Even if Moore did say that quote, which MooreWatch doesn’t cite, it’s not his decision to make. The distributor owns the rights to the movie. I hope that Lion’s Gate sues the living shit out them. These tactics are dispicable.
So fuck you, MooreWatch, for blatantly and willfully violating the law to attack a political enemy. I hope criminal charges are brought against you.
Guess we find out how much class the man has. My bet is he shrugs it off. We’ll see. But I’m betting he made the movie to make his point, more than to make his bucks. Which means he’s more interested in being heard than in being paid.
Riiiiight. He has the most noble of motives. Sure he does. Hell, I’ll bet he’d do it for free, which is of course why he had it released to theaters rather than the Internet. :rolleyes:
My guess is that he doesn’t care that much about it. I bet he figures that some republicans are likely to watch it that otherwise wouldn’t. I doubt the distributor feels similarly. However, what bothers me most is that this is a group that is willfully breaking the law in an attempt to hurt a political opponent. Such a tactic is reprehensible and shouldn’t be allowed to continue.
Eh, it wouldn’t take noble motives to shrug this off and laugh about it. He’s already making bundles on the thing, and I’d guess far more than he ever expected too.
I’m betting he’s as amused as Snooooopy at the inept tactics of his enemies.
Here’s Moore’s statement (Warning: 5+ MB .avi file). It took approximately a nanosecond to find, in case you were wondering if reporters were lazy. It confirms what some people are saying in this thread, that he “does OK” (or similar words) and isn’t worried about people filesharing the movie unless it’s for profit - his main motivation is for people to see the film.
The OP may or may not be correct that whether to make the video available for free internet distribution is Lion’s Gate’s decision to make and not Moore’s – I’m unaware of any public discussion of the contractural terms it made with the production company, Moore, or anyone else. And Moore chose not to delve into ownership issues when he addressed the issue (unless one were to intrepret his use of the first-person singular in referring to the film as a claim of ownership rather than authorship).
In the absence of further information or a clarification from Moore, I’d think any suit against someone distributing the movie for free on the internet would be on shaky ground if it did not include Moore as a codefendant. But IANAL.
FWIW, I’ve seen the Moore quote about him not caring about copyright in other places, so it’s probably unique.
And I’m sure that Moore will whole-heartedly support and defend the owners of this website. Even assuming, as Doors does, the worst possibly motives on Moore’s behalf:
He’s smart enough to recognize the massive propaganda coup in supporting the efforts of his enemies to more widely distribute his message.
He knows that no matter what he says, his studio is going to prosecute these guys. And almost certainly win, even if Moore himself shows up as a witness for the defence. Moore isn’t the only copyright holder for this film, and more than just his permission is required to freely distribute it.
So, he’s win-win. He can make himself look good by standing up for his detractors, and he still gets to see his detractors punished to the fullest extent of the law.
A good strategy for Moore might be to wait until it’s made all it’s going to make in theaters, then release a medium quality version of the film for free on the internet (yes, he’d have to get permission from the studio, which is unlikely). The DVD sales/rentals might not be effected as much, since they’d be high-quality plus with added features to lure customers.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if he found a way to get it on the 'net anonymously in a high-quality version. He might be thinking that since he already make more bucks of the thing than he expected, what the heck. It would be viewed be more people, and hence help change more peoples minds to vote against Bush, which is probably his ultimate goal.
Did you mean codefendant or did you mean plaintiff? Because I’m unsure as to the cause of action you’re suggesting anyone would have against Moore. As for Moore’s presence as a plaintiff in any such suit, it’s not relevant. Person one’s failure to assert his rights doesn’t have any effect on Person two’s ability to assert his.
Codefendant, though I’m certainly no lawyer. My thought goes more or less like this. Here we have a guy very publicly identifed with a movie – more like Lucas with Star Wars than like Raimi with Spiderman, if you will. If I’m a downloader with a good lawyer, I’m going to use a “reasonableness” defense. Specifically, I’ll introduce the tape of Moore saying he has no objection to people filesharing “my” movie (though on reviewing the statement, he only said that once) and claim that I reasonably believe that it was, in fact, “his” movie – that his distribution contract with Lion’s Gate extended only to cinema showings of the film and that he was free to do as he pleases as regards other methods of distribution. And what he plainly pleases to do is have people share it for free over the internet, so long as the sharer does not profit.
If I’m Lion’s Gate, maybe I have to sue Moore for falsely claiming ownership.
Now that second part assumes that Moore does not have ownership. As I said before, I have no idea. Perhaps he does and is in fact giving people free license to share it over the internet. After all, he said his primarly motivation is not money, and that he got plenty from the cinema contract. It could very well be that Lion’s Gate’s only recourse here is to stew about it and prosecute the actual filming when it occurs in theaters.
OK, I get where you’re coming from on this. My assumption would be that the existence of the copyright notice on every print of the film, every movie poster, etc. would serve to defeat any reasonableness defense, since AFAIK Moore doesn’t hold the copyright. I still don’t see where Lions Gate or whoever else would need to name Moore as a codefendant though. They would probably need to name him separately for allegedly breaching his fiduciary duty, which is a different cause of action than what would arise from an illegal download.
Excellent point on the second part – I think you’re probably right.
As to the first, the poster doesn’t have a copyright notice (cite. But yeah, there’s probably a copyright notice somewhere in the film itself now that I think about it (I was thinking of those huge copyright things on DVDs, which obviously don’t exist yet in the case of this film). So yeah, depending on what that notice says, let loose the lawyers!
In Moore’s case he probably would release the movie for free if it would get GWB out of office. Whatever you think of him, I don’t see how you can doubt the sincerity of his political activism.
Oh…and FWIW, Moors is donating part of his profits to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq.
I think you’re missing the point here. Lion’s Gate won’t be suing the downloaders; they’ll be suing whoever is making the file available. The copy of the film that is being made available would have been obtained illegally, and your “reasonableness defense” would only apply if Moore had actually provided the film to the site which is hosting it.
Eh, nobody’s saying he’s not trying to make money as well, but his primary goal is obviously ousting Bush from office. Surely you can disagree with Moore and concede that point, just like most of us can disagree strongly with Messrs. Marx, Hitler, and Mao, while acknowledging that their primary motives for publishing their respective manifestos were not financial in nature.
