“A 41-year-old actress who claimed the Internet Movie Database unfairly disclosed her real age lost a case against the site this week after a federal jury in Seattle rejected her lawsuit.” [Mashable, AP/USA Today; earlier]
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Posts tagged as:
movies film and videos
“Human rights advocates claim that the depiction of torture in popular TV shows has had the effect of promoting the practice in real life, implying that the production companies may have failed to meet their responsibility to respect human rights as articulated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.” [Faris Natour, JustMeans.com; Wired on Zero Dark Thirty] “So, ban Schindler’s List?” [@susanwake]
Meanwhile, the regime in Iran says it will sue over its depiction in the movie “Argo” [CNN; more from Wikipedia on French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, whose attempts to marry imprisoned terrorist Carlos the Jackal "have been frustrated by legal issues"]
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When Andrew Henderson videotaped police frisking a man about to be transported by ambulance in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul, an officer confiscated his handheld videocamera, allegedly for evidence: “If I end up on YouTube, I’m gonna be upset.” Later, when Henderson sought to get his camera back, the sheriff’s office refused and instead charged him with misdemeanors. Among the notes on the citation: “Data privacy HIPAA violation.” A Stanford law professor says it would be nonsense to regard HIPAA, the federal health privacy law, as constraining the activity of bystanders like Henderson who are not legally defined as health providers. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]
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The “public domain” isn’t just some hedonistic collective consumption good, but a vital resource for creators; thus Disney was able to base its golden-age animation features on literary properties and tropes that it could freely transform without permission. Among the properties we could have started freely transforming and remixing in this country had Congress not unilaterally and drastically extended copyright lengths: The King and I, Ian Fleming’s Diamonds Are Forever, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, My Fair Lady, and the novel 101 Dalmatians. [Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain via BB, similar, related]
Priceless Mayan-inspired mystical totem, or late Nineteenth Century German artifact aimed at the tourist trade? In “Indiana Jones and the Bogus Lawsuit,” Kevin at Lowering the Bar goes on the authentication trail.
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- New law grads and others, come work for liberty at the Cato Institute’s legal associate program [Ilya Shapiro]
- Lawsuit against United Nations seeks compensation for mass cholera outbreak in Haiti [Kristen Boon, Opinio Juris]
- “Parents Sue Energy Drink After Girl’s Death” [NBC Washington; Hagerstown, Md.] “The New York Times Reveals That 18 Servings of an Energy Drink Might Be Excessive” [Jacob Sullum]
- Claim: There is no explosion of patent litigation [Adam Mossoff, Truth on the Market, and further]
- “After Inmates Sue for Dental Floss, Jailers Explain the Security Risk” [ABA Journal, earlier]
- Court: First Amendment protects right of “The Bachelor” producers to consider contestants’ race [Volokh, earlier]
- From Florida tobacco litigation to an, um, interesting higher-education startup [Inside Higher Ed, h/t Overlawyered commenter Jeff H.]
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Settling a prospect of litigation under the Americans with Disabilities Act:
Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK), one of the world’s largest motion picture exhibitors, today announced that it is providing an audio description option for people who are blind or have visual impairments in all of its first-run theatres. …
In audio description (also known as descriptive narration) a narrator provides vocal description of key visual aspects of a movie, such as descriptions of scenery, facial expressions, costumes, action settings, and scene changes, described audibly during natural pauses in dialogue or critical sound elements.
[Lainey Feingold via Sam Bagenstos, Disability Law]
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Sony Pictures has decried the suit as frivolous:
In Midnight In Paris, Gil Pender, the disillusioned Hollywood screenwriter played by Owen Wilson, says, “the past is not dead. Actually, it’s not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner. And he was right. And I met him, too. I ran into him at a dinner party.” The rightsholder[s] say the slightly paraphrased quote could “deceive the infringing film’s viewers as to a perceived affiliation, connection or association between William Faulkner and his works, on the one hand, and Sony, on the other hand.”
David Olson, a professor of law at Boston College (and no relation), disputed the notion that a license was needed just because the movie was intended to make a profit. “Commercial use isn’t presumptively unfair” he said. He said no one watches “Midnight in Paris” as a substitute for buying “Requiem for a Nun.” [Deadline.com, Washington Post]
P.S. “Is the complaint written in Faulknerese?” [@jslubinski]
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Attorney Donald Karpel, representing a theatergoer, plans to sue the theater in Aurora, Colo., the doctors who prescribed medications for the killer, and Warner Brothers, for “rampant violence” in its Batman movie. [TMZ] Suits against movie studios, at least, unlikely to prevail, so let’s be thankful for small sanities [Reuters] “That a cinema should prepare to repel a concerted paramilitary attack is only reasonable In Times Like These.” [George Wallace] More: Ken at Popehat.
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Business fights back in the arena of public opinion against Mayor Bloomberg’s soda ban. [Michael Grynbaum, NY Times "City Room"]
More: Regarding Monday evening’s “Million Big Gulp March,” “It is not about the number of ounces in the cup,” said organizer Zach Huff. “It is about the number of liberties we have left.” [Caroline May, Daily Caller]
As I note in a new Cato post, a judge ruled last week that Netflix is a “public accommodation” and can be sued for not offering closed captioning on all its streamed films for the convenience of deaf customers. (Earlier here.) If upheld, the ruling will apply not just to Netflix itself but to a much broader class of online communicators; also waiting in the wings are blind advocates who believe the law requires the addition to movies of supplementary soundtracks describing action. As I pointed out to the Boston Globe, obligatory captioning, soundtrack supplementation and the like is likely to make it uneconomic to offer streaming of many films with low expected circulation. Note, however, by way of contrary precedent, this 2010 federal court ruling that online multiplayer games are not a public accommodation. My new post is here (& Allen McDuffee, Washington Post “Think Tanked”, Alexander Cohen/Atlas Society, George Leef/John Locke Foundation, Sam Bagenstos/Disability Law.)
P.S. And this must-read post at Ars Technica from prominent Internet law blogger Eric Goldman (“a bad ruling. Really terrible.” and contrary to precedent). Bonus: “I am so sick and tired of hearing people like Olson… the Walter Olsons of the world” [Ellen Seidman, Parents mag]
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- On party-line vote, Sacramento Dems turn down bill to curb ADA access shakedown suits [ATRF, KABC, Sacramento Bee (auto-plays video ad)]
- Illinois sues local schools for not developing standards for disabled athletic competition [Chicago Tribune]
- Open secret: criminals exploit federally mandated IP Relay disabled-phone system [Henderson]
- Judge certifies nationwide ADA accessibility suit against Hollister over stepped entrances to its stores [Law Week Colorado via Disability Law]
- In settlement, AMC movie chain agrees to install captioning, audio-description at Illinois theaters [ABC Chicago]
- “Has the Expanded Definition of Disability under the ADAA Gone Too Far?” [Russell Cawyer]
- “Fake handicaps a growing problem for disabled sports” [Der Spiegel]
- “MPAA: you can infringe copyright just by embedding a video” [Timothy Lee, Ars Technica]
- NYC: fee for court-appointed fire department race-bias monitor is rather steep [Reuters]
- Larry Schonbron on VW class action [Washington Times] Watch out, world: “U.S. class action lawyers look abroad” [Reuters] Deborah LaFetra, “Non-injury class actions don’t belong in federal court” [PLF]
- Will animal rights groups have to pay hefty legal bill after losing Ringling Bros. suit? [BLT]
- You shouldn’t need a lobbyist to build a house [Mead, Yglesias]
- “Astorino and Westchester Win Against Obama’s HUD” [Brennan, NRO] My two cents [City Journal] Why not abolish HUD? [Kaus]
- “Community organized breaking and entering,” Chicago style [Kevin Funnell; earlier, NYC]
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- D.C. Circuit’s Janice Rogers Brown: three-decade-long case over Iran dairy expropriation raises “harshest caricature of the American litigation system” [BLT]
- Legal blogger Mark Bennett runs for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as Libertarian [Defending People, Scott Greenfield] And Prof. Bill Childs, often linked in this space, is departing TortsProf (and legal academia) to join a private law practice in Texas;
- Ambitious damage claims, more modest settlements abound in Louisiana oil-rig cleanup suits [ATLA's Judicial Hellholes, more, more, earlier]
- Better no family at all: Lawprof Banzhaf jubilant over courts’ denial of adoption to smokers [his press release]
- “The worst discovery request I’ve ever gotten” [Patrick at Popehat] And yours?
- Concession to reality? Class action against theater over high cost of movie snacks seen as dud [Detroit Free Press]
- FCPA is for pikers, K Street shows how real corruption gets done [Bill Frezza, Forbes] Dems threatening tax-bill retribution against clients whose lobbyists who back GOP candidates [Politico]
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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 federal fishing raid, the Pew Charitable Trusts and a biased Business Week account [Nils Stolpe on Gloucester, Mass. fisheries, via Stoll]
- Intimidating the judiciary? “Group Opposing Citizens United Pushes ‘Occupy the Courts’ Protest” Jan. 20 [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] Mob rallies at Michigan governor’s private home [Meegan Holland, MLive] “Occupy” forces Gingrich to cancel event [Daily Caller] Earlier here, here, here, etc.
- “Paper Airplane? Late for School? Shouting Too Loud? You’re Under Arrest!” [Free-Range Kids, Texas]
- Spielberg in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” paid homage to earlier movie sequences without sweating permissions. Oh, for those days [Joho] “Cultural gems that should be in the public domain today” [Atlantic Wire, Tabarrok]
- UPS settlement exaggerates benefits to class members [Ted Frank; related, CCAF] “Federal Judges Have Harsh Words, Rulings for Class Action Plaintiffs’ Lawyers” [Lammi/WLF]
- “Justice Breyer Calls Recusal Controversy a ‘Non-Issue’” [ABA Journal]
- “Add Plaintiff-Lawyer Fees To The Cost Of Most Mergers” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes on Cornerstone Research report]
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