoriginal trust fundies" to describe two female artists about whose financial situation, as far as I know, none of us has any insight. If you had a point, it got lost because you picked a really shitty way to phrase it. And I have definitely noticed that people casually throw accusations of privilege at female artists in a way that they don't at guys. See, for instance, any discussion of Tavi Gevinson, who manages to get compared to Paris Hilton despite being the daughter of high school teachers.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:26 PM on February 8, 2016 [42 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:26 PM on February 8, 2016 [42 favorites]
But there are large parts of some works that actually fail the reverse Bechdel: men never speak to each other, only women, and then only about other women characters, etc. But do any of the most popular plays work like this?
Hold up, I need a fer-instance here.
posted by gingerest at 4:41 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Hold up, I need a fer-instance here.
posted by gingerest at 4:41 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Mod note: A few comments deleted. The trust fund hypothesis is noted; let's move on from there, if there are more interesting aspects of this people want to talk about?
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 4:48 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 4:48 PM on February 8, 2016
it's really not obvious that Samuel French is maliciously targeting these two explicitly because they are excerpting artists' original works about women
I don't think anyone actually suggested that. What has been suggested is that attempting to silence a little teeny play that is using the works transformatively as critique is Bad for Art and Society.
posted by gingerest at 4:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
I don't think anyone actually suggested that. What has been suggested is that attempting to silence a little teeny play that is using the works transformatively as critique is Bad for Art and Society.
posted by gingerest at 4:56 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
Has anyone here seen any of the 10 plays being quoted? I'm curious because I've just been looking at descriptions of some of them and it really seems to me that quoting all the women's lines may be quoting half the play, which I would think goes well beyond fair use.
Vania and Sonia and Masha and Spike : this lists 6 main characters, 4 of whom are women, and from the description, while one of the male characters gets big long monologues, the other doesn't have much to say, so it looks like a possible half the lines are for women.
Outside Mullingar lists four main characters, two of whom are women. Again, this sounds like possibly half the lines belong to the women (presumably, since this is a play about repressed middle-aged Irish farmers, interspersed with long silences).
With Bad Jews it's harder to tell. The lead role of Daphnya sounds like she's obnoxious but has lots to say - "Ephraim admirably handles a difficult role, playing a termagant who treads a fine line between amusing and intolerable", "When Daphna and Liam go head to head, Ephraim has the bulk of the play’s lines", "The dialogue is delivered at breakneck speed, with the mostly static Melody and Jonah providing ballast to Daphna and Liam’s frenetic tearing at one another"
That's the top three on the list, and it's certainly possible that what's being quoted is roughly half the text in each case.
posted by Azara at 5:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Vania and Sonia and Masha and Spike : this lists 6 main characters, 4 of whom are women, and from the description, while one of the male characters gets big long monologues, the other doesn't have much to say, so it looks like a possible half the lines are for women.
Outside Mullingar lists four main characters, two of whom are women. Again, this sounds like possibly half the lines belong to the women (presumably, since this is a play about repressed middle-aged Irish farmers, interspersed with long silences).
With Bad Jews it's harder to tell. The lead role of Daphnya sounds like she's obnoxious but has lots to say - "Ephraim admirably handles a difficult role, playing a termagant who treads a fine line between amusing and intolerable", "When Daphna and Liam go head to head, Ephraim has the bulk of the play’s lines", "The dialogue is delivered at breakneck speed, with the mostly static Melody and Jonah providing ballast to Daphna and Liam’s frenetic tearing at one another"
That's the top three on the list, and it's certainly possible that what's being quoted is roughly half the text in each case.
posted by Azara at 5:05 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Has anyone here seen any of the 10 plays being quoted? I'm curious because I've just been looking at descriptions of some of them and it really seems to me that quoting all the women's lines may be quoting half the play, which I would think goes well beyond fair use.
To be clear, That'swhatshesaid draws exclusively from female dialogue and stage directions from the plays in question, but I haven't read anything about the piece that suggests it quotes all of the female dialogue from each play.
posted by duffell at 5:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [10 favorites]
To be clear, That'swhatshesaid draws exclusively from female dialogue and stage directions from the plays in question, but I haven't read anything about the piece that suggests it quotes all of the female dialogue from each play.
posted by duffell at 5:09 PM on February 8, 2016 [10 favorites]
the specific, if narrow, guidelines for which fair use was intended
"Narrow?" Says who?
posted by praemunire at 5:13 PM on February 8, 2016
"Narrow?" Says who?
posted by praemunire at 5:13 PM on February 8, 2016
I mean, apparently something like 40-50% of shows have LGBT characters, but LGBT people sure as hell don't have 40-50% of the lines, or representation in general for that matter.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:16 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by zombieflanders at 5:16 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
To be clear, That'swhatshesaid draws exclusively from female dialogue and stage directions from the plays in question, but I haven't read anything about the piece that suggests it quotes all of the female dialogue from each play.
That sounds more like "fair use" in the legal sense then, but it gives a lot of opportunities of being unfair in the everyday sense.
posted by Azara at 5:25 PM on February 8, 2016
That sounds more like "fair use" in the legal sense then, but it gives a lot of opportunities of being unfair in the everyday sense.
posted by Azara at 5:25 PM on February 8, 2016
It does sound to me like it should be fair use. But the practicality of taking that kind of case to court can take a lot of time and money. This sort of similar case about a Three's Company parody took about 3 years before a judge ruled it was fair use.
posted by interplanetjanet at 5:29 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by interplanetjanet at 5:29 PM on February 8, 2016
An interesting piece from Howard Sherman, arts administrator at the New School.
posted by gingerest at 5:43 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by gingerest at 5:43 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
One aspect of what is brilliant about this play / art experiment is the way it very clearly makes the legal reaction to it part of itself, all the way from the the asinine C&D orders against the show up to the absurd petty online lawyering going on in this thread and - perhaps - other similar threads elsewhere.
The legal question is - of course - not at all clear. Such questions never are. By design, as any fule kno.
The moral question, by contrast, is absolutely clear. If you are citing the law in order to censor / shut this play down or to suggest doing so - the play being so obviously a work of critical protest about sexism in theatre generally - then you are openly accepting the role of The Bad Guys in the wider meta-play. Also, you are very plainly in the moral wrong and that is why everyone who is not also a lawyer or would-be lawyer (or simply a sexist dick) is booing you.
So painfully, laughably, horribly obvious. Pretty much the point of the art experiment really: it is - among other things - designed to expose precisely this disjunction between morality and the law. When the law is being an ass - which here it is - the legal details don't matter. If you need to bring a legal conversation to shut down an artistic conversation you have not just lost the moral argument, you have abandoned all pretence of attempting one.
As for the people who are being The Bad Guys, either they don't get it or don't care. Or both. They have the power, anyway - also a big part of the point - and as such may very well yet achieve some (unjust) legal remedy.
Artistically, that would just be icing on an already bitter but superbly worked cake.
posted by motty at 5:45 PM on February 8, 2016 [11 favorites]
The legal question is - of course - not at all clear. Such questions never are. By design, as any fule kno.
The moral question, by contrast, is absolutely clear. If you are citing the law in order to censor / shut this play down or to suggest doing so - the play being so obviously a work of critical protest about sexism in theatre generally - then you are openly accepting the role of The Bad Guys in the wider meta-play. Also, you are very plainly in the moral wrong and that is why everyone who is not also a lawyer or would-be lawyer (or simply a sexist dick) is booing you.
So painfully, laughably, horribly obvious. Pretty much the point of the art experiment really: it is - among other things - designed to expose precisely this disjunction between morality and the law. When the law is being an ass - which here it is - the legal details don't matter. If you need to bring a legal conversation to shut down an artistic conversation you have not just lost the moral argument, you have abandoned all pretence of attempting one.
As for the people who are being The Bad Guys, either they don't get it or don't care. Or both. They have the power, anyway - also a big part of the point - and as such may very well yet achieve some (unjust) legal remedy.
Artistically, that would just be icing on an already bitter but superbly worked cake.
posted by motty at 5:45 PM on February 8, 2016 [11 favorites]
gingerest, thanks so much for finding and posting that link! I wish I'd included that in the original post!
posted by duffell at 5:48 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by duffell at 5:48 PM on February 8, 2016
Well, this is annoyingly topical.
As it happens, I've just returned home from a long day running a small community theater in the basement of a socialist grocery store in the most intact of the New Deal's three "green" towns designed as social democratic cooperatives in 1935, where our own production of Bad Jews is currently rehearsing even as I write this.
Thing is, if you're in the administrative end of live theater, you have a dislike/hate relationship with Samuel French Inc., because if you intend to do anything but Shakespeare or other pre-copyright work, you will be dealing with Samuel French, and they are absolute hawks about protecting the work that they've come to own by whatever means. This goes right down to them tracking mentions of plays they license in online sites and social media, and if there's a hint that you're doing one of their shows without an active, fully paid (or in the case of small theaters, mostly paid until the last minute) licensing agreement. They're not particularly possessed of any sort of gestalt personality, though, and basically, if you follow the stipulations in your licensing contract, you're fine.
Those contracts, too, are very, very specific. No thrust staging if a play is specified for proscenium-only performance. No gender changes without a negotiated variance. Lots of annoying language that has to go on your posters in specific sizes in proportion to the size of the title, and in your programs in no less than twelve point type. No alteration of lines, no dropping dialogue or sections of dialogue...it just goes on and on, and me? Well, I'd like it if my theater did nothing but all-nude gay burlesque versions of deliciously non-copywritten Voltaire plays, wry epics of Shakespeare done in the style of Monty Python, black-light černé divadlo deranged avant garde wonderland work in the mode of a DC-orbit Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric, gorgeous monologues by local one-person showpersons, and other glorious modes of theater that don't require writing a check to a publisher for the right to perform plays by long-dead playwrights with no heirs, like Lorraine Hansberry. I'd like to do those things, but avant garde in orbit-city does not pack the house like modern chestnuts like Avenue Q and Evil Dead: The Musical (or, from a theater manager's standpoint, Evil Dead: The Uncomfortably Misogynist Musical Based On A Nerd Fixation That Leaves Stage Blood Everywhere That Is A Fucking Misery To Mop Up), and we don't have a mysterious benefactor to pay the bills and the manager's wages.
Of course, some of this is because copyright is fucking broken in the US (hope you're enjoying your sojourn in hell, Sonny Bono), and some of it is because Joshua Harmon made Samuel French Inc. his publisher, and Samuel French operates like...a corporation, enforcing the rules that maintain its existence. I'd be shocked if there was anything behind their actions here except for fine points of contract law and intellectual property, because I've had to negotiate a number of those fine points for licenses so far and the bottom line is set and I would be doubly shocked if they didn't regard just playing out big swaths of dialogue, not clever parodies of that dialogue, as an infringement.
Yeulch. I feel like I'm defending Samuel French Inc., which I'm not, but honestly, the artists here got a ton of publicity for their experiment and don't appear to have been sued, so it's not a bad gimmick as gimmicks go.
posted by sonascope at 5:52 PM on February 8, 2016 [22 favorites]
As it happens, I've just returned home from a long day running a small community theater in the basement of a socialist grocery store in the most intact of the New Deal's three "green" towns designed as social democratic cooperatives in 1935, where our own production of Bad Jews is currently rehearsing even as I write this.
Thing is, if you're in the administrative end of live theater, you have a dislike/hate relationship with Samuel French Inc., because if you intend to do anything but Shakespeare or other pre-copyright work, you will be dealing with Samuel French, and they are absolute hawks about protecting the work that they've come to own by whatever means. This goes right down to them tracking mentions of plays they license in online sites and social media, and if there's a hint that you're doing one of their shows without an active, fully paid (or in the case of small theaters, mostly paid until the last minute) licensing agreement. They're not particularly possessed of any sort of gestalt personality, though, and basically, if you follow the stipulations in your licensing contract, you're fine.
Those contracts, too, are very, very specific. No thrust staging if a play is specified for proscenium-only performance. No gender changes without a negotiated variance. Lots of annoying language that has to go on your posters in specific sizes in proportion to the size of the title, and in your programs in no less than twelve point type. No alteration of lines, no dropping dialogue or sections of dialogue...it just goes on and on, and me? Well, I'd like it if my theater did nothing but all-nude gay burlesque versions of deliciously non-copywritten Voltaire plays, wry epics of Shakespeare done in the style of Monty Python, black-light černé divadlo deranged avant garde wonderland work in the mode of a DC-orbit Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric, gorgeous monologues by local one-person showpersons, and other glorious modes of theater that don't require writing a check to a publisher for the right to perform plays by long-dead playwrights with no heirs, like Lorraine Hansberry. I'd like to do those things, but avant garde in orbit-city does not pack the house like modern chestnuts like Avenue Q and Evil Dead: The Musical (or, from a theater manager's standpoint, Evil Dead: The Uncomfortably Misogynist Musical Based On A Nerd Fixation That Leaves Stage Blood Everywhere That Is A Fucking Misery To Mop Up), and we don't have a mysterious benefactor to pay the bills and the manager's wages.
Of course, some of this is because copyright is fucking broken in the US (hope you're enjoying your sojourn in hell, Sonny Bono), and some of it is because Joshua Harmon made Samuel French Inc. his publisher, and Samuel French operates like...a corporation, enforcing the rules that maintain its existence. I'd be shocked if there was anything behind their actions here except for fine points of contract law and intellectual property, because I've had to negotiate a number of those fine points for licenses so far and the bottom line is set and I would be doubly shocked if they didn't regard just playing out big swaths of dialogue, not clever parodies of that dialogue, as an infringement.
Yeulch. I feel like I'm defending Samuel French Inc., which I'm not, but honestly, the artists here got a ton of publicity for their experiment and don't appear to have been sued, so it's not a bad gimmick as gimmicks go.
posted by sonascope at 5:52 PM on February 8, 2016 [22 favorites]
The problem with content creators maintaining Complete Control of their works in 2016 is, you cannot be an active participant online without being a "content creator" and could conceivably receive a valid C&D as a result of nothing more than a quote of a comment.
Which sounds silly, but it highlights the jangling fact that in Old Media, you either have the money to legally defend your works, or see them stolen--in other words, it was a gentleman's game where a content creator must have the wherewithal to engage legally to be able to exist in the ecosystem. Meanwhile in 2016 I've written a few books' worth of comments which technically can be quoted in fair use, but it isn't really fair until the legal system deems it so.
I mean, not to put too fine or twee a point on it, but it's about representation, isn't it? Female characters aren't being represented well because of a cultural power differential, and meanwhile the power differentials existing elsewhere in media turn out to be perfectly usable in that very same arena for equally negative purposes.
I guess I had sort of taken this relationship for granted in the face of Youtube's Content ID system, which has already turned ad revenue on Youtube into a domain requiring vigorous defense by a content cartel. Representative systems always favor power quite quickly if everyone isn't watching ridiculously closely.
posted by Phyltre at 6:01 PM on February 8, 2016
Which sounds silly, but it highlights the jangling fact that in Old Media, you either have the money to legally defend your works, or see them stolen--in other words, it was a gentleman's game where a content creator must have the wherewithal to engage legally to be able to exist in the ecosystem. Meanwhile in 2016 I've written a few books' worth of comments which technically can be quoted in fair use, but it isn't really fair until the legal system deems it so.
I mean, not to put too fine or twee a point on it, but it's about representation, isn't it? Female characters aren't being represented well because of a cultural power differential, and meanwhile the power differentials existing elsewhere in media turn out to be perfectly usable in that very same arena for equally negative purposes.
I guess I had sort of taken this relationship for granted in the face of Youtube's Content ID system, which has already turned ad revenue on Youtube into a domain requiring vigorous defense by a content cartel. Representative systems always favor power quite quickly if everyone isn't watching ridiculously closely.
posted by Phyltre at 6:01 PM on February 8, 2016
Those contracts, too, are very, very specific. No thrust staging if a play is specified for proscenium-only performance. No gender changes without a negotiated variance. Lots of annoying language that has to go on your posters in specific sizes in proportion to the size of the title, and in your programs in no less than twelve point type. No alteration of lines, no dropping dialogue or sections of dialogue...
How do playwrights in general feel about this? Do they want this kind of iron control over their works enforced, or do they not care? Is French the only game in town/way to get paid so their quirks become the norm?
posted by emjaybee at 6:02 PM on February 8, 2016
How do playwrights in general feel about this? Do they want this kind of iron control over their works enforced, or do they not care? Is French the only game in town/way to get paid so their quirks become the norm?
posted by emjaybee at 6:02 PM on February 8, 2016
This thread makes me wish I could go back to my high school self and have her drop a dime on the heavily altered musicals my high school used to perform. We did Grease by removing at least three songs and changing the lyrics to remove references to genitalia and sex, and the book was heavily edited as well.
posted by pxe2000 at 6:10 PM on February 8, 2016
posted by pxe2000 at 6:10 PM on February 8, 2016
everyone who is not also a lawyer or would-be lawyer (or simply a sexist dick) is booing you.
I think that--excepting those who are being paid at the moment to hold other views--lawyers are far far more likely to have a nuanced understanding of the ways that IP law can be applied exploitatively than the average member of the public is. Most of the copyright-expansive comments I've read here don't look like the work of lawyers, but rather of people bringing a "lay understanding" of the law that is based on (a) an inadequate understanding of the interpretive case law in which the copyright statute is embedded [understandable, given the difficulty of accessing this material] and (b) a lack of familiarity with the practical operation of IP law and its widespread abuses by rightsholders.
posted by praemunire at 6:12 PM on February 8, 2016
I think that--excepting those who are being paid at the moment to hold other views--lawyers are far far more likely to have a nuanced understanding of the ways that IP law can be applied exploitatively than the average member of the public is. Most of the copyright-expansive comments I've read here don't look like the work of lawyers, but rather of people bringing a "lay understanding" of the law that is based on (a) an inadequate understanding of the interpretive case law in which the copyright statute is embedded [understandable, given the difficulty of accessing this material] and (b) a lack of familiarity with the practical operation of IP law and its widespread abuses by rightsholders.
posted by praemunire at 6:12 PM on February 8, 2016
I can get behind putting limits on the alteration of a play for a particular performance, at least if you're billing it as the original play. Say, for example, that someone, for whatever twisted reason, wanted to put on a production of Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive in which Li'l Bit and Uncle Peck's relationship was portrayed as beneficial. That would, in effect, be committing slander against Vogel, since it would be saying, this is her play, while actually bringing something completely the opposite of what she meant. It would arguably not be the same play if the genders of the main characters were changed. Depending on the play, it would arguably not be the same play if the characters were specified to be of a particular race, but played by actors of a different one. (The TV series Strangers With Candy had an episode featuring a high school production of A Raisin in the Sun in which all the speaking parts were played by white students, and the black students "played" background elements such as trees.)
But here, clearly That'swhatshesaid is not meant to be a production of Bad Jews or any of the other plays; no one could reasonably think that it was. It's not even on the order of someone taking the most popular numbers from the most-produced musicals and doing them as a revue. (I have no idea what the specific copyright law is or how Samuel French would deal with that, but for some reason, I don't think that they would have a problem with that.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:35 PM on February 8, 2016
But here, clearly That'swhatshesaid is not meant to be a production of Bad Jews or any of the other plays; no one could reasonably think that it was. It's not even on the order of someone taking the most popular numbers from the most-produced musicals and doing them as a revue. (I have no idea what the specific copyright law is or how Samuel French would deal with that, but for some reason, I don't think that they would have a problem with that.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:35 PM on February 8, 2016
Also, you are very plainly in the moral wrong and that is why everyone who is not also a lawyer or would-be lawyer (or simply a sexist dick) is booing you.
I really don't think it's that simple. Playwrights, as a group, and through the agents they hire to represent their interests, are incredibly fickle about how their works are performed, and transformative use is a really sensitive subject in that context. Plays are a bit different than other media, in that an audience member's opinion of the play and its author is shaped by the decisions of an entirely separate creative team that the playwright will never meet or approve. Playwrights remain attached to their works, yet they don't get to maintain much control once they're released in the wild. As such, there are generally a couple of rules to try to accommodate the desires of playwrights. Two of the main ones are:
- You've got to pay royalties. Playwrights getting paid. Their agents and publishers like getting paid. Pay up.
- No changes. Perform the work exactly as written and preserve the author's original intent unless you've gotten special permission. This sometimes becomes controversial when a director wants to change genders or races of characters (see, for instance, this previous MetaFilter thread) or make other adaptations. Directors do interpret the text and bring it alive with every production, but at the end of the day, you don't get to mess with the text without permission, at least not until the copyright expires (which I wish would happen a lot sooner, but most of these are quite new plays).
These rules are enforced through copyright law and the contracts producers sign when they license performance rights.
As a theatrical publisher, Samuel French spends much of its time dealing with people who break the rules. They track down theaters, including school groups, putting on unlicensed performances with a vengeance. And they are certainly interested in people making unauthorized changes to the text. This is what they do. Some of the reasons for this are purely commercial (see rule #1 about getting paid above), but these restrictions ultimately come from playwrights, and they aren't imposed without some reason.
So when a work like this comes along, the publisher immediately sees two things (and likely hasn't seen the show or developed any broader understanding of its purpose beyond these two things): they didn't get paid for it, and someone chopped the lines up completely out of context to create a new work. That's enough to get the lawyers jumping on you no matter how piercing your social commentary may be. That's also what anybody who has produced a published play before could expect to happen.
But enough about legalities; you want to talk about the moral wrong. There are two competing moral interests here, as playwrights have a stake in this too. They don't generally want strangers transforming their works (and if they do, there are ways to make that clear). Here, an author wants to create a new transformative work entirely out of other people's writing. There are two conflicting interests at stake: the desire to create new works that adapt and critique our shared creative culture; and the desire of authors to exercise control over how their writing can be performed (or, if you want to be cynical, the desire of authors to protect themselves from criticism). Both of those positions have some moral merit and there is a balance between them.
Deciding where to draw that line is a pretty fact specific question, and without having seen it, it's hard to have the facts, and it's not always going to be a situation where both sides are happy. It's not unreasonable (it is, in my opinion, laudable) to want to create a commentary like this. It's also not unreasonable for an author to say "No. I don't want you to have, say, 10% of your new play be my words which you've chopped up and taken completely out of context, divorced from the characters and situations for which they were written, and used to make an entirely new point" (a point, yes, which is likely critical of the author). Who wins that moral argument and why? I think there's ample room to go with either side, or frankly, a bit of both, without being an internet lawyer and/or a sexist dick.
posted by zachlipton at 6:45 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
I really don't think it's that simple. Playwrights, as a group, and through the agents they hire to represent their interests, are incredibly fickle about how their works are performed, and transformative use is a really sensitive subject in that context. Plays are a bit different than other media, in that an audience member's opinion of the play and its author is shaped by the decisions of an entirely separate creative team that the playwright will never meet or approve. Playwrights remain attached to their works, yet they don't get to maintain much control once they're released in the wild. As such, there are generally a couple of rules to try to accommodate the desires of playwrights. Two of the main ones are:
- You've got to pay royalties. Playwrights getting paid. Their agents and publishers like getting paid. Pay up.
- No changes. Perform the work exactly as written and preserve the author's original intent unless you've gotten special permission. This sometimes becomes controversial when a director wants to change genders or races of characters (see, for instance, this previous MetaFilter thread) or make other adaptations. Directors do interpret the text and bring it alive with every production, but at the end of the day, you don't get to mess with the text without permission, at least not until the copyright expires (which I wish would happen a lot sooner, but most of these are quite new plays).
These rules are enforced through copyright law and the contracts producers sign when they license performance rights.
As a theatrical publisher, Samuel French spends much of its time dealing with people who break the rules. They track down theaters, including school groups, putting on unlicensed performances with a vengeance. And they are certainly interested in people making unauthorized changes to the text. This is what they do. Some of the reasons for this are purely commercial (see rule #1 about getting paid above), but these restrictions ultimately come from playwrights, and they aren't imposed without some reason.
So when a work like this comes along, the publisher immediately sees two things (and likely hasn't seen the show or developed any broader understanding of its purpose beyond these two things): they didn't get paid for it, and someone chopped the lines up completely out of context to create a new work. That's enough to get the lawyers jumping on you no matter how piercing your social commentary may be. That's also what anybody who has produced a published play before could expect to happen.
But enough about legalities; you want to talk about the moral wrong. There are two competing moral interests here, as playwrights have a stake in this too. They don't generally want strangers transforming their works (and if they do, there are ways to make that clear). Here, an author wants to create a new transformative work entirely out of other people's writing. There are two conflicting interests at stake: the desire to create new works that adapt and critique our shared creative culture; and the desire of authors to exercise control over how their writing can be performed (or, if you want to be cynical, the desire of authors to protect themselves from criticism). Both of those positions have some moral merit and there is a balance between them.
Deciding where to draw that line is a pretty fact specific question, and without having seen it, it's hard to have the facts, and it's not always going to be a situation where both sides are happy. It's not unreasonable (it is, in my opinion, laudable) to want to create a commentary like this. It's also not unreasonable for an author to say "No. I don't want you to have, say, 10% of your new play be my words which you've chopped up and taken completely out of context, divorced from the characters and situations for which they were written, and used to make an entirely new point" (a point, yes, which is likely critical of the author). Who wins that moral argument and why? I think there's ample room to go with either side, or frankly, a bit of both, without being an internet lawyer and/or a sexist dick.
posted by zachlipton at 6:45 PM on February 8, 2016 [5 favorites]
Understandable as the first instinct is to go to copyright law - and that is absolutely a question here - the C&D letter excerpt mentions more than that:
Any such program, publicity, production and/or presentation by you and/or permitted by you constitute and shall constitute the intentional infringement of the copyrights, trademarks and or other rights of our author and subject you and any and all other persons and/or firms involved with the publicity, presentation and/or production to the civil and criminal penalties specified under applicable law.
C&D letters are a first shot across the bow, alerting that there's a legal problem. The problems may be all of the above, it may (if it went to a court) get drilled down to a few specifics with the others discarded, but as a first shot, it covers all possibilities from what information is known at the time. And this one mentions not just copyright, but trade marks and anything else.
How was the play marketed? Does its program and/or publicity material list the names and titles of all the playwrights and plays used in the performance? Is there any argument to make that the creators of That'swhatshesaid misappropriated the goodwill in the reputation(s) of any of the playwrights/plays they've used? I don't know, I haven't seen the play let alone the materials associated with it, but the question is there. Copyright and fair use may be the obvious questions, but they're not the only legal ways someone can make another person stop doing something.
posted by DiesIrae at 7:04 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
Any such program, publicity, production and/or presentation by you and/or permitted by you constitute and shall constitute the intentional infringement of the copyrights, trademarks and or other rights of our author and subject you and any and all other persons and/or firms involved with the publicity, presentation and/or production to the civil and criminal penalties specified under applicable law.
C&D letters are a first shot across the bow, alerting that there's a legal problem. The problems may be all of the above, it may (if it went to a court) get drilled down to a few specifics with the others discarded, but as a first shot, it covers all possibilities from what information is known at the time. And this one mentions not just copyright, but trade marks and anything else.
How was the play marketed? Does its program and/or publicity material list the names and titles of all the playwrights and plays used in the performance? Is there any argument to make that the creators of That'swhatshesaid misappropriated the goodwill in the reputation(s) of any of the playwrights/plays they've used? I don't know, I haven't seen the play let alone the materials associated with it, but the question is there. Copyright and fair use may be the obvious questions, but they're not the only legal ways someone can make another person stop doing something.
posted by DiesIrae at 7:04 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
C&D letters are a first shot across the bow, alerting that there's a legal problem.
No, alerting that someone thinks that it's to their advantage to assert that there's a legal problem. Sometimes, those are the same thing; often, they are not.
And this one mentions not just copyright, but trade marks and anything else.
Okay, but...I mean...you understand, right, that these letters are drafted to be maximally intimidating and will include anything whatsoever that the drafter thinks may scare off the user? No one is actually standing over the attorneys policing what they write for legal defensibility. In this context, basically the only consequence for an overreaching claim is potential negative publicity.
Is there any argument to make that the creators of That'swhatshesaid misappropriated the goodwill in the reputation(s) of any of the playwrights/plays they've used?
No, there really isn't. If nothing else, you can't "misappropriate the goodwill in the reputation of" a person in the trademark context. Trademark is not concerned with individual persons' reputations. (And the Supreme Court has generally resisted attempts to treat "false" attributions of authorship as false designations of origin under trademark law.)
posted by praemunire at 8:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
No, alerting that someone thinks that it's to their advantage to assert that there's a legal problem. Sometimes, those are the same thing; often, they are not.
And this one mentions not just copyright, but trade marks and anything else.
Okay, but...I mean...you understand, right, that these letters are drafted to be maximally intimidating and will include anything whatsoever that the drafter thinks may scare off the user? No one is actually standing over the attorneys policing what they write for legal defensibility. In this context, basically the only consequence for an overreaching claim is potential negative publicity.
Is there any argument to make that the creators of That'swhatshesaid misappropriated the goodwill in the reputation(s) of any of the playwrights/plays they've used?
No, there really isn't. If nothing else, you can't "misappropriate the goodwill in the reputation of" a person in the trademark context. Trademark is not concerned with individual persons' reputations. (And the Supreme Court has generally resisted attempts to treat "false" attributions of authorship as false designations of origin under trademark law.)
posted by praemunire at 8:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]
I spent most of Saturday arguing about this on the Official Playwrights of Facebook Group. I was breaking one of my own cardinal rules about the internet -- which is to not get into arguments on the official playwrights of facebook group.
Because we're playwrights -- it was mostly a hashing of the copyright issues. One of the things that came up in that discussion that hasn't come up much here is how collage in visual arts get handled under fair use. A collage can use a bunch of different images from other copyrighted sources and still be considered a new work.
I also wish the theatre industry (and I include myself in this as someone who makes a living working in theatre) would get better about dealing with misogyny. We talk a lot about gender parity in terms of playwrights and directors, but as a whole we don't spend enough time talking about the implications of the work we're putting on our stages. I get that it's easier to get into the numbers and statistics game, even if we don't actually do much about it, but we don't talk enough about the stories that get told. This is on the racism spectrum, not the sexism spectrum, but I have never felt so profoundly uncomfortable in a theatre as I did watching Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, which has to be the most racist thing I've ever seen. (I get that the people who the musical is about are also racist. I think the creators were trying to be ironic. It read as attempted ironic racism that really is actual racism.) However, as a white audience member who was a professional colleague of everyone involved I didn't really know what to say or how to say it. I'd love for there to be more places to really start having these hard conversations about season selection. But even talking about numbers, artistic directors often shut down and say that they don't want quotas. That's before getting into discussions of content. Sadly, I'm not entirely sure that the conversation that Meaker and Pike want to keep up is actually happening as it mostly gets bogged down in authors' rights discussions.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 8:29 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
Because we're playwrights -- it was mostly a hashing of the copyright issues. One of the things that came up in that discussion that hasn't come up much here is how collage in visual arts get handled under fair use. A collage can use a bunch of different images from other copyrighted sources and still be considered a new work.
I also wish the theatre industry (and I include myself in this as someone who makes a living working in theatre) would get better about dealing with misogyny. We talk a lot about gender parity in terms of playwrights and directors, but as a whole we don't spend enough time talking about the implications of the work we're putting on our stages. I get that it's easier to get into the numbers and statistics game, even if we don't actually do much about it, but we don't talk enough about the stories that get told. This is on the racism spectrum, not the sexism spectrum, but I have never felt so profoundly uncomfortable in a theatre as I did watching Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson, which has to be the most racist thing I've ever seen. (I get that the people who the musical is about are also racist. I think the creators were trying to be ironic. It read as attempted ironic racism that really is actual racism.) However, as a white audience member who was a professional colleague of everyone involved I didn't really know what to say or how to say it. I'd love for there to be more places to really start having these hard conversations about season selection. But even talking about numbers, artistic directors often shut down and say that they don't want quotas. That's before getting into discussions of content. Sadly, I'm not entirely sure that the conversation that Meaker and Pike want to keep up is actually happening as it mostly gets bogged down in authors' rights discussions.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 8:29 PM on February 8, 2016 [9 favorites]
How do playwrights in general feel about this? Do they want this kind of iron control over their works enforced, or do they not care? Is French the only game in town/way to get paid so their quirks become the norm?
I'm not a playwright and I don't think you can really generalize across such a diverse group. To the extent that you can though, you can look at the Dramatists Guild of America's Bill of Rights. The Guild counts as its members a pretty wide range of American playwrights, including Courtney Meaker herself. As you can see, the protection of the author's work is literally #1.
posted by zachlipton at 8:47 PM on February 8, 2016
I'm not a playwright and I don't think you can really generalize across such a diverse group. To the extent that you can though, you can look at the Dramatists Guild of America's Bill of Rights. The Guild counts as its members a pretty wide range of American playwrights, including Courtney Meaker herself. As you can see, the protection of the author's work is literally #1.
posted by zachlipton at 8:47 PM on February 8, 2016
I am a playwright and I can answer some of these questions. zachlipton is right that it's a wide ranging group of people. Some are very insistent about iron control and some are very open. I'm not published, but I have been produced and every change someone has asked me to make I've said yes to. Mostly because they weren't great wide changes for the most part. Some of the times the changes were for the better. However, in two specific instances I can think of right now, I saw the changes and liked my original idea more. But for most of my productions, I've been in the room -- so those changes are happening as a part of the collaboration between artists.
However, the Dramatists Guild and Samuel French (and Dramatists Play Service, which is the only other major publisher of acting editions of scripts) are really strict about things because most of the time they're not dealing with edge cases like this. They're dealing with a small theatre company who didn't pay royalties. Or they're dealing with a theatre company who says that they're doing Angels in America, but cuts the character of Ethel Rosenberg out of the play. Or cuts a few songs from any major musical. They're dealing with all white productions of Clybourne Park or casting a white man as Martin Luther King in The Mountaintop. These copyright violations either completely change the nature of the play or greatly diminish income. It makes sense to me that Samuel French's first instinct is cease and desist and it's in their best interests to be on the lookout for their clients.
That being said -- thatswhatshesaid isn't a case where someone decided to cut a few songs from a musical and present it as that musical. It's a new work that is commenting on how screwed up our industry is. From my understanding of fair use, I think it would be considered a transformative work, but I'm not a judge or a copyright lawyer. It's operating on a completely different level than someone trying to fly under the radar with an unlicensed production of Oklahoma. It shouldn't be treated as the same thing. I'm getting more and more annoyed with male playwrights who feel that the only issue to discuss here is the copyright one and the ownership of their work and completely ignore that Meaker is actively trying to make a point.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 9:18 PM on February 8, 2016 [22 favorites]
However, the Dramatists Guild and Samuel French (and Dramatists Play Service, which is the only other major publisher of acting editions of scripts) are really strict about things because most of the time they're not dealing with edge cases like this. They're dealing with a small theatre company who didn't pay royalties. Or they're dealing with a theatre company who says that they're doing Angels in America, but cuts the character of Ethel Rosenberg out of the play. Or cuts a few songs from any major musical. They're dealing with all white productions of Clybourne Park or casting a white man as Martin Luther King in The Mountaintop. These copyright violations either completely change the nature of the play or greatly diminish income. It makes sense to me that Samuel French's first instinct is cease and desist and it's in their best interests to be on the lookout for their clients.
That being said -- thatswhatshesaid isn't a case where someone decided to cut a few songs from a musical and present it as that musical. It's a new work that is commenting on how screwed up our industry is. From my understanding of fair use, I think it would be considered a transformative work, but I'm not a judge or a copyright lawyer. It's operating on a completely different level than someone trying to fly under the radar with an unlicensed production of Oklahoma. It shouldn't be treated as the same thing. I'm getting more and more annoyed with male playwrights who feel that the only issue to discuss here is the copyright one and the ownership of their work and completely ignore that Meaker is actively trying to make a point.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 9:18 PM on February 8, 2016 [22 favorites]
Hold up, I need a fer-instance here.
The thing I'm watching right now seems to fail the reverse Bechdel (and to be clear, I think that's cool): Jessica Jones. Sure, the main characters are women who spend a lot of time talking about a man. But the male characters almost never interact with each other! And in a few moments when they do, it's about a woman. Which again, is cool.
In the theatrical context, you might look at the musical Fun Home. (Unsurprisingly, Bechdel herself usually passes the Bechdel test.) And then lots of other stuff: all female cast stuff like Steel Magnolias, two women plays like Jane Shepherd, a lot of plays that have more women than men in them, etc.
Both Bechdel and reverse Bechdel are pretty stringent tests that--it seems to me--demonstrate heteronormativity rather than simply misogyny. It's actually pretty easy to fail both tests simultaneously. I think it may ultimately be better to think in terms of dialogue time, for that reason, and meaty non-romantic roles more generally.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:41 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
The thing I'm watching right now seems to fail the reverse Bechdel (and to be clear, I think that's cool): Jessica Jones. Sure, the main characters are women who spend a lot of time talking about a man. But the male characters almost never interact with each other! And in a few moments when they do, it's about a woman. Which again, is cool.
In the theatrical context, you might look at the musical Fun Home. (Unsurprisingly, Bechdel herself usually passes the Bechdel test.) And then lots of other stuff: all female cast stuff like Steel Magnolias, two women plays like Jane Shepherd, a lot of plays that have more women than men in them, etc.
Both Bechdel and reverse Bechdel are pretty stringent tests that--it seems to me--demonstrate heteronormativity rather than simply misogyny. It's actually pretty easy to fail both tests simultaneously. I think it may ultimately be better to think in terms of dialogue time, for that reason, and meaty non-romantic roles more generally.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:41 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's interesting to me that it's standard for playwrights to demand such control over performances of their work. I'd heard of performances running afoul of it, but I didn't realize it was so common.
The reasoning has been well explained here, but my personal instinct is still that performative works should in general be subject to something like the compulsory licensing of songs. You can't prevent someone from recording a cover of a song you've written, even if they're shitheads who totally change the meaning of the song, and we're on the whole better for that, even if it's not as big a part of our culture as it was in the 60s. It opens us up to bad changes, but it enables great and interesting ones too.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:45 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
The reasoning has been well explained here, but my personal instinct is still that performative works should in general be subject to something like the compulsory licensing of songs. You can't prevent someone from recording a cover of a song you've written, even if they're shitheads who totally change the meaning of the song, and we're on the whole better for that, even if it's not as big a part of our culture as it was in the 60s. It opens us up to bad changes, but it enables great and interesting ones too.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:45 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm going to publish a book that consists entirely of the "Tyrion" chapters from A Song of Ice and Fire. I'll make it a commentary on how little people are depicted in fiction written by non-little people. I'm sure that'll be considered "fair use" as well.
Well, no. But if you took 10 different films with little people as characters, written/directed by non-little-people, and placed them thematically together, you might have a corollary. I might be interested in watching that, and seeing how similar or different they are. That's completely a valid commantary to make. Conceivably.
posted by greermahoney at 11:08 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
Well, no. But if you took 10 different films with little people as characters, written/directed by non-little-people, and placed them thematically together, you might have a corollary. I might be interested in watching that, and seeing how similar or different they are. That's completely a valid commantary to make. Conceivably.
posted by greermahoney at 11:08 PM on February 8, 2016 [4 favorites]
>>This is a pretty squarely "fair use" case, at least as "fair" as The Daily Show using clips as fodder, or as Fair as Weird Al songs.
>Many of us don't agree with that.
Whelp, that's a great argument for eliminating or at least dramatically scaling back the scope of copyright, so please continue making the argument as vigorously as you can.
Just as Newton said about science, all art is built "on the shoulders of giants" - ie, by borrowing, remixing, re-hashing, commenting on, reacting to, copying, mimicking, re-working, etc etc etc interesting art that has come before it.
That is what art is to a very great extent.
To the extent that our copyright and other "intellectual property" laws interfere with that process should/must be eliminated or scaled back.
And artists should be the first to understand that, not the last.
posted by flug at 11:55 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
>Many of us don't agree with that.
Whelp, that's a great argument for eliminating or at least dramatically scaling back the scope of copyright, so please continue making the argument as vigorously as you can.
Just as Newton said about science, all art is built "on the shoulders of giants" - ie, by borrowing, remixing, re-hashing, commenting on, reacting to, copying, mimicking, re-working, etc etc etc interesting art that has come before it.
That is what art is to a very great extent.
To the extent that our copyright and other "intellectual property" laws interfere with that process should/must be eliminated or scaled back.
And artists should be the first to understand that, not the last.
posted by flug at 11:55 PM on February 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
The reasoning has been well explained here, but my personal instinct is still that performative works should in general be subject to something like the compulsory licensing of songs. You can't prevent someone from recording a cover of a song you've written, even if they're shitheads who totally change the meaning of the song, and we're on the whole better for that, even if it's not as big a part of our culture as it was in the 60s. It opens us up to bad changes, but it enables great and interesting ones too.
It'd be really interesting to see how the money would scale on that for playwrights. I think one of the major reasons playwrights are so protective of the work is that the money is so low. For a two week run of performances of a full length play, I got a royalty check for about $500. It broke down to $75 for the opening night and $50 for each night after. I had spent two years writing the same play. It's had two productions, which is actually pretty good in terms of odds on new plays. Gwydion Suilebhan did the math a while back and figured out that playwrights should average about one new production every decade. Todd London's Outrageous Fortune does a really good job of breaking down the impossible economics of being a playwright in aggregate. Whereas in film, screenwriters completely lose any ownership of the work, but they also earn an actual living. If the compulsory licensing route allowed for more people to actually make enough money to live on, I think there would be an interest in it. Though I have no idea how you could make such a vast cultural shift.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 5:54 AM on February 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
It'd be really interesting to see how the money would scale on that for playwrights. I think one of the major reasons playwrights are so protective of the work is that the money is so low. For a two week run of performances of a full length play, I got a royalty check for about $500. It broke down to $75 for the opening night and $50 for each night after. I had spent two years writing the same play. It's had two productions, which is actually pretty good in terms of odds on new plays. Gwydion Suilebhan did the math a while back and figured out that playwrights should average about one new production every decade. Todd London's Outrageous Fortune does a really good job of breaking down the impossible economics of being a playwright in aggregate. Whereas in film, screenwriters completely lose any ownership of the work, but they also earn an actual living. If the compulsory licensing route allowed for more people to actually make enough money to live on, I think there would be an interest in it. Though I have no idea how you could make such a vast cultural shift.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 5:54 AM on February 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
I can completely see why a playwright wouldn't want their text altered. I mean, authors (outside of the editorial process) don't want their books changed for each reprint, because the word choice, phrasing, character arcs and details, etc. are exactly what they toiled over. Same with playwrights. Even compulsory licensing of songs doesn't allow you to materially change the nature of the song. You can't, for instance, change an entire verse or materially change the melody without the permission of the artist. My version of "Kiss" probably fails that test. It is rarely enforced (unless you are dealing with Prince) but the protection is there.
In the case of thatswhatshesaid, it sounds like it may well fall under the auspices of parody, though those are muddy waters.
There is no doubt that the play possesses a lot of social value and should, IMHO, be protected.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:33 AM on February 9, 2016
In the case of thatswhatshesaid, it sounds like it may well fall under the auspices of parody, though those are muddy waters.
There is no doubt that the play possesses a lot of social value and should, IMHO, be protected.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:33 AM on February 9, 2016
I wonder how many ghost works of theatrical criticism there have almost been because of the chilling effects of copyright maximalism. The next creator who's looking to creatively remix and comment on trends on live theater (in the US) is probably going to hear about this, including the ridiculous cease-and-desist pertaining to mentioning a play's title and then silently riffling through paper as an implied criticism. And unless they have the money or the connections to lawyer up, they'll likely give it up and work on another idea, or file the serial numbers off their project, sanitizing it to make it less litigable (and less pointed as criticism).
*mentions this debacle to Organization for Transformative Works*
posted by brainwane at 7:28 AM on February 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
*mentions this debacle to Organization for Transformative Works*
posted by brainwane at 7:28 AM on February 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
> I think there's plenty of room to discuss both sexism and copyright. But I think you at least have to acknowledge the possibility that publishers are using copyright to try to harass and silence legitimate critique.
That wouldn't surprise me at all. It also wouldn't surprise me if it were simply a mindless C&D of the sort Samuel French sends out zillions of automatically, because that's what Samuel French does. What does surprise me is the eagerness of so many MeFites to take the side of Samuel French, or at least say "Wait a minute now, maybe Samuel French has a case." Sure, Samuel French is exercising their legal prerogative and doing what they think is right and necessary, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with them. And the sexist angle is depressing even if it wasn't involved in the C&D order. This play/critique is (obviously) a brilliant idea, and Samuel French can go shit in a hat (IMHO).
posted by languagehat at 8:07 AM on February 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
That wouldn't surprise me at all. It also wouldn't surprise me if it were simply a mindless C&D of the sort Samuel French sends out zillions of automatically, because that's what Samuel French does. What does surprise me is the eagerness of so many MeFites to take the side of Samuel French, or at least say "Wait a minute now, maybe Samuel French has a case." Sure, Samuel French is exercising their legal prerogative and doing what they think is right and necessary, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with them. And the sexist angle is depressing even if it wasn't involved in the C&D order. This play/critique is (obviously) a brilliant idea, and Samuel French can go shit in a hat (IMHO).
posted by languagehat at 8:07 AM on February 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
What does surprise me is the eagerness of so many MeFites to take the side of Samuel French, or at least say "Wait a minute now, maybe Samuel French has a case."
It shouldn't surprise you - Samuel French does have a case. This is not a cut-and-dry area of copyright law viz fair use.
There seems to be a general sentiment among many MeFites that the validity of a copyright claim should somehow be tied the the socio-political value of a work. (See: the Goldieblox / Beastie Boys kerfuffle.) I can see why people would feel this way, but it is a terrible, awful no-good idea. If this were the case, and the political landscape shifted radically into territory unfriendly to a particular subset of the population, that very same interpretation of copyright could be used to deny IP rights to those very people while upholding the IP rights of the politically favored. It is to everyone's benefit, even if it doesn't seem so, that copyright law be content-agnostic.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:48 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
It shouldn't surprise you - Samuel French does have a case. This is not a cut-and-dry area of copyright law viz fair use.
There seems to be a general sentiment among many MeFites that the validity of a copyright claim should somehow be tied the the socio-political value of a work. (See: the Goldieblox / Beastie Boys kerfuffle.) I can see why people would feel this way, but it is a terrible, awful no-good idea. If this were the case, and the political landscape shifted radically into territory unfriendly to a particular subset of the population, that very same interpretation of copyright could be used to deny IP rights to those very people while upholding the IP rights of the politically favored. It is to everyone's benefit, even if it doesn't seem so, that copyright law be content-agnostic.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:48 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've been thinking more about The Whipping Man, the play that gets criticized for having no female characters. It's an all-male cast, yes, because it's a three-character play about slavery, faith, and freedom right after the Civil War: the narrative is built around a Confederate soldier and his two former slaves. Two of the actors are Black. Hamilton aside, there's a real dearth of meaty roles for African-American actors, too. (And I'd like to see some ruthless corporation like Samuel French zealously defending the black Jefferson in all the high school versions of Hamilton that are coming.)
How many Black actors were there in That'swhatshesaid?
There's clearly a problem with sexism in theater. But just as it's okay to have all-female casts, there's got to be room for all-male casts when the subject-matter requires it. Right now the balance is out of whack. But the place to dig probably isn't plays like The Whipping Man. Nor, in my view, does a play like Tribes deserve this kind of bad press. It's Bad Jews and maybe things like 4000 Miles that deserve the brunt of the criticism.
So there's room to criticize more than just the copyright issues, here.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:42 AM on February 9, 2016
How many Black actors were there in That'swhatshesaid?
There's clearly a problem with sexism in theater. But just as it's okay to have all-female casts, there's got to be room for all-male casts when the subject-matter requires it. Right now the balance is out of whack. But the place to dig probably isn't plays like The Whipping Man. Nor, in my view, does a play like Tribes deserve this kind of bad press. It's Bad Jews and maybe things like 4000 Miles that deserve the brunt of the criticism.
So there's room to criticize more than just the copyright issues, here.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:42 AM on February 9, 2016
How many Black actors were there in That'swhatshesaid?
This is tu quoque bullshit.
But just as it's okay to have all-female casts, there's got to be room for all-male casts when the subject-matter requires it.
The choice of subject matter is part of the problem, and claiming that slavery is a subject matter that requires an all-male cast is another part.
posted by Etrigan at 9:50 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
This is tu quoque bullshit.
But just as it's okay to have all-female casts, there's got to be room for all-male casts when the subject-matter requires it.
The choice of subject matter is part of the problem, and claiming that slavery is a subject matter that requires an all-male cast is another part.
posted by Etrigan at 9:50 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
You realize, right, that black women exist, anotherpanacea?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:51 AM on February 9, 2016
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:51 AM on February 9, 2016
You realize, right, that black women exist, anotherpanacea?
Sure I do. And That'swhatshesaid could have been acted by one of them. It wasn't.
I also know that The Whipping Man could easily have had a Black woman slave. Perhaps in some adaptations, it will. But is it seriously wrong--warranting this kind of criticism--that it didn't?
I don't think--at all--that the theater industry as a whole is somehow justified in its treatment of women actors and roles by this concern for Black actors and roles. But I do wonder about particular plays bearing the onus of that industry-wide critique.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:13 AM on February 9, 2016
Sure I do. And That'swhatshesaid could have been acted by one of them. It wasn't.
I also know that The Whipping Man could easily have had a Black woman slave. Perhaps in some adaptations, it will. But is it seriously wrong--warranting this kind of criticism--that it didn't?
I don't think--at all--that the theater industry as a whole is somehow justified in its treatment of women actors and roles by this concern for Black actors and roles. But I do wonder about particular plays bearing the onus of that industry-wide critique.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:13 AM on February 9, 2016
But I do wonder about particular plays bearing the onus of that industry-wide critique.
The first line of this FPP:
posted by Etrigan at 10:22 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
The first line of this FPP:
That'swhatshesaid, a one-person play by Courtney Meaker and Erin Pike, consists entirely of lines and stage directions for female characters in the top 11 most-produced plays of the 2014-15 season.It wasn't Meaker and Pike choosing particular plays to bear the onus.
posted by Etrigan at 10:22 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
They chose to do "the most produced" plays rather than "the most sexist" plays. They selected the year rather than--for instance--a decade or a longer stretch. This caused them to include some really good plays that are doing other kinds of social justice work in a way that reduces them to a single dimension.
It seems to me that denying Pike and Meaker authority even over the inclusion criteria is deeply disrespectful. In a remixed work like this, we shouldn't pretend they were helpless: we should engage with the decisions they made precisely because those framing decisions are their transformative work.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:58 AM on February 9, 2016
It seems to me that denying Pike and Meaker authority even over the inclusion criteria is deeply disrespectful. In a remixed work like this, we shouldn't pretend they were helpless: we should engage with the decisions they made precisely because those framing decisions are their transformative work.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:58 AM on February 9, 2016
> It shouldn't surprise you - Samuel French does have a case.
Of course they have a case. Both sides in a dispute generally have a case. I didn't say they didn't have a case, I said I was surprised that so many MeFites were eager to make it for them. And the fact that copyright is a necessary protection for creators (up to a point, which is well short of the point copyright law has reached) doesn't mean that every assertion of it is to be applauded.
posted by languagehat at 11:07 AM on February 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Of course they have a case. Both sides in a dispute generally have a case. I didn't say they didn't have a case, I said I was surprised that so many MeFites were eager to make it for them. And the fact that copyright is a necessary protection for creators (up to a point, which is well short of the point copyright law has reached) doesn't mean that every assertion of it is to be applauded.
posted by languagehat at 11:07 AM on February 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
They chose to do "the most produced" plays rather than "the most sexist" plays.
Perhaps because one of those things can be quantified.
They selected the year rather than--for instance--a decade or a longer stretch.
When I pointed out that this work covers more ground than your cherry-picked counterexample, expanding that to "It doesn't cover enough ground!" doesn't work very well. Is no middle ground allowed between criticism of a single play and every play ever?
This caused them to include some really good plays that are doing other kinds of social justice work in a way that reduces them to a single dimension.
Yes, this is a one-dimensional work. The Whipping Man probably doesn't include much discussion of privacy on the Internet, either.
It seems to me that denying Pike and Meaker authority even over the inclusion criteria is deeply disrespectful.
More tu quoque bullshit. I'm not denying them authority at all. I'm pointing out that they didn't cherry-pick plays, while you did.
In a remixed work like this, we shouldn't pretend they were helpless: we should engage with the decisions they made precisely because those framing decisions are their transformative work.
"Engaging with" is a very, very small part of how you came across.
posted by Etrigan at 11:16 AM on February 9, 2016
Perhaps because one of those things can be quantified.
They selected the year rather than--for instance--a decade or a longer stretch.
When I pointed out that this work covers more ground than your cherry-picked counterexample, expanding that to "It doesn't cover enough ground!" doesn't work very well. Is no middle ground allowed between criticism of a single play and every play ever?
This caused them to include some really good plays that are doing other kinds of social justice work in a way that reduces them to a single dimension.
Yes, this is a one-dimensional work. The Whipping Man probably doesn't include much discussion of privacy on the Internet, either.
It seems to me that denying Pike and Meaker authority even over the inclusion criteria is deeply disrespectful.
More tu quoque bullshit. I'm not denying them authority at all. I'm pointing out that they didn't cherry-pick plays, while you did.
In a remixed work like this, we shouldn't pretend they were helpless: we should engage with the decisions they made precisely because those framing decisions are their transformative work.
"Engaging with" is a very, very small part of how you came across.
posted by Etrigan at 11:16 AM on February 9, 2016
They chose to do "the most produced" plays rather than "the most sexist" plays. They selected the year rather than--for instance--a decade or a longer stretch. This caused them to include some really good plays that are doing other kinds of social justice work in a way that reduces them to a single dimension.
That's a fair assessment. Thatswhatshesaid doesn't seem to be an intersectional critique.
I do think by looking at the most produced plays instead of the most sexist plays, Meaker and Pike get at the larger issue. It's really easy for me to write off Mamet, LaBute, and Rapp as misogynist writers who aren't worth my time. (So easy that I've already done it and won't see their work.) It's more likely for people to see the actual effects of how women are portrayed on stage by also including plays that they don't personally think about as sexist.
I personally was meh on The Whipping Man, but one of my favorite plays of the past decade is The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety, which also focuses on race and has no female roles. If thatswhatshesaid came out in 2012, it would have been included. And it would have been the same page flipping thing. And I would have to process that a little bit, even though I know what Kristoffer Diaz was doing worked brilliantly on other social justice axes. Maeker and Pike are looking at the current state of roles for women in American theatre as an aggregate.
I think you could do something like this for people of color as well. There's so many problems with white washing that are well documented. There's also the awful reality that many artistic directors find people of color interchangable at more clueless regional theatres. I've seen a lot of Latino actors playing Arabic characters.
This specific work doesn't seem to be intersectional and that's a fault, but I understand why Meaker and Pike chose the most produced plays instead of the most sexist plays.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 11:33 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
That's a fair assessment. Thatswhatshesaid doesn't seem to be an intersectional critique.
I do think by looking at the most produced plays instead of the most sexist plays, Meaker and Pike get at the larger issue. It's really easy for me to write off Mamet, LaBute, and Rapp as misogynist writers who aren't worth my time. (So easy that I've already done it and won't see their work.) It's more likely for people to see the actual effects of how women are portrayed on stage by also including plays that they don't personally think about as sexist.
I personally was meh on The Whipping Man, but one of my favorite plays of the past decade is The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety, which also focuses on race and has no female roles. If thatswhatshesaid came out in 2012, it would have been included. And it would have been the same page flipping thing. And I would have to process that a little bit, even though I know what Kristoffer Diaz was doing worked brilliantly on other social justice axes. Maeker and Pike are looking at the current state of roles for women in American theatre as an aggregate.
I think you could do something like this for people of color as well. There's so many problems with white washing that are well documented. There's also the awful reality that many artistic directors find people of color interchangable at more clueless regional theatres. I've seen a lot of Latino actors playing Arabic characters.
This specific work doesn't seem to be intersectional and that's a fault, but I understand why Meaker and Pike chose the most produced plays instead of the most sexist plays.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 11:33 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
Mod note: One comment deleted. Discussions here don't have to turn into super angry personal fights. "Go fuck yourself" is an automatic day off. Let's cool it off in here.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:39 AM on February 9, 2016
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:39 AM on February 9, 2016
Just as the Bechdel test is not very useful as an indictment of individual movies, but more of movies in the aggregate, it seems like this project is attempting something similar.
Should there never be plays about three men? Of course not! But the absence of women from that particular play wouldn’t be very notable if it wasn’t matched by the absence of women from this play, and this play, and this other play. And if the presence of women was so often them being ditzy, or vamps, or wide-eyed ingenues, or two-dimensional love objects, or nagging mothers.
But when the most-produced plays of the current season are holding up the same old stereotypes (which I assume several of them are, hence the reading of stage directions), then the problem is systemic. Flipping the pages of a play with no women in it is only moving if it is taking place in a culture where women are regularly silenced, AND where the times when they are given voices, they are restricted to saying certain things in certain settings.
Also, when we talk about most-produced plays, I’m guessing this includes local theaters, dinner theaters, high school productions? Because that is another part of it. I was a high school theater nerd, and despite being female, I played several male characters (main characters, not random villagers), simply because there weren’t enough guys interested in acting to fill the vast roster of available male characters. I also played some “bimbos”, and at least one fluttery beset housewife. I was never cast as a female writer, or scientist, or athlete, or valiant hero, or artist, or journalist, or politician, or bus driver, or plumber, or pastor.
I went to a progressive, hyper-liberal high school, but my role in my Senior-year musical featured me wearing several low-cut dresses and a scene where my character was spanked into submission offstage. I didn’t think anything of it at the time! Ha ha, so edgy! But I think these authors are trying to gesture towards the fact that women should be allowed to hope that they might be cast in roles where women actually get to do things other than flirt and fall in love. Or, best case scenario, get cast as men.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:30 PM on February 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
Should there never be plays about three men? Of course not! But the absence of women from that particular play wouldn’t be very notable if it wasn’t matched by the absence of women from this play, and this play, and this other play. And if the presence of women was so often them being ditzy, or vamps, or wide-eyed ingenues, or two-dimensional love objects, or nagging mothers.
But when the most-produced plays of the current season are holding up the same old stereotypes (which I assume several of them are, hence the reading of stage directions), then the problem is systemic. Flipping the pages of a play with no women in it is only moving if it is taking place in a culture where women are regularly silenced, AND where the times when they are given voices, they are restricted to saying certain things in certain settings.
Also, when we talk about most-produced plays, I’m guessing this includes local theaters, dinner theaters, high school productions? Because that is another part of it. I was a high school theater nerd, and despite being female, I played several male characters (main characters, not random villagers), simply because there weren’t enough guys interested in acting to fill the vast roster of available male characters. I also played some “bimbos”, and at least one fluttery beset housewife. I was never cast as a female writer, or scientist, or athlete, or valiant hero, or artist, or journalist, or politician, or bus driver, or plumber, or pastor.
I went to a progressive, hyper-liberal high school, but my role in my Senior-year musical featured me wearing several low-cut dresses and a scene where my character was spanked into submission offstage. I didn’t think anything of it at the time! Ha ha, so edgy! But I think these authors are trying to gesture towards the fact that women should be allowed to hope that they might be cast in roles where women actually get to do things other than flirt and fall in love. Or, best case scenario, get cast as men.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:30 PM on February 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
Also, when we talk about most-produced plays, I’m guessing this includes local theaters, dinner theaters, high school productions?
American Theatre says "This information is tallied from 404 theatres that self-reported their season to us." AT and its parent organization, Theatre Communications Group, are aimed at professional theaters. There are "university affiliate" members, but they don't say whether those are in this report.
posted by Etrigan at 12:55 PM on February 9, 2016
American Theatre says "This information is tallied from 404 theatres that self-reported their season to us." AT and its parent organization, Theatre Communications Group, are aimed at professional theaters. There are "university affiliate" members, but they don't say whether those are in this report.
posted by Etrigan at 12:55 PM on February 9, 2016
Also, when we talk about most-produced plays, I’m guessing this includes local theaters, dinner theaters, high school productions? Because that is another part of it. I was a high school theater nerd, and despite being female, I played several male characters (main characters, not random villagers), simply because there weren’t enough guys interested in acting to fill the vast roster of available male characters. I also played some “bimbos”, and at least one fluttery beset housewife. I was never cast as a female writer, or scientist, or athlete, or valiant hero, or artist, or journalist, or politician, or bus driver, or plumber, or pastor.
As Etrigan said, American Theatre is only looking at TCG member organizations. They also specifically exclude Shakespeare in these annual lists.
However, I hear you A LOT about your larger point. I became a playwright specifically because there was no place for me in theatre as an actor. And at the time, I was a young white woman. But I was a tall, fat young white woman -- so I mostly played male roles. (If I was lucky, they were male roles converted into female roles.) I performed with a local Shakespeare specific company and I went to a performing arts magnet program where I had to audition to get in -- so clearly the powers that be thought I was talented, but they still really couldn't find a place for me.
As a playwright, I still notice this a lot in terms of my friends who are actors. There's three local actresses whom I adore, whom are all really smart, who also all consistently play "stupid women who sometimes take off their clothes." I've told them all that I want to write a play for the three of them where they are insanely intelligent, just to mess with everyone. It was so refreshing to see one of them have the lead in a production of Constellations where she got to play a physicist.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 3:46 PM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
As Etrigan said, American Theatre is only looking at TCG member organizations. They also specifically exclude Shakespeare in these annual lists.
However, I hear you A LOT about your larger point. I became a playwright specifically because there was no place for me in theatre as an actor. And at the time, I was a young white woman. But I was a tall, fat young white woman -- so I mostly played male roles. (If I was lucky, they were male roles converted into female roles.) I performed with a local Shakespeare specific company and I went to a performing arts magnet program where I had to audition to get in -- so clearly the powers that be thought I was talented, but they still really couldn't find a place for me.
As a playwright, I still notice this a lot in terms of my friends who are actors. There's three local actresses whom I adore, whom are all really smart, who also all consistently play "stupid women who sometimes take off their clothes." I've told them all that I want to write a play for the three of them where they are insanely intelligent, just to mess with everyone. It was so refreshing to see one of them have the lead in a production of Constellations where she got to play a physicist.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 3:46 PM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
American Theatre has an update. Dramatists Play Service has also issued a cease and desist letter for their clients.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:26 AM on February 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:26 AM on February 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
And there's another update from The Stranger, specifically noting the responses to Samuel French and DPS from Meaker's lawyer. I'm honestly surprised by how low the word count from each individual play is.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 10:42 AM on February 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 10:42 AM on February 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
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