As a Hollywood film director, not to mention former world karate and kick-boxing champion, you might expect Lexi Alexander to adopt a combative approach to online piracy. The reality, however, couldn’t be more different, for the German-born, US-based Alexander admits sympathising with the unauthorised sharing of her (and others’) work online. Piracy, she says in this month’s industry report, has helped to promote her work, particularly the action film Punisher: War Zone.
Despite taking such a controversial stance, she has a more nuanced view of the piracy problem. File-sharers are disenfranchised by Hollywood’s penchant for producing sequels, she claims, and are left with few options when films are unavailable for months in some countries after their legal release in others. The answer, she says, is to promote universal access to legal channels and work with the alienated file-sharing community. It’s not a new theory, but it’s striking when it comes from someone as well-known as Alexander.
Meanwhile, internet TV service YouView has come unstuck in two trademark battles and, unless it can overturn a recent decision, is facing a costly rebrand. We have Sharon Daboul of law firm EIP on hand to discuss the cases, the lessons to learn from them, and the potential new names for YouView, one of which is ‘Yooview’.
Finally, we have a report on online copyright protection from John Illsley of Intangible Business, a brand valuation consultancy, and a selection of news from the past month.
We hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter.
Ed Conlon, Editor
