There was a recent legal dispute between the family of the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks and 20th Century Fox. Karman, wife of the late creators son, claims that she was a contributing writer for the “Squeakual” which was released last year. The Hollywood Reporter explains that Karmen went ahead and wrote a script for the sequel and when Fox offered her compensation for her work, she claimed it was inadequate. Fox took the script and edited it to create the final script for the film. Karmen claims at least half the script is of her creation and therefore she is entitled to half the profits from the successful “Squeakual”. They are also claiming that Fox is in violation of a producers agreement.

It seems like there was major miscommunication between the two parties. Had all of these provisions been clearly outlined in the agreements that the creator’s family signed, then the entire debacle could have been avoided. Just how much of Karmen’s original script was used in the final script? Even though she refused compensation, is her script still considered a work for hire and therefore the intellectual property of 20th Century Fox? It seems like the creator’s family did not anticipate the success of the sequel and are looking for a bigger profit after the fact. It boils down to the wording of their contracts and what the family originally agreed to. If Karmen really never agreed to give over her script, then they may have a case. If not, she really can’t complain after she signed a contract.

link to article: http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/04/new-chipmunks-lawsuit.html

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Ashton Kutcher has been going around telling the public that he is going to pirate 10 minutes of his new film Killers and post it on the internet to share with fans. I agree with the article’s author; it seems like this is just a really terrible marketing ploy by Lionsgate. In an attempt to capitalize on Kutcher’s massive Twitter following, while making the actor appear rebellious, all the production company has succeeded in doing is encouraging the very thing that sucks money from their revenue. I’m not really sure how this is an effective tactic. What if production companies started promoting their films through other means of illegal activity? What if James Franco had been giving out dime bags to fans to promote Pineapple Express? I don’t think something like that would go over so well. Yet somehow, Ashton Kutcher promoting the illegal download of a film in interviews and tweets is completely acceptable. Why is there no stigma attached to the illegal downloader? Culturally, are we just accepting the fact that everyone, at some point or another, has downloaded illegally? Are we not pointing fingers because we do it too? Maybe there is this notion that you’re somehow a “sucker” for paying for music and films. Maybe no one cares that Kutcher is pirating his own film because we all know its a marketing ploy. Yet, it’s doubtful there will ever be public outrage over illegal downloading. Until the public sees illegal downloading as an act of piracy and a criminal offense, it will be difficult to curtail.

link to article:

http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/06/why-is-ashton-kutcher-pirating-his-own-movie.html

There was recently some controversy over the ownership of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. The Hollywood Reporter explains that International Media Films sued Michael Lucas, the creator of a pornographic remake of the Fellini classic, back in 2007. The dispute revolved around the films chain of title. Apperantly, the films copyright has changed hands several times over the years. IMF took the last action in 2001, when they filed with the US Copyright Office on a restoration copy of the film. There was a lot of back and forth, but in the end the New York district court dismissed the case. La Dolce Vita had been in the public domain in the 1990s and unless copyright is proven otherwise, the film still is public property. The judge in the case clarifies that it is the job of the plaintiff to prove the film is still under protection.

How does someone, or a company in this case, lose track of a chain of title? Shouldn’t records be kept of such things? The article never really discusses how much of the original film was used in Lucas’s version. And considering the pornographic nature of the remake, it’s doubtful that it would harm the market for the classic. And if the film was in the public domain once, how exactly did someone ever regain its copyright? Even if IMF had copyrights on a restored version of the original, isn’t the non-restored version still up for grabs? There are way too many holes in this story to be sure of anything but it seems like International Media Films was just looking for a profit to which they had no claim.

link to article: http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/04/fellini-la-dolce-vita-lawsuit.html

Piracy has become a growing problem in Spain. According to this article in Variety, the Spanish entertainment industry has lost $6.5 billion in revenue in 2009. A poll of just under 6,000 Spaniards revealed that they were getting 84% of their movies and 95% of their music from illegal downloads. This epidemic, with a loss of $1.7 billion in taxes to piracy, is hitting the Spanish government hard. “According to the U.S. Congressional Intl. Anti-Piracy Caucus, unauthorized Spanish peer-to-peer downloads — 1.2 million in December — made Spain the world’s second-biggest P2P infringer by volume and per capita”. Spain’s Minister of Culture blames the lack of legal options available in Spain as well as a lack of listening and viewing devices.

This seems unlikely to be the sole contributing factor in the piracy prevalence in Spain. While America has many legal options for media downloading, piracy continues to be a problem in this country as well. The article claims that a poll revealed over 50% of Spaniards would be willing to pay for music and movies. However, only a small group of people were polled (less than 6,000) and the article provides no evidence as to what would motivate people in Spain to start paying for their media downloads. As the media industry evolves to adapt to the digital revolution, they will be hard pressed to get people to pay for what they’ve been getting for free for years.

link to article: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118020035.html?categoryid=19&cs=1&query=copyright

The recently released film Letters to Juliet had been tied up in a legal battle between Summit Entertainment (the films production studio) and EPV Enterprises (another studio claiming rights to a similar project). EPV claims that they have the rights to the story, which they licensed from another company ErgoArts. ErgoArts originially acquired the life rights to the group “Club di Giulietta”, the actual organization that answers letters written to Juliet in Verona, Italy. Summit claims that their project doesn’t violate any existing copyrights, but EPV fired back with a counterclaim seeking an injunction against the release of Summit’s film. While EPV claims their project is strikingly similar to Letters to Juliet, Summit went ahead with the film release as scheduled.

What is interesting about this case is the complications arising because of timing. It strikes me that EPV is upset simply because Summit got their story out before they could do the same. Summit never claims to have rights to the story of the “Club di Giulietta”, and I’m sure EPV/ErgoArts made sure they secured those rights in their option agreement with the club. There is no reason why both production companies could not release similar stories. Sure, a claim to market harm is valid (audiences will probably not go see two movies about the same thing). But legally, there is no error here.

Another question arises regarding life rights. Just how do life rights to an organization work? This particular entity has been in existence for over 100 years. Do life rights enter the public domain at some point? Can just anyone write a story about a dead guy if he’s been dead long enough? I’m not sure how that works, but it’s an interesting question.

link to article: http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/04/letters-to-juliet-injunction-release.html

Since a few weeks your Facebook account is not just a page with your latest thoughts and agricultural transactions. I remember visiting People magazine’s website, because I was conducting research for a class on movie marketing. The article I stumbled upon ( http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20363861,00.html#facebook_comment)
dealt with a 19 year old lead of the movie “Kick Ass” fathering his 43 year old fiance an being a stepdad to her 13 and 3 year old daughters.

Without further elaborating on the content, I found the article could have used some further proofreading and wanted to comment.

Once I scrolled down, I realized that I am already logged in over my Facebook profile.
That really caught me by surprise. I understand that Facebook is widely used, but I don’t think that connecting profiles to websites is serving our privacy.

On the contrary, it enable the participating websites to get a better idea of our individualized interests, opinions and by lack of attention on the side of the user probably also other things, like socioeconomic status, relatives etc.

How do you feel about your profile being connected to other websites?

Wow, I just read a very entertaining and informative blog post on the New York Times website by Kal Raustiala, a professor at UCLA Law School, and Chris Spriggim, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School. They have researched the effects of the porn equivalents of Youtube, and it is significant. I guess it makes sense that these web sites would do more harm to the porn industry than youtube does to the television or music industry. They highlight one website called Pornhub, which is the 53rd most visited website on the internet, compared to, CNN at number 59, New York Times at 96, Youtube at number 3, and then Vivid, a prominent American porn producer at number 19,543. The article goes on to point out that the porn dvd industry is declining severely. While this is also happening to other industries that are being affected by internet piracy, i think it is more damaging to the porn industry than the others. With music, television, and film, watching youtube clips can act as an advertisement or a form of promotion for the real product. However, in the porn industry i would imagine that the free internet clips act as a substitute, because as the article states, “Pornogrophy is, in large part, a utilitarian product, and for most consumers, the purpose for which it is employed is served just as well by a five minute porn-tube clip.” This is definitely not true of other more art driven piracy which is used for more cultural purposes than simply utilitarian. The long term effect that internet piracy will have on the porn industry in largely unknown. I think, based on these findings that it will be pretty large, but i am sure that based on demand society will never have a lack of porn. The article goes on to reveal that porn companies are trying to produce bigger scale projects such as 3D porn to compete with piracy. I guess people loved Avatar, right? Anyway, here is a link to a hysterical youtube clip of pornstars, or i’m sorry, “Performers” explaining why piracy is wrong. Enjoy.

<object width=”640″ height=”385″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/4xNzsTHA1nI&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/4xNzsTHA1nI&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”640″ height=”385″></embed></object>

The relationship between Bollywood and Hollywood exemplifies the complexities of international copyright. India’s film industries have been making “cultural copies” of Hollywood scripts for decades, but with the emergence of the Internet and other technologies, has recently become more visible in America. The term cultural copy is defined as “a nearly direct copy of a movie or other work from one culture into another culture”. This practice can be observed in Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai or This Guy is Fearless (2010), the controversial Indianized remake of American comedy, My Cousin Vinny (1992). American film company 20th Century Fox brought a $1.9 million copyright lawsuit against India’s BR Films company because of its illegal reproduction of the Oscar-award winning film. According to the Press Trust of India, “BR Films had been given permission to make a film based on the idea of the movie, but that rights for a Hindi-language remake had not been approved. A study of the script found it to be a ’substantial reproduction’ of the US film and the storyline was identical.” What differentiates between this film simply being inspired by or using the idea from the original work, and infringing upon it, is its explicit lifting of scenes, sequence, storyline, and script content. This case was settled outside of the Calcutta High Court where it was originally filed, after BR Films compensated Fox $200,000 for its replication of My Cousin Vinny. In my opinion, this blatant display of cultural copying is not necessarily an issue, but becomes problematic when it inhibits two of the US Fair Use and Indian Fair Dealing purposes by: delving into markets that Hollywood has begun profiting from, such as the UK and India, and hindering Bollwood’s incentives for creating innovative works by relying on American films to ensure box-office success. Take a look at these photos from scenes in each of the films, striking resemblance, no?