Is copyright some kind of funhouse? The literary work of character, storyworlds, and the play of adaptation.

Journal article

1 online resource (pp. 107-121)

2045-9807 (Print)
2045-9815 (Online)

As this issue goes to press, we are in the middle of awards season after a year of strong box office performances and reports of audiences returning to the theatre experience in encouraging numbers.2 Over the past 12 months, the Hollywood blockbuster has spawned not only new memes and hashtags,3 but also a burgeoning industry of so-called immersive experiences. Immersive experiences are delivered through a range of mechanisms from virtual and augmented reality through to the design of the experience environment, such as three-dimensional elements and the performers themselves. They have become ‘one of the fastest growing sections of the leisure industry and they play a major role in shaping societies and culture’.4 Immersive technologies in the film industry include everything from the use of sound through to visual effects. And the production of immersive experiences in marketing various consumer industries, from electrical goods to fashion, deploys a range of immersive media and gaming elements in order to increase engagement and promote purchases.5 But as a product themselves, immersive experiences, or so-called ‘real entertainment’,6 have created new opportunities for both successful collaborations as well as reputationally damaging exploitations. But like a visit to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, or being spirited back on roller skates to Barbieland, is the immersive experience quintessentially a cinematic theme park? Indeed, is cinema itself the original immersive experience,7 before immersive videogames and the metaverse? Some kind of funhouse8 perhaps? Are we having fun?

Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property ; Volume 14, Issue 2.

[Northampton, England] : Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2024.

English

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