Canada’s TV establishment may call on Ottawa to prevent escape-via-Netflix [Michael Moynihan]
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Posts tagged as:
movies film and videos
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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Australian authorities dropped a criminal tax investigation of actor Paul Hogan, whose 1986 starring role did much for the nation’s image. Now Hogan, who lives in Los Angeles, says his reputation and career have suffered. [Lowering the Bar]
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At Abnormal Use, Nick Farr brings some scrutiny to what’s looking like the big trial-bar media venture of the season.
P.S. And a follow-up that really stands on its own as a resource: “The Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case FAQ“
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If not for the copyright extension bill that became effective in 1978, a wealth of significant work created in 1954 would have entered the public domain this January 1. [Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain]
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Through his lawyers, Girls Gone Wild impresario and frequent Overlawyered mentionee Joe Francis is wary of serving as the basis for a fictionalized character in an upcoming movie called Piranha 3-D. [IGN]
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“There has been a growing effort over the past decade from groups such as Smoke Free Movies and SceneSmoking.org, which hosts the annual Hackademy Awards, to pressure Hollywood into cutting back the amount of smoking in films. Now those groups are getting government support for their cause from US Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and from a group of health organizations, including Legacy, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization.” [Washington Post] Legacy, incidentally, is a group created as a result of the $246-billion state-Medicaid tobacco settlement whose purposes include pushing for further “tobacco control” — one of many examples in this area in which government-driven funding is employed to further advocacy on one side of controversial issues.
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Two lawsuits filed last month claim that writers improperly based fictional characters on the complainants. [Matthew Heller, OnPoint News] A much noted case last November, in which a Georgia jury awarded $100,000 to a woman who said she had been wrongly used as the basis in part for a character in the novel “The Red Hat Club”, may have encouraged the filing of such suits.
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The Ninth Circuit greenlights a potentially significant ADA suit, reversing a trial court that “found that the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Arizonans with Disabilities Act do not require movie theaters to provide captions and descriptions.” [Yuma Sun, Legal NewsLine]
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Do studio lawyers think it’s too dangerous to use real newspapers because they haven’t been rights-cleared? [Doctorow, BoingBoing]
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“In the past five months, Virginia-based law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver has filed suits against thousands of individuals accused of illegally downloading independent films—an operation that could yield the firm and its clients more than $19 million in damages.” Doing business as U.S. Copyright Group, the firm subpoenas ISPs to obtain IP addresses of illegal sharers “and threatens to sue each person for $150,000 unless they agree to a $1,500 to $2,500 settlement fee.” [ABA Journal] Earlier here, etc.
The suit claims the hit MTV reality show profits “from showing fights that cast members deliberately provoked.” A New Jersey judge has denied a motion to dismiss. [AP/Daily Caller] More: Courthouse News, Asbury Park Press.
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The Penn State professor is steamed about being made fun of in the video “Hide the Decline.” [Ed Barnes, FoxNews.com]
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It’s rather…ambitious. [Esguerra/EFF, BoingBoing, h/t reader Keith D.]
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Film biz follows RIAA path? “In what may be a sign of things to come, more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington D.C. federal court for copyright infringement. A handful of cases have already settled, and those that haven’t are creating some havoc for major ISPs.” [Eriq Gardner, THR Esq.]
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Viacom/Comedy Central retreats from some legal rumblings on behalf of a show itself known for its clever use of video clips from other sources. [Levy, CL&P]
The movies-by-mail service cut a deal with Warner Bros. in which it agreed to make subscribers wait 28 days before sending out a new DVD release from the studio. A customer now claims it’s an agreement in restraint of trade. [NY Daily News]
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