This reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Krusty opens a clown college after running out of other ways to make money off his name.

I think a certain law firm is going to get a very expensive lesson in the meaning of "tortious interference". God, this is such a canonical example of it you might as well print it in the freaking dictionary next to the definition.

It still amazes me that analysts fail to see Pixar films for what they really are: Aimed at everyone, not just children. This is why the franchise aspect of the films is a little harder.

Here is the basic recipe for a Pixar film. The main character has to "grow" throughout the film while facing what are essentially adult problems - using animation as the vehicle for story telling.

Compare that to Dreamworks - who's style is heavily influenced by Jeffrey Katzenberg who is responsible for Disney's great run of films in the late 80's and early 90's (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast & Aladdin) before leaving in 94 and founding Dreamworks with Spielberg.

Dreamworks animations are aimed directly at children because of this influence, the stories are often not as complex and the jokes are simpler. They're geared for pumping out 2 films a year instead of just the 1 and are heavily backed up by merchandising. Their marketing teams absolutely blitz the public and this is probably why Shrek 2 is still the highest grossing animated film of all time, even though several films from both studios are better.

Now if the NY Times really wants to make an article about Pixar's future success, they should perhaps write about how the next few films after UP won't be directed by Pixar's main stable of directors (Stanton, Lasseter, Bird and Docter) instead seeing a generational change with new directors handling old franchises.

As Brad Bird of Pixar said during their documentary The Pixar Story

"This is an anomaly, this place is really freakishly alone in this hit after hit aspect"

It's not really a case of if they will make a film that fails, it's when - I personally hope that it never happens, but I'm not that naive.

Probably before 9 pm pacific time.

No.

I think they really, really, really like making lots of money.

This is terrible, the plaintiff's lawyer contacting his clients to inform that work he has done, is allegedly infringing copyright...

I hope he counter-sues and takes their whole law firm down, what a crock.

Christ, man, you're one of the most active users here, but you're always so unpleasant.

Yeah, most of us will be rejected. No reason to be a jerk about it.

A more sensible interpretation is that marriage and courtship rituals ("courtship" extended to include "casual" relationships) have a heavy culture specific component to them.

I had a Canadian manager (tall handsome intelligent guy) who tried applying his knowledge of how "dating" worked when he was posted to Bangalore for a year and "struck out" all the time until one day, at a party, he got drunk and asked me "Dude, how the [expletive] do you get laid hereabouts? I've been trying to get a date for 6 months and every girl says "No Thanks". I am going crazy! ".

So I gave him a 20 minute crash lecture in how these things worked in India (and specifically Urban India) and the appropriate moves and counter moves and what they mean and how to interpret and act on them. Needless to say these "rules" are very different from the Western "dating". To his credit he picked up the 'rules of the game' very fast and soon managed to get what he wanted.

When any bunch of people get dumped into a new culture, it is fair to expect that a few of them never quite pick up these nuances. Whether that is worth an article in the wsj is a different matter ;-). I could conclude (if had never been in a Western country) "These Canadians strike out all the time hyuk hyuk",and it might even make a popular article in the local paper, but then I'd still be the idiot.

To summarize, the Indian "dating game" has very different rules, and they don't work in the USA (and vice versa). For Hackers an analogy that works is submitting perfectly valid Haskell code to the javac compiler ;-)

Due Disclosure: I am Indian, have lived in the USA and had no problems "decoding" how courtship, sex and marriage worked there.

Do nothing. He doesn't need an Internet cheering section. He needs a lawyer, and an extraordinarily straightforward civil suit.

Anything a net groundswell could possibly accomplish is only going to complicate the very simple "They falsely alleged copyright over my works. They ignored my reasonable attempts to correct their misunderstanding. They then contacted my clients and called me a thief. I have suffered demonstrable damage to my business and professional reputation as a result. This behavior is tortious." narrative his lawyer will be telling the court.

I think we'll be hearing a lot of this now, and it's my feeling that it's a sucker's rally. Every single one of those who correctly called the financial crisis are quite clear: it's not over by a long shot. The fundamentals have to return, and to do that we have to pay off debt and start having savings again, which means not spending (i.e. liquidity trap), which means that we'll go through a period of undervaluation, both in terms of assets and labor, before the smoke clears.

There's no happy six month reversal here; just a dead cat bounce. And those who are selling you that it's the end of the depression are those who sold you the whole Ponzi mess in the first place. Shame on them.