There's been a flurry of news regarding Britney Spears recently, and now there's a new Netflix documentary that's one of the service's most-viewed programs. Whether or not you plan to watch, here's what you need to know about this music story with potential ramifications for the rights of over a million Americans living under guardianships or conservatorships.

I'll be talking about Britney vs. Spears with Jill Riley on The Current's Morning Show this Friday, Oct. 1 at 8:30 a.m.

What's the latest on Britney's case?

Just this Wednesday, a Los Angeles judge granted Britney Spears's request to remove her father, Jamie Spears, from his role as overseer of Britney's $60 million estate. An outside accountant is serving as temporary conservator while Britney and her legal team work to entirely terminate the conservatorship that's kept the pop star from controlling her own business and personal affairs since a 2008 breakdown led to its imposition.

Wait, wasn't there just a new Britney documentary that everyone was talking about?

Yep. This past February, Framing Britney Spears was produced by the New York Times; it's available on Hulu. That documentary chronicled Britney's life in the public eye, arguing that sexist presumptions fueled her father's successful attempt to impose a powerful conservatorship; many viewers who hadn't been closely following her case were surprised to learn just how draconian the arrangement was.

This month, the Times followed up with Controlling Britney Spears, which documented just how intensely the conservatorship monitored Britney's behavior and enforced limits on the actions of a 39-year-old woman whose mental health, to many experts, seems nowhere near the state that would warrant such intrusive measures.

Spears herself has taken issue with the documentaries, none of which involved her direct participation.

Who's behind the Netflix doc?

Britney vs. Spears is produced and directed by Erin Lee Carr, a documentarian known for films including At the Heart of Gold: Inside the U.S.A. Gymnastics Scandal. Born in Minneapolis, she's the daughter of acclaimed journalist David Carr. Her memoir All That You Leave Behind chronicles her early life and journey to becoming a filmmaker.

Carr appears on camera in the Spears documentary, joined by music journalist Jenny Eliscu, who wrote Rolling Stone cover stories about Britney both before and after the conservatorship was enacted. The two of them are seen paging through sheaves of legal documents and evidence that paint a picture of Spears as a person repeatedly making foiled attempts to end the conservatorship.

What does Britney vs. Spears bring to the table?

The focus of Britney vs. Spears is on explaining just how and why this conservatorship has been extended for so long. As multiple sources point out, being under a conservatorship of both body and estate is essentially losing the right to legal personhood. The film argues that Jamie Spears and his associates, using Britney's own resources, have successfully leaned on a faulty system to retain control over one of the world's biggest pop stars.

Only you can know how many Britney Spears documentaries you want to watch, but Britney vs. Spears complements the New York Times pieces; whereas they provide broader context and fine-grained detail, Carr's documentary helps viewers understand the motivations of the parties involved, as well as the paradoxical dynamic of Spears's career for the past decade and a half. As a source in Framing Britney Spears points out, conservatorships like this one can prove intractable because there's literally nothing a person like Britney can do to get out of it: if she succeeds, that's presented as evidence the conservatorship is working. If she fails, it's presented as evidence the conservatorship is needed.

Why does any of this matter, in the big picture?

Well, first of all, Britney Spears is a pop star who helped define a generation, so her many millions of fans inherently have a stake in her fate. There seems little doubt that the growing publicity around her case has helped accelerate the process of bringing the conservatorship to an end.

Secondly, this high-profile case has drawn new attention to the legal institution of conservatorship. If it's this hard for one of the world's biggest stars to get out of a conservatorship, what hope is there for the million-plus Americans in similarly restrictive arrangements who have far fewer resources? While conservatorships are often necessary in cases of genuine incapacity, Spears's case may inspire a revisiting of laws that allow conservatorships to continue indefinitely regardless of the state of those they govern.

Finally, these films lend insight into the inner world of a pop star: at once globe-spanning and incredibly insular. Carr points to the patriarchal norms and institutions that put a talented young woman under the finger of not just her father, but a whole array of older men who profit from her work while enjoying control over her money and her body. That dynamic may be extreme in this case, but it's far from unique — and deeply troubling.