The disclaimer you see at the end of any movie and several TV shows - “any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.”
The upcomming “bubbleboy” movie made me think of this, as if it wasn’t for the original bubbleboy in the 70s-80s the movie and presumembly annoying Seinfeld show wouldn’t have had one.
Very often you will see TV shows (Law and Order for one) that appear to be very obviously based on real life cases but still have the disclaimer.
So, as long as a movie/TV show has that disclaimer included, does that shield them from any lawsuits?
Civil suits aren’t like crimes. Nothing much can shield you from them completely. You can pretty much file suit against anyone for just about anything. How much merit your suit has and how far it will go are another question. The disclaimer may show good faith to not depict a real person in a libel or defamation suit but a jury might also see it as a phony gesture.
I imagine that disclaimer is about as useful as “Swim at Your Own Risk” signs. They present a minor hurdle to be overcome should someone wish to file a lawsuit against you (afterall…just writing the disclaimer doesn’t make it so).
Padeye is correct that anyone can file a civil suit for just about anything. However, if the plaintiff plans on getting some money back they have to prove damages. Without damages a court might well say the defendant is guilty and close the case. The damage award? $0.00 but you still owe your lawyer $50,000. That said IANAL so wait for one of them to put the smack down on the real answer.
Besides, saying that the Bubble Boy movie infringes on the real Bubble Boy is like saying a movie about a guy in a house infringes upon me because I live in a house. Granted, the bubble boy is a much rarer case but unless the story parallels the actual bubble boy’s life (and I doubt it given the previews I’ve seen) then I doubt there is much infringement here.
The Bubble Boy’s mom sure thinks so, and has tried to have the film held without release. Can’t remember where I saw this, maybe the last Newsweek?
It has been my experience that most disclaimers , waivers, etc, are merely perfunctory. Your lawyers wants you to have people sign them, but it in no way diminished their rights in the event of something going wrong. I used to work in the scuba diving industry, and the half-page waiver you sign as a student does nothing to prevent you from suing your instructor in the real world.
bernse, you’ll notice that not all those disclaimers are worded the same. The ones on most fiction-based movies read like you quoted, namely: “…any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.”
But I’ve seen others – I think on L&O, among other places – that allude to the fact that they are inspired (or somesuch word) by actual events; they never claim to be “purely coincidental.” But likewise, they do not claim to be a non-fiction retelling of past factual events.
There was such a disclaimer at the end of The Greek Tycoon, the movie where Anthony Quinn plays a wealthy Greek shipping magnate who marries the widow of an American president and…
Yeah, nothing at all like anyone in REAL life.
“Much rarer” seems a bit of an understatement, considering that David Vetter was the only person ever to spend his entire life in a bubble, and that the nickname “Bubble Boy” was created by the press to refer to him. If someone made a movie about a SDMB poster nicknamed Lamia I’d sure as heck think that it infringed upon me, even if the rest of the character’s life was unlike my own.
Back to the OP, there was the “any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental” disclaimer at the end of Being John Malkovich. Uh, really?
They also had the “any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental” disclaimer at the end of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. If you didn’t see the movie, they went back in time and met Socrates, Napolean, Joan of Arc, etc, etc. Good to know those are all fictional characters created by the writers of Bill & Ted!