Maktoums and George Lucas

 

The Times yesterday has two interesting stories.

In the first, the Americans are less than happy about Sheikh Mohammed and his brother buying up all the good horses and winning one of the top prizes at the Breeders Cup. So what! It's their money and I think if you analysed their spend clinically, you'd find that it wasn't the best commercially. But if they choose to do that, who am I to say they shouldn't? After all, as someone involved in breeding racehorses the big players benefit us all!

On the other hand, we have George Lucas, using the power of the American Courts against the designer of the Storm Trooper suits for Star Wars. There is probably interesting copyright issues here, where probably the US and UK courts will disagree.

I'm afraid the Americans can't have it both ways. If they object to the power of the Maktoums, then they not be surprised that when they do exactly the same thing, they get bad publicity.