Confisions

"Confessional Essay" It seems like the fight between legal departments at major movie and TV studios and fan producers of websites has reached a fever pitch. In late September, the legal department of Fox TV sent out notices to cease and desist to two webmasters of fan "King Of The Hill" websites. Fox Primetime has cracked down on fan sites before, most notably those saluting "The X-Files." It boggles the mind why fan sites pose …

…free publicity and get no financial reward in return. It is maddening to think that the legal departments of Fox and other companies have nothing better to do than to persecute people for being fans. But perhaps lowered viewership and loss of fan goodwill might cause concrete economic consequences for the studios. And that's perhaps the only thing that will cause the studios to call off their legal dogs and leave the fan sites alone.