http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/01/fahrenheit.suit/index.html
Funny how the tire manufacture was not mentioned in the suit.
Additional damages? Is like that shipping and handling?
It must really suck to lose two limbs, but I just don’t see how Moore using this footage is even remotely close to $175 million in damages. Permission or not. And if not, it just isn’t worth this much.
Forgive my ignorance, but if this soldier already granted the interview to NBC, does Moore even have to ask him for permission to use the footage? Surely he only has to ask NBC, if anyone at all, right?
That’s what I thought…
So its obviously legit. This guy clearly just hates Moore, and wants his money. In which I’m sure a lot of people are. But the amout requested is just too obscene. I hope it gets laughed out of court.
Y’know, I remember this very place…the most intelligent, thought-provoking message board site I’ve encountered in the history of the Internet…having an entire thread devoted to pointing out every claim made by Michael Moore that turned out to be false. There was NOTHING. Just a bunch of rambling and posturing and maybe this and I think that.
Well, since screaming “Liar!” over and over and over obviously isn’t getting anywhere, time to go to Plan B, a completely ridiculous lawsuit looking exactly like the type that gets automatically shipped to the $1 payout bin.
Sweet mother of Orochi, this is pathetic. Look, he got booed at the Oscars once. Once. That does not mean that a jury is going to award this ridiculous lawsuit that has about a million times as much BS as any of his mistakes to you. Geez.
Is this guy rambling and posturing about his own statement? Yes the amount is obscene, that seems to be the way of lawsuits these days, but I have no problem with the basis of the suit.
Taking somebody’s quote out of context to change the meaning is fine for the Daily Show, not for a Documentary. If these companies are earning a mountain of money by editing footage in this way, making people seem to say things they didn’t mean, then they will get tagged by suits like this. The Daily Show does it, it’s comedy, parody, nobody actually thinks it is your view. Moore does it in a wildly popular movie, and it’s going to take a lot of explaining to make it clear that’s not what you meant.
I wouldn’t want that to happen to me. Have my face up on the big screen saying things diametrically opposed to my actual viewpoint. I imagine it would be humiliating, and I would want to sue someone. If the suit does nothing but irritate Moore and the rest, well, that’s OK too.
I agree that you shouldn’t be allowed to take material from one source and put it in a propaganda piece, er, documentary, without securing an additional round of releases. That seems fair.
Whether that transgression is worth $175 million is another story.
This would make me furious as well. Can you only sue for money? Could he have sued to force Moore to place a disclaimer on DVDs of the film, stating that he was quoted out of context?
I can understand a high number on punitive damages given the amount of money the film made and continues to make, and I think it’s difficult to determine for any individual what an appropriate amount of compensation is.
But until someone provides a good explanation for what the “additional damages” is intended to cover, that portion of the lawsuit, at least, seems frivolous to me.
When I get to work today, I’ll see if I can pull a copy of the actual complaint online and pass on any information gleaned from it.
Can’t this guy get anything based on the son of Sam law, or would that require a conviction of MM of aiding our emeny first?
To me, if you claim it’s a documentry and I catch you in a lie that has to be intentional on your part in that documentry the whole documentry can not be trusted. This case is just another example of MM’s intent to mislead and further discredits the whole movie. At this point nothing MM says on the subject can be trusted.
If MM didn’t claim it to be a documentry I could forgive mistruths in it.
Probably. I have a couple books by James Randi, editions that were printed before he was sued by that spoon-bending guy - Uri Geller, but originally sold afterwards. Inserted in the pages where Randi is lambasting Geller, is a separate little slip of paper with some legal mumbo-jumbo disclaimer on it. Little more difficult to such a thing to a rund of already-imprinted DVD’s though. I guess they could, however, be forced to stick something inside the DVD case.
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. Maybe Moore will learn either to not pretend his prophaganda pieces are “documentaries” or, more improbable, maybe he’ll start making honest movies.
When you release your statements to the public, you’ve forfeited your right to complain about how they get used. Frivolous lawsuit.
Son of Sam laws were ruled unconstitutional by a unanimous Supreme Court in 1991, you illiterate fuckwit.
Replace “Documentary” for “case for war” and tell me you still think the same.
Can someone explain why it’s taken so long for this suit to be filed? Did I miss something? The movie came out a couple of years ago.
Wow, according to the picture in the article, Moore has taken up grooming.
Perhaps that was because the tire maker did not take his comments out of context.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what Michael Moore did. The guy said what he said. Moore doesn’t do documentaries. He does obviously slanted opinion pieces. His opinion is overwhelmingly backed by facts. The guy can’t prove he didn’t say it, now can he?
There’s obviously no case whatsoever here and it will get tossed pretty quickly. There’s no “defamation” unless Moore claimed in his film that the guy was against the war (and even then he’d have to show damages). There’s no merit to puling about “context” either. That’s a complete load of shit and it’s not actionable anyway. This guy is just a whiny little cunt trying to get rich quick. He deserves nothing and will get nothing. The footage was genuine. He agreed to be filmed and he has no right to dictate how it can be used afterwards as long as it isn’t altered. It can be shown in whatever context the owner feels like. Moore could have put it in a gay porn film if he wanted. Moore made no explicit claim about his political views so he can’t claim he was misrepresented.
Sorry, Michael Moore haters, but this case has absolutely no merit and isn’t going anywhere. Selective editing is used all the time. It’s completely legitimate and conservative do it more than anybody. Cherry-picking quotes is a time-honored and perfectly legal propganda tactic (and Moore himself says his movies are cinematic “editorials,” not documentaries, by the way).
kanicbird, Michael Moore has not been convicted of any crime, you fucking moron. The Son of Sam law could not come into play even if it still existed.
Cite?