The materiality of literature, and its implications on copyright law’s central categories of author and work, is a recurrent question in the theory and history of intellectual property. In my recent article ‘From Paratexts to Print Machinery’ published in Law and Critique, I attend to some peripheral matters of Immanuel Kant’s 1785 essay, ‘On the Wrongfulness of Reprinting’ (Von der Unrechtmäßigkeit des Büchernachdrucks), as indices of its medial-material conditions of possibility. This medial reading is guided by Gérard Genette’s notion of the paratext, defined as ‘what enables a text to become a book and to be offered as such to its readers and, more generally, to the public.’ Originally appearing in the May 1785 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift, Kant’s publication materially encompassed not only the epitextual background of the German Enlightenment, but also the peritextual features of catchwords, signature marks, and various front matter. I argue that the periodical was deeply involved in the operations of a print machinery preceding the authorial figure, the existence of which perturbs copyright law’s attachment to original authorship.

The whimsical and ephemeral trends of the fashion world can be confounding and yet rewarding at the same time. As luxury fashion brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Balenciaga and Vetements capitalise on ironic cultural references to rejuvenate sales and capture new customer segments, their actions have resulted in unanticipated implications for trademark law. Simultaneously, countercultural commentary is also taking the form of subversive parodic and satirical fashion merchandise which audaciously play with the semiotic signs of these famous trademarks.

The vast majority of trade mark disputes – whether they involve opposition, infringement or revocation proceedings – involve the same threshold question: are the competing marks similar or dissimilar? Only if the marks-similarity assessment yields a positive result can the registered proprietor of a trade mark proceed with his case to show that the other legal requirements set out in the relevant provision of the Trade Marks Act (e.g. whether the goods or services involved are identical or similar, and whether there is a likelihood of consumer confusion) have been satisfied.

Where material from video games is used in ‘Let’s Plays’ (livestreamed or pre-recorded playthroughs of video games) without authorisation from those holding copyright in it (referred to herein as ‘developers’), the court presiding over the infringement claim is faced with complex questions relating to the conflict of laws. In my article ‘(Let’s) Playing by the Rules: A Choice of Law Rule for Communication of Copyright Material from Video Games to the Public, through Let’s Plays’ published in the Computer Law & Security Review, I flesh out the difficulties a court presiding over such claims may encounter when tackling that issue. I also propose a choice of law rule it can use to defuse those difficulties.