In any case, from what I understand, both the novel “The curse of Capistrano” and “The Mark of Zorro” 1920 movie are declared out of copyright. But they also both clearly use inside their fiction the name Zorro! So, that means the Zorro name is free to use as well.

I also understand that Johnston McCulley sold to Mitchell Gertz the rights for production of the movies, not the books or other derivative art! MOVIES!!!

Or is there anywhere available for all to see the original contract to say otherwise??

So, I think (and Common Sense dictates, too ) anyone should be allowed to write a book or create a game about Zorro, using the name, altering the story etc. As long as it is not a movie and such producers don’t claim further rights on the character and the universe itself…

In any case, personal opinion, I think it is plainly stupid to go into court for such things. Intellectual Property should naturally expire the moment the original author is no longer among the living, and all their works should automatically become public domain. Everybody should freely benefit from them. Then no confusions would ever arise and justice would be done!

Z

I’ll be following up this post with another in which I talk about some of the habits, including my habit of posting “Yesterday’s lesson” on Google+.

I learned that when you read, you should read on purpose. I used to read books from start to finish, but unless I took notes, I usually forgot so much that it was almost as if I hadn’t read anything at all.

These days, when I’m about to crack open a book, I skim through it quickly to try to get a feel for the contents. Non-fiction books tend to have plenty of headlines and bold or italic text, and I’ve gotten pretty good at deciding what makes for a bad headline. Some people try to be clever with titles, and unfortunately, it makes this process harder. Luckily, most of the time people tend to write headlines that actually reflect what you’ll be reading about.

Anyway, once I get a sense for what the book is about, I try to come up with questions I want answered. Then I read, keeping those questions in mind.

So instead of getting through a book and forgetting it as I go, I seem to remember more of the important points this way. Sometimes rapidly reading through, I find I can get to the key points faster without having to read each and every single word.

The habit of writing down what I learned the day before keeps me on the lookout for making sure I have something to write, which also helps with recall. B-)

But I really like how you are writing out your lessons from books. My tendency is to just inhale the books as quickly as I can, and the short-term inspirational rush fades away without much lasting impact on my projects.