Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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“Once profiled in The New York Times as a former Harvard student who had his own claim as being the true genius behind Facebook, [Aaron] Greenspan is now involved in a dispute with Columbia Pictures that alleges [among other counts] he was defamed by being left out of the award-winning film about Facebook’s origins ['The Social Network'].” [Hollywood Reporter]
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“[T]he kiosks of the video rental giant Redbox are difficult, if not impossible, to use for those who are blind and visually impaired. The lawsuit says Redbox needs to change the technology in their kiosks so the visually impaired can rent movies too.” [KTRK]
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“Presidential candidate Ron Paul’s campaign committee sued the unidentified makers of a video attacking ex-Republican rival Jon Huntsman claiming it falsely implies it was made or endorsed by the Texas congressman.” [Bloomberg] Paul Alan Levy contends that Rep. Paul, a longtime civil liberties advocate, should know better than to advance arguments that would if accepted narrow the legal protections afforded to anonymous political speech.
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A Massachusetts federal judge has declined to throw out an ADA suit against Netflix demanding captioning of its streaming movie service, but “stayed the case pending rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission.” [Qualters, NLJ] Relatedly, Arizona’s largest movie chain will install closed captioning and headset systems in all its outlets following an adverse ruling by the Ninth Circuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). [East Valley Tribune, earlier] Meanwhile, following an audit negotiated in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, “The city of Tucson may have to find an estimated $17 million to bring many of its facilities into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.” [Star]
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“An actress has sued Amazon.com for more than $1m after her age was posted on its Internet Movie Database. The unnamed actress says the website misused her legal date of birth after she signed up to the IMDbPro service in 2008.” [BBC]
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Sarah Deming has sued the distributor of the critically acclaimed Ryan Gosling thriller DRIVE under Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act, saying it was promoted “as very similar to the Fast and Furious, or similar, series of movies” but “bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film…having very little driving in the motion picture.” The suit aims for class-action status. [Lawyerist, Guardian]
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At Paid Content, Jeff Roberts reports that Wal-Mart may have found a clever way to pitch its services at Netflix’s streaming subscribers, namely by settling a class action lawsuit to which they are party:
A federal court in California late last week approved a class-action settlement that requires Wal-Mart to pay out $27.5 million. But here’s the key element of the ruling: Wal-Mart will be allowed to pay the 40 million Netflix subscribers in the form of gift cards for Wal-Mart.com—where there is prominent advertising for Vudu, which rents and sells movies a la carte.
The court ruling is a blow to Netflix, which had earlier blasted the settlement as “the equivalent of a marketing campaign that costs Walmart only 68 cents per potential customer.”
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“What’s next? A dog food commercial?” fumed Council President David A. Franczyk, who says, as do colleagues, that they were never informed that a prominent local injury-law practice was filming a TV ad in its historic chambers [Buffalo News via WSJ]. The firm of Cellino & Barnes, which we’ve met previously on this site, says it has no plans to discontinue showing the ad despite the lawmakers’ displeasure.
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At what point if ever do they rise to the level of legal infringement? [Matthew Belloni, THREsq.]
The New York Times profiles Martin Singer, “pit bull” lawyer to celebrities and frequent Overlawyered mentionee. “Mr. Singer acknowledges that defamation suits are tough to win, and seldom pay much. Usually, his aim is suppression. ‘Our goal is to try to kill the story, to take action before things get out,’ says Mr. Singer.” Earlier here, here, here, and here.
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Canada’s TV establishment may call on Ottawa to prevent escape-via-Netflix [Michael Moynihan]
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We can’t really add much to the month’s most over-publicized story, which has now graduated to allegations of disability discrimination and California labor code violations as well as contract breach [NLJ, ABA Journal], but we can refer you to the analysis of Jon Hyman, Daniel Schwartz, Christine Hurt, and David Boaz.
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So far it’s mostly smaller and adult producers filing the suits. Will the broader film industry wind up going down the much-lawyered record-label route? [Hollywood Reporter THR, Esq.] Related: “Lessons from the Texas Downloading Dismissal – Why Due Process Matters” [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P]
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Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.