Curious

[jmc_bks]

I noticed that Forever in Blue is copyrighted to Ann Brashares, the author. But the Traveling Pants series is trademarked to Alloy Entertainment. Which, since I am intellectual-property-stupid, begs the question -- who actually owns the Traveling Pants series? Could Brashares write another Pants book and market it to another packager/publisher? If Alloy wanted to, could they hire a different author to write other books based on them? Oh, gods, I just realized how Alloy could (may? will?) continue this series with a new set of heroines, based on how FIB ended. Please, please don't. Don't milk the cash cow into oblivion, put it out to pasture gently.

Comments

[sarahf.livejournal.com]

Some authors incorporate themselves somehow in ways I don't understand at all. Like Jenny Crusie no longer copyrights her books, it goes under another name. Same with Ann Maxell/Elizabeth Lowell (I think) and definitely Sandra Brown.

I don't know if that's the same as Alloy Entertainment, though.

Okay, I am intrigued enough to google

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I understand the purposes of incorporation for tax benefits, income, etc. But I believe that Alloy Entertainment isn't a shell for Brashares. At least, I don't think it is a shell that she owns alone. The name came up last year in the middle of the Viswanathan plagiarism -- they were the book packager involved and hold the copyright with her. Check out the article at the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/04/29/viswanathan_book_deal_raises_more_questions/). Which shed some light on my original question. I'm guessing now that Brashares probably couldn't take a Traveling Pants book to a publisher without the participation and/or consent of Alloy.

Based on a flyby at their website (http://www.alloymarketing.com/entertainment/index.html), Alloy looks like a multimedia marketer for all forms of teen entertainment. Although now I'm wondering what an "ideation leader" is.

There's an interesting blurb here (http://www.teenlibrarian.com/2005/07/alloy-entertainment-inc.html) that makes me wonder about the similarity to romance publishing houses and ownership rights to series books written for category lines.

Re: Okay, I am intrigued enough to google

[sarahf.livejournal.com]

"from creating ideas to finding writers"

Don't know if this is so true of romance industry. I know some lines did it, but if any line were to continue it'd be Suzanne Brockmann's Navy SEALs for Intimate Moments. Since her switch to mainstreams, she hasn't written many IM and while she can't write about the characters in any books BUT IM, they can't write the books without her.

[dh684.livejournal.com]

Courtesy of fuse#8:

http://tinyurl.com/y2t5sj

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! Thanks for the link!