Apple won a temporary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe. In Australia, it forced Samsung to agree not to sell the device until it can satisfy Apple that it does not infringe on its iPad patents.

A patent case against the Galaxy Tab is also running in the US and Samsung has filed its reasons as to why Apple should not be granted an injunction.

One of Samsung’s exhibits was a still image and a YouTube clip taken from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. The clip shows two astronauts eating while at the same time using what appear to be personal tablet computers, the report said.

Samsung says this was an example of “prior art” for the general design of the iPad.

It also cited a scene from the 1970s British TV series “The Tomorrow People”, which appears to depict a tablet computer.

Consultant and blogger Florian Mueller, who first uncovered the Kubrick reference, said it would be “amazing” if the court agreed with Samsung.

Mark Summerfield, a senior associate with a Melbourne intellectual property law firm, believes Samsung “may have a case”.

“Generally science fiction is not legitimate prior art to a utility patent, because it does not inform the public how to make the fictional apparatus,” said Summerfield.

But there was no reason why science fiction could not be “invalidating prior art” to a registered design, he said.

“For example, if I were to copy the Star Trek communicator as a novelty mobile phone, I would have no right to claim a monopoly in that design. I did not devise it myself,” he said. “I think that Samsung probably has a viable defence here.”

“The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen” (Burgess 21-22). Perhaps one of the most famous passages in my novel, this quote is given by a revolutionary and quasi-father figure of Alex, F. Alexander. This quote, in essence, summarizes one of the dominant themes of my novel, the importance of free will. It summarizes my rebellion against the mechanical nature of the government and the imposition of laws that limit human freedom. Now, the words “free will” might ring a bell. You might be thinking, “Oh, I get it. This presentation is about existentialism.” If that is what you are thinking, then you are correct. Specifically, this lecture is about how Alex DeLarge, as he is popularly called in Stanley Kubrick’s masterful adaptation of my novel, is an existentialist hero and a champion of freedom.

Although existentialism is a loose and ambiguous school of thought almost devoid of logic, with its major proponents criticizing each other, existentialism still has a focus on literature. The existentialists, unlike the logical positivists or the phenomenologists, are also famous literary writers. Their novels, obviously, tend to focus on existentialism and this focus is usually shown through their existential protagonist. Usually an anti-hero, the existential hero is characterized by alienation and individuality. He eventually realizes the importance of freedom and the indifference of society. We find all of these values in the character of Alex DeLarge, whom I would consider as an existential hero.

Although it may not be apparent at first, we eventually realize that Alex is a loner. He has his little droogies, but do they mean anything to him? Almost everyone he meets betrays him. This includes his droogs, his family, his advisor, and the revolutionaries. In the end, we see that Alex has no place to go and no one to confide in. This is particularly apparent in a quote by Alex: “Nobody wants or loves me. I’ve suffered and suffered and suffered and everybody wants me to go on suffering” (137). Spoken after Alex’s family rejects him, this quote illustrates his alienation. After his mistreatment at the hands of the government, Alex has nowhere to go and nothing to do. He considers committing suicide and sinks deeper and deeper into nihilism.

His individuality worsens his alienation. In many existentialist novels, we see that the protagonist cannot get along with society because of how different he is. Alex is no exception, though I must still admit that Alex is not nearly as alienated as some other existentialist heroes. Unlike Antoine Roquentin or the Underground Man, he is perfectly capable of interacting with society. Yet, he is still different. He loves classical music and art. Towards the end of the novel, he professes his love for lieders, which are songs for piano and voice written mostly during the Romantic era. Because Alex is an individual, society hates him. It hates the fact that he is different. Because of his individuality, he even finds himself incapable of getting along with his droogs, demonstrated by the fight he had with Dim over an insult.

So, we have already established his individuality and alienation, two major qualities of an existential hero. If existentialism is to be a rebellion against society, the heroes cannot conform to society. Another important quality we have yet to touch upon is freedom. As I have previously mentioned, the existential hero is the champion of free will. It is with his free will that he defines himself. Usually, he doesn’t realize the importance of free will until after some important experience. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex, from the start, shows signs of being an existentialist. In a quote in the first part, Alex states: “More, badness is of the self… they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines… But what I do I do because I like to do.” First and foremost, we see the rebelliousness in the character of Alex. He sees the government as a machine that imposes its will upon others, a machine that restricts the freedom of others, which, as it turns out later in the novel, he is correct. Furthermore, by not allowing badness, the government is essentially not allowing an important element of human nature. He tops it all off by stating that he is bad not because he is inherently bad or because the devil is making him bad, but because he chooses to be bad. This is every bit rebellious and every bit existential.

Even though he does show early signs of existentialism, we cannot call him an existentialist at this point. As much as he may appreciate his freedom to choose badness, he also scoffs at F. Alexander’s passage, which I read earlier, suggesting that there is still much he does not understand. It is not until after his conditioning and loss of free will that he finally realizes the importance of freedom. Much more important than simply getting out of jail is his ability to choose. He wants to be in control of his life and without the ability to choose, he cannot be in control. Perhaps one of the most poignant scenes in the novel is when Alex is taken to his last experiment with the Ludivico technique. This time, he is not injected with the drug. However, he still experiences the same sensations of pain and nausea. Finally, he realizes that the conditioning has succeeded, that he is no longer free. And with that in mind, he breaks down and cries. Equally important is a quote that summarizes his epiphany: “Am I just to be like a clockwork range?” (127). He asks rhetorically whether or not he is just supposed to be a mechanical man completely devoid of choice, like a robot. This is really the beginning of his maturity.

A final characteristic I wish to focus on is the absurdity and indifference of the world. Like many other existential heroes, Alex eventually realizes how the world does not care about him. After all his suffering, he realizes how cruel the world truly is. As he mentioned in the beginning of Part III, he becomes aware that nobody loves him. He makes the same realization that Meursault and the Underground Man makes. He, though, responds differently. Instead of accepting it and simply living with it, Alex cannot stand it. He accepts it, but he cannot live with it. And so, he makes the drastic decision to take away his own life and end all the suffering. But, we all know that did not work out.

A Clockwork Orange is not an existential novel. Although it may have characteristics of existentialism, and I do admit that previous existentialist writers influenced my thought, I never intended it be an existential novel. Unlike Notes from the Underground or Nausea, my novel is not blatantly existential or philosophical. It simply touches on a few topics here and there. Nevertheless, Alex DeLarge is decidedly an existential hero. He is the one that has had “laws and conditions appropriate a mechanical creation” imposed upon him. Yet, he fights back with his individuality and will. And through this fight, he realizes many important lessons. It is not F. Alexander, but Alex DeLarge who “raises [his] sword-pen” against tyranny and restrictions of freedom. Thank you.

Works Cited

Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986.

 One example of censorship being overused is the video game ‘Manhunt’, which was taken off our shelves around two years ago. It’s ironic how through the media (the sector which suffers the most from censorship), the game was portrayed as being the sole cause of a boy’s death. The game apparently ‘drove him to murder’. But surely he would have murdered whether the game was there or not? If a video game is going to make you kill someone, then you have to be psychotic in the first place, surely. If we’re going to ban a horror game for being too horrific then we should ban all horror films too. Why stop there? I remember I watched the children’s programme ‘Pingu’ when I was younger and more impressionable. After copying one of Pingu’s antics I found myself at the bottom of the stairs with a bruised head. So ban Pingu too.

 A phrase that goes hand in hand with censorship is political correctness. This is also a relatively new term that widely accepted in the U.K. However, the borders between what classes as politically correct and not are changing every week. For fear of being not politically correct, film and game publishers are tip-toeing around issues and ultimately producing less and less material. Of the material that is produced, key issues are missed out resulting in dour and drab pieces, with little meaning, purely produced to make money. For instance, did you know that the cult classic, “A Clockwork Orange” was banned here in the United Kingdom? The film is now considered to be one of Stanley Kubrick’s finest pieces and appeared in Time magazines top one hundred films of all time. Yet we had it banned.

 Freedom of speech is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship, much like I am now. In our ‘democratic’ society most people believe they have freedom of speech. This is in fact not the case as many views are suppressed, diluted or banned. Due to the nanny state that we live in, writer’s views never see the light of day, unless they cannot in any way offend anyone. I’ve yet to see any film that managed to offend no one, or play a game that not one person found offensive. The truth is there’s always someone with a lot of time on their hands who has to spoil it for the rest of us. Believers in censorship argue that some media texts will encourage wrong doing and things that are morally unacceptable. That is true to some extent, but why ban them? If people are impressionable enough to act in the wrong way because they saw or heard something in the media, then chances are they will do some wrong regardless of whether what they heard was censored or not.

 Censorship not only affects the Film industry but the Music Industry too. It appears that everyone from Beastie Boys to The Beatles and The Kinks to Kylie Minogue have been censored at some point. I’m sure you would agree that none of these artists’ lyrics are in some way endangering the public. Yet they are censored time after time. 

 However, there are some instances where censorship is needed and used appropriately. To protect victims of crimes, respect the deceased and not allow discriminatory opinions to filter through into our media. Of course this is ultimately flawed, because after all, whose choice is it to decide what we can and cannot see. It should be our own. Whether it is by bleep censors we hear on our screen, the content control systems the BBFC have, or the pixilation that we see everyday. It seems everything is being censored. It’s plain and simple, censorship doesn’t work. Despite the government’s new rules of taking down any information on the internet that could be deemed offensive or untrue, it doesn’t work. A company in the U.S. sent over 100,000 takedown notices to ‘Youtube’ last February, but seconds after it was all removed, new users uploaded it again. Computer programs such as ‘Limewire’ enable files to be transferred from P.C. to P.C. in a matter of seconds. Of the millions of views presented in these files, none are censored. It seems clear that the censorship law cannot be properly enforced.

 This view is shared by many journalists around the world who feel that the same, repetitive, premeditated and lack lustre drivel is churned out day by day. When the government censor texts and films, we all lose out a little. There might be a joke or one line or even a fundamental idea that is lost because of censorship. This causes articles and other pieces of media to lose that raw individuality that represents the ever changing world we live in today. In conclusion, any view or opinion expressed in this speech is not that of any major branding or multi-national corporation. It’s just my opinion being put across in a non-censored way. If it doesn’t stand up to your arguments then fine. If you don’t agree then fine. And if you thought it was terrible then that’s fine too. We just don’t want it censored. 

Scala in the 1980s

The site where Scala sat had a very varied life during the 1920’s Scala operated as The King’s Cross Cinema, and had for a period of time reasonable trade. Between 1921 and 1929 the cinema changed hands more times than some had varied dinners in the same timeline. From 1929 to the Second World War trade was constant and the cinema was owned by Gaumont British Pictures. But at some point, exact date unknown the building was bombed by German fighter planes flying overhead. The result was that the cinema closed and fell into a dire state of disrepair until 1952, when it re-opened as The Gaumont. In 1962 the Cinema was bought out and re-opened as the Odeon which lasted until 1970. In 1971 the cinema went in a dramatically different direction re-opening as Cineclub; the choice of movies was strictly of an adult nature. With raids, embarrassment and all sorts of other controversy after four months of trading Cineclub came to a sudden, but highly expected close. Later in the same year the cinema re-opened as The King’s Cross Cinema again with a themed cinema and venue for music. Having then tried to change into a sports complex, the cinema finally closed in its known form in 1975 and began to fall into disrepair. It was the form the cinema took in 1980 that was the most bizarre, as a sort of Eco-Project the legendary seating was pulled out, untold historical damage done to the building, in order to lay grass and show strange “nature” style films, called the Primatarium the key interest to the then owner/tenant was monkeys.

In 1977 on Tottenham Street a group formed in a cinema known as The Other Cinema. This group was called the Scala Club. Scala was a speciality club showing classic movies to a select group of individuals. In 1978 Stephen Woolley (later the part owner of Palace Pictures), took over Scala and began to change the format moving on from classic to cult movies. In 1981 Scala had grown in popularity and saw a window of opportunity by acquiring tenancy of the Primatarium. Opening under their own rights as The Scala, the cinema screened the original King Kong and progressed to show more unusual and progressively daring pictures.

Scala was different to any other cinema in the UK, it was very much a place to turn up, chill out, and really let your hair down. Never the best part of Pentonville Road to be in, Scala was a place strangely out of time, it’s clientele varied from business professionals, stuffy upper class types, punks, the lesbian and gay community, drug users, alcoholics, and plain good old movie lovers that wanted a different experience. Scala was a place where anything quite literally would go, if you wanted to have sex then it was off to the back row, if you wanted to smoke whatever took your fancy it was the centre seats, and if you quite simply wanted to watch and love movies it was straight up to the front. Scala flaunted every public law possible it could inviting its clients to do whatever they saw fit. At times smoke at the centre part of the cinema was so extreme that often the beam of the projector found it difficult to penetrate the smoke, smoking incidentally had been banned in cinemas many years before. Whatever your vice, Scala was a night-time venue for those that wanted more stimulation than pop music, those that wanted culture, and an ambience that they could not get anywhere else.

Over the next few years things at Scala changed dramatically offering its visitors an experience they could not get anywhere else at that time. Straight after the British board of film classification had their arms twisted to be more vigilant and video tapes of movies in the home became fashionable, censorship in Britain reached a pinnacle, with more or less any movie with an 18 certificate falling foul of the censors. At this time Scala again flaunted these rules and showed movies both in their uncut form, but also often showing movies that were banned in the UK. The Exorcist, Salo, I Spit On Your Grave, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre were all movies made illegal by the BBFC and the government, yet Scala stood up and showed them. In the mid 1980’s the focus moved towards bigger targets in the world of adult, gay, and horror cinema. And as these progressions occurred so did further change at Scala, the cinema showed different movies every night, with calendars of schedules released often months in advance.

The cinema became the ultimate haunt, all night horror movie marathons proved incredibly successful driving people from the nightclubs into the cinemas, where they could enjoy both alcohol and the culture of movies they could not see anywhere else.

What is most strange about Scala was that at its height of popularity things were being ran at their worst, staff did as they felt, the projectionists were often so out of their heads on whatever the drug of the moment was that film reels were often placed in the wrong order, or not even played at all. The whole Scale experience became so hit and miss that people often thought they were just watching movies that were meant to be almost nonsensical. Outside the projection booth, staff performed, drank and fornicated with the patrons of Scala; but it just became all the more popular.

It’s of no surprise I guess that this story had to come to an end, and the past tense manner I have spoken about Scala in this whole piece is a clear indication of this. Censorship began to lift in the UK, and more and more movies made it onto video, the exact sort of movies Scala chose to show. It was indeed time to up the ante, and then manager Jane Giles knew exactly how to do that. Giles committed the ultimate sin, on April 1st 1992 Scala showed the full and uncut version of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; a movie outlawed in the UK after director Kubrick received death threats. Without permission to screen the movie Warner Brothers, FACT (Federation of copyright theft) and Kubricks own legal counsel all took a civil action against Scala, at a time audiences were at an all time low and the landlord wanted a hefty rent increase.

In April 1993 Giles was prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and in June after a screening of King Kong, Scala closed its doors forever. After months of campaigning, and incredibly hard partying it was apparent that nothing could save Scala, and a unique piece of history, the only ever Grindhouse cinema the UK ceased to exist.

Scala’s effect on UK cinema is far more than anyone will ever truly appreciate, making mockery of the government by screening banned movies, and films were forced out of censorship. Copycat cinemas tried their hand at mimicking Scala’s charm, but none were a  match for Scala.

Scala Nightclub in 2008