Are slander laws different in the UK?
Gee, I wonder why.
It’s especially funny after the “I’ll sue you in England!” line. How, though, does Tom Cruise have any say over what Paramount does or what is or isn’t shown in England? I seriously doubt he would refuse to work for Paramount again if they had the right vehicle ($150 million summer epics that require little or no acting talent and have a starring role for a quickly fading pretty boy aren’t that common, and if they can’t get Cruise there’s always Will Smith or Ashton Kutcher or a much cheaper up’n’comer like Eric Bana, all of whom are either sane or at least have publicists who hide their insanity).
Misleading reporting. They’ve actually agreed to not show it again, anywhere, due to his threats. Only the coincidental situation that it hadn’t yet been broadcast in the UK at all made the “South Park banned in England!”-type headline possible.
Doesn’t mean Tom Cruise isn’t a pompous prick, though.
I doubt they’re worried about that. No matter what kind of business you run, you do not want to get sued by someone very, very rich because they have the resources to tie you up in court for ages. And Tom Cruise is very, very rich.
I neither a lawyer nor from the UK, but my understanding is that slander/libel laws over there are much more restrictive than in the US.
Also, Tom Cruise is a cock.
Great move on Paramount’s part. Because this will certainly prevent anyone from ever seeing the episode again. Except for all the people in the world with access to the internet. But you know, besides them, no one.
They’re not massively different in a case such as this. The obligations on broadcasters are probably more restrictive. If somebody is pick-and-choosing a country in which to persue legal action in such a case, England isn’t the most likely option (note that English & Scottish legal systems are separate from one another)
Gorilla Man has the correct answer. It hasn’t been shown here, so a global ban on showing it means it won’t be shown here at all. Unless, like many people, you’ve seen it via the many other channels it’s been distributed on.
According to the Comedy Central website, it was last shown in the US this past Monday (1/16/06).
Yep. And it won’t be again, thanks to that nice Mr Cruise: The Register.
My link to the IMDB comes from your link.
The circle is complete.
And Cruise is still a dick.
It’s the circle of life, or something worryingly similar.
From MST3K:
Tom Servo: “To infinity and…”
Mike: “Shhh! Law suit!”
Tom: “…and some other place.”
Just like nobody ever saw the Family Guy Wienstein episode become fox though it was “too offensive”.
I’ve never understood how they can have stricter libel laws and such infamous tabloids at the same time.
To the contrary, English law is far more welcoming to a defamation plaintiff, which is why a number of relatively high-profile lawsuits have been filed there by non-English plaintiffs or against non-English defendants. Hence, the “I’ll sue you in England joke.”
One of the principal differences between English and American defamtion law is that in England, the defendant actually has the burden of establishing that the defamatory statement was true. In the U.S., the First Amendment requires any plaintiff who is a public official or a public figure (i.e., anyone high-profile enough that anyone else would care about) to prove that the defamatory statement was false. Even more important, a public official or public figure has to prove that the defendant knew the statement was false, or made the statement with reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. As a result, it’s really hard to get anywhere with a defamation claim in the U.S. if you’re not just an ordinary Joe Schmoe.
American law also (generally, as state laws vary somewhat) recognizes various privileges and immunities that are not available under English law, such as immunity for statements of opinion (e.g., that Tom Cruise is a giant nutcase douchebag) and statements on matters of public concern. Satire also enjoys strong constitutional protection.
It’s not about him working for them. Tom Cruise has his production office for Cruise/Wagner Productions ON the Paramount lot. There is a lot more to the reciprocal relationship between Cruise and Paramount than just him being “hired” as a lead in one of their movies, and therefore easily replaceable with some other actor. Click through to the “Company Credits” of anything on this list of Cruise/Wagner Productions and see how often Paramount comes up as a production company and/or distributor of his work.
One minor point, more about the joke than anything else.
Tom’s threat to “sue in England” is (presumably) based on the fact that the damages historically awarded by English juries in libel cases were often positively astronomical, in the six and seven figure ranges. Fortunately, the damages are now decided by the judge rather than the jury, so this particular risk has gone.
Not a lawyer, so I can’t really comment on his chances of success if he were to go to court - however, Robbie Williams did successfully sue The People newspaper over an identical allegation, so I think Paramount’s lawyers may have made the right decision.
Could you provide a citation for that claim?
U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, Albright v. Morton, June 3, 2005, upheld the dismissal by a lower court of a libel suit:
Hmmm… If I were Trey and Matt, and the Scientologists censored this episode,
I wonder where I’d release it? What a puzzler. A site that might post the entire
episode as a streaming video, even though the Scientologists don’t want people
to see it? Who posts that kind of thing on their website? I guess it would have to be a site with a history of revealing Scientology-related materials. Does such a place exist?