#hyperfixed pod

The Hyperfixed team is worried about hedge maze copyright law so they contact some legal professionals in England. The professionals are unsure whether a hedge maze design can be copyrighted but some mention that UK law protects people from having work that they did not do attributed to them.

The listener thought the hedge maze in England was designed by Adrian Fisher (sometimes called the master of mazes!!) so the podcast contacted him to check whether he'd be ok with the big green monster being attributed to him. However, Adrian Fisher lives by his maze philosophy--he believes in exploration, curiosity, family fun, etc, and did not want to know what the conversation would be about ahead of time. As the host talked more with him Adrian repeatedly emphasized that each maze should be unique, taking into account the specific context that the maze would exist in. He does not believe in copying mazes, he feels copying is the antithesis to what a maze should be.

With much trepidation in his heart, the host finally showed Adrian a picture of the big green monster....and Adrian immediately identified it as the English maze the listener thought it was copied from and said it was the work of a different designer, Greg Stirling (sometimes called the maze king)

To learn more about Greg, the host talked to a man who wrote a book (THE book?) about mazes. The author revealed that Greg's maze philosophy is the opposite of Adrian's--he fantasized about a DEATH MAZE where the door would lock behind you and you'd be stuck there. He believed that mazes should be like life; you struggle through them and are presented with difficult choices, but you (hopefully) ultimately prevail.

(Side note: after the English maze opened to the public the owner started getting complaints because the maze was anxiety-inducing and took much longer to complete than anticipated. By this time Greg had disappeared from public life because he found the attention too overwhelming, so Adrian was brought in to make the maze more friendly.)

They ask the author (who had briefly met Greg) whether he thought Greg would dislike being credited for the design of the big green monster. The author thought Greg would be ok with it.

Finally the host talks to the owner of the big green monster. It's located in an orchard run by a father-daughter team. The father had discovered a love for building mazes and had been taking on more and more challenging designs, until he saw a drawing of the English maze in a book written by Adrian Fisher. He took it to a copy shop, had them enlarge it so he could see the detail, and laboriously plotted it out. He was perfectly happy to add a plaque crediting Greg Stirling for the design. The end!