Tag: 03.19.05

Kelley Plagiarism Lawsuit Dropped

A lawsuit alleging that celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley used another author’s work without permission in her book about the family of President Bush has been dropped, after the plaintiff decided that he was likely to lose the case on a technicality. “Under federal law, if a copyright holder fails to register with the office before an alleged infringement takes place, the holder is limited in the damages and lawyer’s fees he can recover.” Kelley has always maintained that her use of material from the other author’s web site was legal under the “fair use” doctrine.

Is It Dance, Or Is It Theatre?

Choreographer/director Matthew Bourne has a new dance on display at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, but he might object to that description. Specifically, Bourne insists that Play Without Words is not dance, but theatre. “Mr. Bourne and his allies insist on a distinction between abstract dance and narrative dance, which they barely see as dance at all. For Mr. Bourne, as quoted in The New York Times, ‘I’ve always been excited by the strangeness of ballet, but I can’t bear it when people just come forward and do a turn in the air for no reason.'”

Lexicography For Hipsters

Most people don’t think of lexicographers as having a great deal of impact on their daily lives, but as guardians of language, the people who write dictionaries and create the rules of pronunciation and proper usage actually wield a fair amount of influence over what we say and how we say it. Now, a new generation of lexicographers has begun to reshape the language business, and they appear to be better equipped to take the reins of American English at a relatively young age than any of their predecessors. “Today’s rise of young, hip lexicographers reflects changes in the culture at large,” not the least of which is the profound impact of online culture in shaping the academic mind.