Stop Treating Literature as IP

Publishers increasingly treat classic authors’ worlds and characters as exploitable 'IP,' commissioning celebrity pastiches that trade on brand recognition rather than literary craft. The genius of writers like Wodehouse resides in sentence‑level style and comic timing, not in the mere reuse of names and settings. — This reframes cultural production as a quality‑versus‑brand dilemma, challenging entertainment‑industry logic that risks hollowing literature into licensed franchises.