A Lawyer's Guide to the Galaxy Podcast

Ben and Kirk talk about the use of public domain materials in mainstream cinematic works like the upcoming "The Odyssey" film, and explore some new wrinkles on those issues raised by the use of generative AI. And, of course, they find some way to make it about Star Wars.

We go over the cultural phenomenon of The Backrooms and examine the IP issues with building a movie out of the zeitgeist.

Ben and Kirk revisit the 1980s and a change in regulations influenced the explosion of toy tie-ins to children's programming, and look at how theaters are changing from content to social experiences.

Ben and Kirk saw the Mandalorian and Grogu on opening weekend and provide their thoughts.

Ben and Kirk talk about why content creatives struggle to maintain the quality of new content for old IP. Is it time to put Star Wars out to pasture?

Dive into how and why we ended up with the MPA rating system, how it shaped generations of content, and how markets, culture, and foreign films forced Hollywood to adapt, all resulting in a brief golden age of child-centric adventure films in the first half of the 1`980s.

Since we used our usual year-end Star Wars holiday special time slots for Stranger Things last year, we're doing it now! Check out our thoughts on Andor season 2, Mando season 3, and the Tales of Jedi/Empire/Underworld anthologies. SPOILER ALERT. Note: We had some microphone quality issues, you might get some overload here. We're trying to clean it up.

S08E01 - Public Domain Day 2026 by A Lawyer's Guide to the Galaxy Podcast

Ben and Kirk spend an hour complaining about the hour long epilogue to the series finale of Stranger Things. But it's not all bad! Find out what we liked, and what we didn't.

On the eve of the series finale of Stranger Things, Ben and Kirk talk about what made this series work, what's still working in season 5, and what isn't.

The Director of the USPTO has instituted a re-examination of the Nintendo Pokemon patents. But what does that mean?

Ben and Kirk dig into what made Stranger Things a cultural phenomenon and consider whether the 1980s might be the perfect decade for this kind of storytelling.

By popular demand, Kirk and Ben revisit the "Pokemon Patent" and talk about the challenges in finding relevant prior art.

Ben and Kirk tackle the new Nintendo patent on summoning in Pokemon.

Ben and Kirk talk about how spoof movies have changed over the years, and how the IP issues have changed with it.

Ben and Kirk do some theorycrafting in the IP of cosplay - what if you invented your own original character, prop, or vehicle/ship set in an existing universe?

Ben and Kirk go over the short but interesting dispute between the original Dragonlance authors and Wizards of the Coast at the height of COVID over the final trilogy of novels.

Ben and Kirk analyze the memes resulting from the famous "Coldplayed" incident and the impact on privacy.

Ben and Kirk dive into Skeleton Crew and two anthology series and provide their thoughts on why so much of the new Star Wars content is struggling to recapture the greatness of the original trilogy.

We go over the summary judgment rulings in the recent lawsuits against Anthropic and Meta for their LLMs, and then we zoom out and consider whether AI is the technology that will finally unravel copyright in a way that requires a complete institutional rethinking.

We talk about some of the weird and unique IP issues around movie trailers.

We talk about the recently-filed lawsuit against Midjourney by Disney and others alleging infringement of the copyright to iconic characters.

Ben and Kirk dive into different television content distribution models - binge watching vs. episodic. Why does it feel like some Disney+ shows mirror the narrative structure of syndicated television, but others are serialized?

Ben and Kirk break down some Star Wars content, mainly The Acolyte and season 1 of Andor. Originally recorded in Feb. of 2025.

Ben and Kirk go over their annual tradition of covering the new works entering the public domain this year.