Big Win For Fair Use (Even When For Profit), Big Loss For 'Hot News' & Fox

from the good-news dept

Well, here's a nice surprise. The Federal Court in the Southern District of NY has issued another very nice ruling on copyright issues relating to fair use. As we'd mentioned last year, Fox had sued the company TVEyes claiming copyright infringement. TVEyes is a media monitoring company that records tons of TV and radio, creates transcripts of it all and makes it searchable for internal use. Customers include the White House, Congress and a variety of news services, including the NY Times. Fox is Fox. It insists that what TVEyes is doing is infringement and that it violates the hot news doctrine (the silly, obsolete, court-made law that says news reporters have some non-copyright proprietary right to breaking news they first publish).

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, however, is not buying Fox's argument. Why? Fair use. The Court goes through the typical four factors test and finds them to pretty squarely put TVEyes' usage into the "fair use" camp.

1. Purpose and character of the use: Goes to TVEyes following a very long discussion. Even though it's a "for profit" company, the court says that its transformative and fits with the stated purpose of fair use. The court relies heavily on the recent book scanning decisions that found that scanning full books to make searchable indexes is transformative fair use. That's good. It also points to the recent Swatch v. Bloomberg case, in which a full transcript of an investor call was considered fair use, even if for commercial reasons. The court admits that the Meltwater case may be the one that goes against this, but notes that it's basically the only one (adding emphasis to our belief that Meltwater was decided incorrectly). The growing consensus appears to be that indexing content to make it more findable is transformative fair use, and the court agrees in this case:

   I find that TVEyes' search engine together with its display of result clips is transformative and "serves a new and different function from the original work and is not a substitute for it." ... In making this finding, I am guided by the Second Circuit's determination that databases that convert copyrighted works into a research tool to further learning are transformative. TVEyes' message, "'this is what they said' -- is a very different message from [Fox News'] -- 'this is what you should [know or] believe.'" ... TVEyes' evidence, that its subscribers use the service for research, criticism, and comment, is undisputed and shows fair use as explicitly identified in the preamble of the statute.

   
   
2. The nature of the copyrighted work: Here the judge finds neither side wins the fair use debate. Basically, he says "where the creative aspect of the work is transformed, as is the case here, the second factor has limited value."
   
   
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used: Once again, neither side wins. The court says, yes, obviously, TVEyes is using all of Fox's TV content, but rather than taking the simple way out, recognizes (as other courts have) that this is really not about the total amount used, but the amount used in relation to the amount necessary to use. And thus, in this case, using everything is necessary, given what TVEyes is trying to do. As the court notes, "TVEyes' service requires complete copying twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."
   
   
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for the value of the copyrighted work: This one goes to TVEyes again. As the court notes, the economic harm here has to be based on whether or not TVEyes is acting as a substitute, and not based on any economic harm created by the transformative use (i.e., not from a market that Fox isn't serving). The court notes that Fox speculates that people might use TVEyes to avoid watching Fox directly, but has no evidence to support that: "Fox News' allegations assume that TVEyes' users actually use TVEyes as a substitute for Fox News' channels. Fox News' assumption is speculation, not fact. Indeed, the facts are contrary to Fox News' speculation." More specifically:

   First, none of the shows on which Fox News' suit is based remain available to TVEyes subscribers; TVEyes erases content every 32 days. Second, in the 32 days that these programs were available to TVEyes' subscribers, only 560 clips were played, with an average length of play of 53.4 seconds and the full range of play being 11.5 seconds to 362 seconds. Of the 560 clips played, 85.5% of the clips that were played were played for less than one minute; 76% were played for less than 30 seconds; and 51% were played for less than 10 seconds. One program was not excerpted at all. The long term TVEyes statistics are consistent with the specific statistics of the 19 programs. From 2003 to 2014, only 5.6% of all TVEyes users have ever seen any Fox News content on TVEyes. Between March 31, 2003 and December 31, 2013, in only three instances did a TVEyes subscriber access 30 minutes or more of any sequential content on FNC, and no TVEyes subscriber ever accessed any sequential content on FBN. Not one of the works in suit was ever accessed to watch clips sequentially. The record does not support Fox News' allegations. Fox News fails in its proof that TVEyes caused, or is likely to cause, any adverse effect to Fox News' revenues or income from advertisers or cable or satellite providers.

   It goes on in that nature for some time. And then concludes: "No reasonable juror could find that people are using TVEyes as a substitute for watching Fox News broadcasts on television. There is no history of any such use, and there is no realistic danger of any potential harm to the overall market of television watching..."

Given all that, the victory goes in a landslide to TVEyes on fair use grounds -- with one exception:

However, I do not decide the issue of fair use for the full extent of TVEyes' service, TVEyes provides features that allow subscribers to save, archive, download, email, and share clips of Fox News' television programs. The parties have not presented sufficient evidence showing that these features are either integral to the transformative purpose of indexing and providing clips and snippets of transcript to subscribers, or threatening to Fox News' derivative businesses.

So that part of the case is likely to go forward (though it may wait while Fox appeals the other part).

The court also tosses out the hot news claim, saying that it's preempted by the copyright claim, and Fox News' attempt to double dip via hot news won't be allowed. It cites a case that says if you're just reposting factual information, it's covered by the Copyright Act. The court notes for TVEyes to run afoul of the hot news doctrine, it would need to be "free riding" in a manner designed to "scoop" Fox's efforts, rather than accurately covering what Fox is broadcasting. "TVEyes is not a valuable service because subscribers credit it as a reliable news outlet, it is valuable because it reports what the news outlets and commentators are saying and therefore does not "scoop" or free-ride on the news service."

In the end, it's a good ruling for fair use (and against hot news), though it seems likely that Fox will appeal.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, fox news, hot news, media monitoring, sdny
Companies: fox, tveyes

Fox Loses Yet Again Against Dish Autohopper; Appeals Court Ignores Silly Aereo Argument

from the innovation-allowed dept

Some good news on the innovation front. Following on Fox's big initial loss in trying to stop Dish's Autohopper DVR feature, an appeals court has upheld the ruling. The main issue? Fox completely failed to show how an injunction is necessary to stop "irreparable harm." The court is pretty sure that any "harm" would be quite "reparable." There isn't much analysis -- the court just clearly is not convinced. Beyond saying that the district court didn't make any legal errors in issuing the original ruling, the appeals court notes that the service has been available for a while already, kinda disproving the whole "irreparable harm" argument.

Here, the district court found that Fox’s lack of evidence that the complained-of technology, available for several years, had yet caused Fox’s business any harm weighed against Fox’s argument that it would be irreparably harmed absent a preliminary injunction. In so finding, the district court did not hold Fox’s evidence to a more rigorous standard than our law requires and so did not abuse its discretion.

Perhaps more importantly, the court totally and completely ignored Fox's ridiculous attempt to argue that the Aereo ruling supports its position. That was a crazy argument from the very beginning, and clearly attempted to stretch the whole "looks like a duck" test beyond the breaking point. As Dish had pointed out in its response, Aereo lost because it didn't have licenses. Dish has licenses, so it's not even close to being relevant. The court appears to have treated it with the amount of respect Fox's argument deserved: none.

Filed Under: autohopper, dvr, networks, place shifting, primetime any time
Companies: aereo, dish, fox

Aereo Fallout Begins: Fox Uses Ruling To Attack Dish's Mobile Streaming Service

from the because-welcome-to-this-new-mess dept

We've been saying that the Aereo ruling is going to create a litigation headache for a number of companies... and here we go. You may recall that a bunch of TV broadcasters have sued Dish over its attempts to provide innovative features to consumers, such as its Dish AutoHopper and its Dish Anywhere streaming offering. So far, those lawsuits have gone nowhere and fast. But Fox sees renewed life in its effort to shut down innovation thanks to the Supreme Court's unfortunate "looks like a duck" test.

Within hours of Wednesday's ruling, Fox had run to the 9th Circuit appeals court with the news. The 9th Circuit had previously rejected Fox's attempt to shut down the Dish technology, but Aereo has renewed its hopes of killing some innovation:

Fox's lawyers believe the Aereo ruling strengthens their case against Dish. In a letter to the court Richard Stone, partner at Jenner & Block, wrote that the supreme court had ruled Aereo's service constitutes an "unauthorized public performance of Fox's copyrighted works."

"Dish, which engages in virtually identical conduct when it streams Fox’s programming to Dish subscribers over the internet – albeit also in violation of an express contractual prohibition – has repeatedly raised the same defenses as Aereo which have now been rejected by the supreme court," he wrote.

Stone highlighted that the court had specifically rejected Aereo's assertion that it is "merely and equipment provider" and that Aereo's subscribers were the ones transmitting content.

Get ready, because Aereo is going to get cited a lot by the legacy entertainment industry as they quickly seek to destroy innovation.

Filed Under: autohopper, copyright, dish anywhere, dvr, looks like a duck, remote viewing, streaming
Companies: aereo, dish, fox

Fox Accidentally Releases Family Guy Game Early, 'Fixes' This By Issuing YouTube Copyright Claims And Killing Twitch Channels

from the no,-unsuspecting-user,-it-is-YOU-who-have-fucked-up dept

Fix your mistake or make it worse? That's the question facing so many, so often. Let's make it worse, shall we? I mean, that's the way it frequently seems to go. And, why not, let's use that infamous "shut the hell up" multi-tool Copyright as well, so that everyone's respect for the concept continues its irreversible decline.

Touch Arcade reports that Fox screwed up a little with its release of its new Family Guy game. But rather than move on, it decided to become a bully when it didn't immediately get its way.

Earlier today, we assumed FOX soft launched the upcoming Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff. Folks on our forums, as they always do, downloaded the game, and started posting impressions and videos. Instead of embracing this sort of community activity, FOX apparently decided to go totally nuclear, shutting down absolutely everything they could that had to do with the game being posted anywhere.

The "soft launch" was actually a botched delivery. New Zealand users weren't simply getting a headstart on the rest of the world. No, Fox simply pushed the wrong button somewhere and accidentally put the app out there for public consumption. As Eli Hodapp points out, nothing untoward or illegal happened, but the response was completely indistinguishable from that sort of situation.

[K]eep in mind, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff was fully available for download earlier today. No tricks were needed, nothing was stolen or otherwise pirated. Instead, people with New Zealand App Store accounts were just downloading the game like any of us download these games, direct from the App Store without any other associated drama.

But Fox thought that, despite its misstep, it should still have control of the situation. So, it first asked a user via Twitter to remove his gameplay video from YouTube until "launch day," while admitting the game was availabe due to an error on Fox's part.

This user returned to his YouTube account only to find that Fox had already issued a copyright claim against his video. So, rather than be allowed to comply, the user received a strike against his account. Then, Fox went even further and had his Twitch channel shut down. Completely. As of the time of this writing, his account is still closed, supposedly due to "terms of service violations."

Nice work, Fox. Now instead of people talking about the game, they'll be talking about how the entity holding the IP rights hammered potential fans in order to hold onto the game for another couple of days. And instead of giving one fan a chance to comply with its request, it decided to give him an undeserved YouTube strike and shut down his Twitch channel -- all because Fox failed to handle its own end of the app business. Ridiculous.

(But Fox can't shut everything down. Here's a rather amusing video of the Forbidden Game in action.)

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, family guy, games
Companies: fox

CEO Of 21st Century Fox Thinks People Aren't Really Asking For A La Carte TV Channels

from the there's-a-farce-here-somewhere dept

There are two subjects that seem to keep TV execs in complete denial: cord cutting and the demand for a la carte TV packages. Both are very real (and, frankly, the increase in the former is somewhat driven by the latter), but to listen to cable execs it's just not happening. Not happening. La la la la, they can't hear you, not happening. The latest such example is from Chase Carey, CEO of 21st Century Fox, who insists that any such demand "is a farce" which some might see as a slight improvement from that time he called it a "fantasy," but not by much. So why is it "a farce?" Well, because Chase Carey knows better than you what you really want. And you want bundles because they're just that awesome.

"The bundle is still a great proposition for the consumer when you compare it to the a world of $5 lattes and cell phone bills,"

First of all, we've been hearing variations on the "what a good deal compared to the $5 latte" argument in a variety of industries, and it's almost always bogus. It's clearly an apples and oranges comparison here. No one forces you to buy the blueberry muffin, the "adult contemporary" CD, plus three smaller cups of coffee you'll never drink just to get that latte. Also, frankly, the $5 latte is the result of actually giving consumers what they want in a competitive market. The same cannot be said for the TV market. At all.

Here's a general rule of thumb modern businesses: if you're working on giving people what they actually want, that's probably a good thing and bodes well for your business. If, instead, you force them to deal with a bunch of crap they don't want -- and then mock them for suggesting a better product, you're not long for this world.

Filed Under: a la carte, chase carey, cord cutting
Companies: fox, news corp.

Another Day, Another Loss For Broadcasters In Quixotic Campaign To Kill Innovation

from the moving-forward dept

Just last week, we noted that a court in NY had rejected an attempt by ABC and CBS to shut down DISH's AutoHopper offering that helps users automatically skip commercials (along with their PrimeTime AnyTime feature that automatically records prime time network TV). That came after a ruling in California in a nearly identical case, this time by Fox and NBC. That case had moved forward and it appears that, yet again, a court has said no to the attempt to get an injunction against DISH. The full decision isn't out yet, but the parties have seen the ruling and it's clear that DISH won, and Fox didn't:

"We have just received the ruling, and while the judge found that Fox could prevail at trial on the merits of the case, she did not grant our preliminary injunction," says a Fox in a statement. "We disagree that the harms caused by Dish’s infringing services are completely compensable by damages, and as a result we are looking at all options. We will file a response in due course."

While the details matter, it seems pretty clear that (as the court has said before), even if DISH is found to have infringed (though it expresses some skepticism on the likelihood of such an argument working), the court doesn't see any irreparable damages from letting the technology move forward. This is a good thing. All too often, it seems that the copyright maximalist organizations view any possible infringement as "irreparable" harm, even though it's nothing of the sort.

Filed Under: autohopper, copyright, hopper, primetime anytime
Companies: abc, cbs, dish, fox, nbc

Another Court Won't Block Dish's AutoHopper; TV Networks Plan To Shoot Selves In Foot In Response

from the and-off-we-go dept

Last year, DISH won a nearly complete victory against Fox and NBC in California over the legality of DISH's AutoHopper feature, which skips over commercials with shows that the DVR offering records. However, there were two separate lawsuits on this issue: that one in California, and another one involving CBS and ABC in New York... and that court has basically ruled the same way, refusing to grant the networks an injunction to block the DISH product. The full ruling is under seal (most likely to redact certain parts) and will be released with redactions sometime soon (next week, I think).

As the link above notes, the court did say that CBS could try to unwind its retransmission agreement with DISH, arguing that DISH misled the company when they were working on that agreement. It also notes that ABC's carriage agreement with DISH expires at the end of this month, and that "negotiations [are] not going well, with a possible blackout happening soon." In other words, the networks are likely about to shoot themselves (and the public) in the foot by pulling their channels from DISH in a petulant act of self-harm, because they're upset that DISH is innovating and offering the public what they want in a manner that the networks won't do.

Filed Under: autohopper, copyright, injunction, retransmission
Companies: abc, cbs, dish, disney, fox, nbc, nbc universal, news corp.

Court Says Broadcasters Can't Use Copyright To Block Commercial Skipping

from the good-court-rulings dept

This morning there was a huge victory for common sense in the Ninth Circuit appeals court ruling in the Fox v. Dish case over Dish's AutoHopper technology. As you may recall, pretty much all the major broadcasters sued Dish a year ago, claiming that its AutoHopper technology with the PrimeTime Anytime feature -- which would record the entire primetime lineup, and allow Dish customers to watch everything (starting the next day) while automatically skipping the commercials -- was infringement (and breach of contract). As we noted at the time, the broadcasters' arguments made very little sense. The basis of the argument was that skipping commercials is a form of copyright infringement. We couldn't see how skipping commercials violated the copyright in any way at all, and while Fox pretended it won the initial ruling at the district court level, the reality was that Dish won big.

Fox immediately appealed, and Dish has won big yet again with this latest ruling, which is a huge victory for common sense. The court makes a number of important findings, nearly all of them good and sensible. To be specific, the nature of this ruling was over whether or not the broadcasters could get an injunction to block Dish from offering this technology while the case was ongoing, but the court rejected it, saying that the broadcasters "did not demonstrate a likelihood of success." This means the full trial can still go forward, but the technology can still be offered during that trial. However, the fact that both the district court and the appeals court have clearly stated that they don't see a likelihood of the broadcasters succeeding shows that the broadcasters are likely to be wasting a lot of time and money only to lose.

The key point in this case: skipping commercials is not copyright infringement. For years, Hollywood has tried to claim that skipping commercials is a form of copyright infringement. All the way back in 2002, a TV exec claimed that skipping commercials was a "theft" (even merely going to the bathroom during a commercial). A couple years later they even tried to get Congress to pass a law explicitly banning commercial skipping (sponsored by Orrin Hatch, of course). Without that, they've just been pretending that commercial skipping must be illegal. In court, the TV networks have argued that anything that hurts their business model must be illegal.

Thankfully, the court laughs at this argument, as it should. Among other things, it notes that since the broadcaster doesn't even hold the copyright on the commercial, the commercial skipping issue isn't their copyright issue at all. Furthermore, because it's already been established (thank you Betamax case) that recording a show for the purpose of time shifting is perfectly legal fair use, then removing the commercials from such a show is also fair use:

Yet, as the district court held, commercial-skipping does not implicate Fox’s copyright interest because Fox owns the copyrights to the television programs, not to the ads aired in the commercial breaks. If recording an entire copyrighted program is a fair use, the fact that viewers do not watch the ads not copyrighted by Fox cannot transform the recording into a copyright violation. Indeed, a recording made with PrimeTime Anytime still includes commercials; AutoHop simply skips those recorded commercials unless a viewer manually rewinds or fast-forwards into a commercial break. Thus, any analysis of the market harm should exclude consideration of AutoHop because ad-skipping does not implicate Fox’s copyright interests.

To get to this point, the court reinforces two other important rulings: obviously, the Sony Betamax ruling, which it cites repeatedly to remind the broadcasters that recording shows for time shifting is perfectly legal. While this ruling is well known, recent cases have been trying to chip away at that ruling, so having the court reaffirm some key aspects of that ruling is definitely very important. Perhaps more important, is that the court reaffirms the famed Cablevision case, that said a remote DVR is not infringing in part because the recording is done at the user's discretion. That ruling is from the Second Circuit, and just recently we've seen some maximalists trying to argue that pretty much every other circuit would disagree with that ruling. Except... here the Ninth Circuit seems to have no problem with it.

In this case, the district court determined that Fox had demonstrated ownership of the copyrights of some of the shows. The court then focused on who made the copies of Fox programs using PrimeTime Anytime: Dish or its customers. The district court noted that the Second Circuit had considered a similar question in Cartoon Network LP v. CSC Holdings, Inc. (“Cablevision”), 536 F.3d 121 (2d Cir. 2008). The Second Circuit concluded that Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR system did not directly infringe the plaintiffs’ copyrights. Unlike a typical DVR system, in which a customer’s remote sends signals to the set-top box in her home, users of Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR system sent signals to Cablevision’s central facility, where a copy of the program the viewer selected was created and stored on Cablevision’s central servers. Id. at 125, 130. The question was “who made this copy” – the viewer or Cablevision? Id. at 130. The Second Circuit held that much like a VCR user makes the copy, so did the Cablevision customer.

[....] The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Fox had not established a likelihood of success on this claim. Infringement of the reproduction right requires “copying by the defendant,” Kelly, 336 F.3d at 817 (emphasis added), which comprises a requirement that the defendant cause the copying. See Cablevision, 536 F.3d at 130 (explaining that direct infringement claim turned on “who made” the copies). Fox argues that because Dish participates in the operation of PrimeTime Anytime on a daily basis, Dish made the copies, either alone or concurrently with its users. However, operating a system used to make copies at the user’s command does not mean that the system operator, rather than the user, caused copies to be made. Here, Dish’s program creates the copy only in response to the user’s command. Therefore, the district court did not err in concluding that the user, not Dish, makes the copy.

Looks like other courts aren't quite so down on the Cablevision ruling after all...

The appeals court also does a full fair use analysis (given the above) and finds that there's a very strong fair use argument by Dish. It basically follows the Betamax ruling, noting that home recording and time shifting are noncommercial uses and covered by fair use. On the fourth factor -- the question on the "impact of the market," the court points out that the only real "impact" would be because of the commercial skipping, and as already established, Fox has no copyright interest in the commercials.

However, the record before the district court establishes that the market harm that Fox and its amici allege results from the automatic commercial-skipping, not the recording of programs through PrimeTime Anytime. Indeed, Fox often charges no additional license fees for providers to offer Fox’s licensed video on demand, so long as providers disable fast-forwarding. This indicates that the ease of skipping commercials, rather than the on-demand availability of Fox programs, causes any market harm. And as we have discussed, the commercialskipping does not implicate any copyright interest.

There was, also, a slightly lesser issue of whether or not this whole setup violates Dish's contract with Fox, and once again, the court sides with the district court's ruling. It basically notes that part of the contract claim is really no different than the copyright claim, and they already explained why that's bogus. The other contract claims fall aside based on similar arguments.

There's also a much more narrow issue of whether or not the "quality assurance" copies that Dish makes for itself (to test if the commercial skipping is working properly) violates the contract. This was the one point where the district court sorta kinda went against Dish (and why Fox ridiculously declared victory when the original ruling came out). Here, again, the court rules very narrowly that these copies might infringe on Fox's copyright, but that there's no irreparable harm from those recordings, since they're just used for quality assurance.

Basically, this is yet another complete win for Dish, with the appeals court confirming everything the district court had to say, and highlighting the importance of both the Betamax ruling and the Cablevision ruling in ensuring that basic innovations like the VCR, DVR and the Dish AuthoHopper can continue to advance the public's enjoyment of television content.

Filed Under: autohopper, broadcasters, commercial skipping, copyright, fair use, primetime anytime, remote dvr
Companies: cablevision, dish, fox

Broadcasters To FCC: Now That Our Audience Is Gone, Can We Swear More?

from the last-ditch-shot-at-a-pyrrhic-victory dept

Broadcasters are understandably sick of the fellas at the freaking FCC. It's 2013, but shows on the public airwaves are still forced to follow a weird pastiche of morality rules seemingly cobbled together from the standards of multiple different generations and interest groups. Not only are these rules extremely questionable in a country with free speech, they are plainly obsolete: everyone has easy access to the whole perverted rainbow of obscenity, and enforcing a moral standard of media is clearly a matter of personal and family responsibility. Public TV networks no longer have the influence on culture that they used to, given competition from cable, online media, and other things over which the FCC has no control — and, surprisingly enough, the broadcasters themselves are now making that very argument:

ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC also say that rules are archaic because the networks have lost so much cultural clout. Fox says in an FCC filing, “Americans today, including children, spend more time engaged with non-broadcast channels delivered by cable and satellite television, the Internet, video games and other media than they do with broadcast media.” In a separate filing, NBCUniversal observes that ”Broadcast TV is not a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of 21st Century Americans.” Broadcast network affiliates’ total day share of viewing “was just 28 percent in the 2010-2011 television season – compared to the 53 percent viewing share held by ad-supported cable programming networks.” CBS also notes that “the day when a child watching television was almost certain to be watching broadcast television has long since passed.”

Looks like someone at the TV networks realized what year it is too. We may need to update the NBC business model:

Of course, what goes unmentioned is the fact that escaping FCC regulations is clearly part of a plan to regain relevance. Which is entirely fair. There are a bunch of reasons for the decline of network television, primarily technological, but the fact that so many top-level stars, producers and showrunners are flocking to the less-restrictive world of cable and the internet certainly can't be helping. Look at a huge network hit like Seinfeld: after that success, and with a virtual carte-blanche to experiment, of course Larry David would make his next show for a cable network like HBO. And as Julia Louis-Dreyfus once remarked in an episode of said show, "I want to be able to say fuck," so it's hardly a surprise that a show like Veep ends up on HBO too. Plus Veep's creator, Armando Iannucci, hails from the UK with its early watershed hour, at which point broadcast shows can do pretty much whatever they like — it's hard to imagine him wanting to work within the confines of FCC regulations either. That's a whole bunch of talent creating successful, critically-acclaimed shows — and not creating them for NBC, the network that spawned the breakout hit that got the ball rolling in the first place.

Let's hope the FCC listens. The networks have a whole lot of work to do if they want to regain real relevance, and they haven't always been good at it, but I have no desire to see them further hindered by obsolete morality rules pushed by the busybodies at the Parents Television Council (who, it will surprise nobody to learn, vociferously oppose these filings). Let's give NBC a chance to make the next Eastbound & Down or Lucky Louie. Let's let ABC scrap Dancing With The Stars in favor of Katherine Ryan's more innovative The Voice competitor, The Ass. And let's let PTC president Tim Winter squirm in the home theater throne from which he judges all that is wrong on the air, as the epidemic of pixellated nudity becomes an explosion of Game of Thrones-style sexposition. The broadcasters have enough problems already.

Filed Under: broadcasters, fcc, indecency, swearing
Companies: abc, cbs, fox, nbc

Hollywood Studios Keep Saying Its Employees Must Get Paid, And Now May Be Forced To Pay Its Interns

from the live-up-to-your-promises dept

Last fall, we noted the absolute hypocrisy of the major Hollywood studios, who repeatedly argue that they're fighting for copyright to make sure "the little guy" on the movie set gets paid. However, as we pointed out, it appeared that they were violating labor laws by not paying their interns. Lots of companies do unpaid internships, and they're almost always illegal. There are some very specific rules you need to follow to have an internship be legal if it's unpaid. Most internships, by law, are supposed to be paid -- but it appears the Hollywood studios didn't bother to follow the rules. They just wanted the free labor.

And, now they may have to pay, as an early ruling in the case has gone against Fox Entertainment Group and its Searchlight Pictures subsidiary, meaning a class action lawsuit for all its unpaid interns can move forward. Fox, cheap as always, tried to claim that it wasn't the employer, but rather the fake company it sets up for each movie was the real employer. If you're familiar with Hollywood accounting, you know that each movie is set up as its own "company" whose sole purpose is to lose money. That is, the studio -- which owns the company -- "charges" the company tons of fees for basically nothing, and then the "movie" can be seen as losing money, even as the studio makes a ton, and then the movie never has to pay out residual checks to the silly people who agreed to get a cut of the net. There's almost never a net.

Of course, since this is effectively a sham company, the judge quickly saw through that claim, and properly noted that Fox is the real employer. Now, as I've said before, I think laws against unpaid internships are kind of silly -- and if people can willingly come to an agreement where an unpaid internship makes sense, it should be allowed. But, it does seem ridiculously hypocritical for Hollywood to parade up and down the streets of DC insisting that its main focus is to make sure all the people who work on its movies get paid, including releasing propaganda commercials highlighting non-acting movie staff, and then go out of its way to not pay people doing work on films. If Hollywood wants to say that it's trying to get people who work on its films paid, it might want to start by not trying to screw many of them out of salaries. But that's what it's going to do. Fox has announced plans to appeal the decision. Remember that next time the MPAA is on Capitol Hill talking about all the "jobs" it creates.

Filed Under: hollywood, interns, labor laws, paying employees
Companies: fox