This issue has become very real to me recently. I'm working on a story project that is a set of variations on a mainstream Hollywood movie. The film is obscure, and this probably is the first website about it, and yet, so many extraneous and self-defeating issues have cropped up. Do I have the right to use photo stills from other websites? Do I have the right to use the title of the film in my website's title? I had never intended it to be a commercial work (I slap creative content licenses on everything I create), but what if someday I decided to try publishing it commercially? A friend of mine pointed out that no self-respecting publication would touch this project because it would mean first clearing the rights from Bertelsmann/Time/Warner. Maybe this empire would grant limited commercial rights if certain fees were paid. Hey, I wouldn't mind so much if the director were the one pocketing the check, but more than likely, the check would go to underwrite the empire's intimidation machine. Last weekend I had talked to a friend who had just signed a 4 book deal with a publisher of romance fiction. It was her big break. One of her books had the words Jedi and Ewoks title; she prayed that her publishing house could secure the rights from lucasarts to use those words in the title. Fortunately, her publishing company is used to clearing rights, and so she'll probably gain clearance (after a fee is paid). But nowadays just to use or cite a corporate-produced work makes you subject to tribute. This drag on artists makes the already abysmal system of content production even more abysmal. In many ways the SCO-ization of media companies makes media companies better at protecting artistic rights than producing art in the first place.

In the meantime, I look at my creative projects and ask: should I bleach cultural references? People ask: what killed postmodernism? My answer: big media and its attempt to exert ownership rights over popular culture and (by implication) the imagination of artists. From corporate postmodernism arises a desire for independence and ultimately cultural isolationism.