Comments on: OK, Expelled… But Plagiarism Will Do That For You

By: Olorin

Olorin — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:02:48 +0000

Re Wes’s update: Unfortunately, depositions, discovery, and cross-examination can be limited to the matter of the suit—whether or not the copyright was infringed. Although credibility questions might collaterally bring in some evidence of the movie’s other lies or distortions, this would be a lucky break. And, of course the Premise Media attorneys will resist mightily any effort to bring in material concerning any other aspects of “Expelled.”

My biggest concern right now is ownership. If Harvard owns the copyright outright, then XVIVO has no further standing to sue on it. Does anyone have any first-hand knowledge concerning this aspect?

By: Austringer

Austringer — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:11:40 +0000

I give the analysis because it makes things clearer for those reading up on this, because IDC advocates ignore my advice anyway, and because the alternatives don’t really give the “Expelled” folks a win whatever way they go.

By: Paul Lundgren

Paul Lundgren — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:39:00 +0000

Excellent post about the reasons Premise Media should clean up its act. My question is, why are you giving free advice to the bad guys? I think it’d be GREAT to see these clown squirming in court, preferably on Court TV and YouTube for all time. Serves ‘em right.

By: Olorin

Olorin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:54:01 +0000

This is true, chezjake, _if_ there is a discovery process. There will be a discovery process only if the producers do not remove the segment and if a trial then follows.

There are several reasons the producers would not want a trial, even if they have lots of money to fight and to pay damages. (1) Many theaters would refuse to show the film, because they don’t want to get whacked with damages themselves. (2) The Discovery Institute would no doubt get dragged in via e-mails; they might face damages through vicarious or contributory liability. (3) The studio that did the knock-off would exert pressure, because they could also be liable, if they were given the XVIVO video and told to produce “something similar.”

It is possible, of course, that the producers may reach a licensing deal with XVIVO to let the segment stay. Let’s pray (or hope, depending on you persuasion :-) that XVIVO refuses to license.

By: chezjake

chezjake — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:57:54 +0000

Not to mention that the first part of the discovery process would be subpoenas to find out who was contracted to produce the new animation, what their instructions were, and what resource materials were provided to them by the movie producers. That information alone should be sufficient to prove plagiarism.

By: MattP

MattP — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:10:05 +0000

Well yeah, depending on the context, getting a “clean” edit could be difficult with just a splicing tool. I sure hope this is very expensive and time consuming for them, but if they do decide just to cut and enlist the local theaters to the do the work, then the number of screens that itis releasing on is irrelevant.

By: Tim Fuller

Tim Fuller — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:47:37 +0000

Even the fundamentalists will notice something is wrong.
————————

You’re giving the fundies too much credit but I don’t mean to nitpick your observation otherwise. This is interesting stuff. I’m betting they don’t cut the material and may rightly or wrongly claim ‘fair misuse’ of same.

Early distribution appears to be targeted to areas with the highest hickability factor (HHF) but is nowhere as large as they would like to portray. This movie is DOA. Plagiarism didn’t kill it. Lack of credibility, overuse of tired Nazi imagery and a heavy reliance on a heavily (and again recently) discredited creationist movement seems to have been enough to do the poor bastard in.

Charges for ‘murder of a movie’ have subsequently been dropped against Defendant Plagarism.

Enjoy.

By: raven

raven — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:39:08 +0000

My best guess is that they will just cut out the XVIVO segment. Assuming there is a copyright issue.

Does anyone think their target audience knows the difference between a ribosome and an actin filament? Or cares. They could just splice in some more Nazis or a cartoon of scientists beating puppies to death. Those would fit better with the tone of the film.

Doesn’t look like money will be an issue. They are advertising this heavily with lots of web advertising, junk mail advertising, and they have a huge crew of humanoid spambots crawling the nets.

They couldn’t care less if they make any money. There seems to be big bucks behind this propaganda effort, paying to get the message out.

By: Raging Bee

Raging Bee — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:05:11 +0000

Can’t have Ben Stein saying, “Here’s a video showing God’s handiwork in a cell,” and then cutting directly to Ben Stein saying, “Wasn’t that wonderful?” Even the fundamentalists will notice something is wrong.

Nah, they’ll just imagine they saw it — because someone they were told to trust said they just saw it — and the rest of us will never be able to prove they didn’t see it.

By: midwifetoad

midwifetoad — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:30:44 +0000

Premise can blow this off if they choose to, but what about the theaters that show the film? are there any theaters not owned by major studios or major corporations?

The fines for copyright violation can reach kilobucks for each instance.