[HN Gopher] Who Owns My Name?
___________________________________________________________________
Who Owns My Name?
Author : Tomte
Score : 727 points
Date : 2021-07-30 13:09 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (amandamarieknox.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (amandamarieknox.medium.com)
| spoonjim wrote:
| Crazy that she cannot she the bejeezus out of Matt Damon over
| this. This is awful.
| seriousquestion wrote:
| This is one of those cases where the news cycle and court of
| public opinion spiraled out of control, never to be corrected.
| Imagine how surreal and frustrating that must be? And she makes a
| good point about how these things get named:
|
| Who had the power in the relationship between Bill Clinton and
| Monica Lewinsky? The president or the intern? It matters what you
| call a thing. Calling that event the "Lewinsky Scandal" fails to
| acknowledge the vast power differential, and I'm glad that more
| people are now referring to it as "the Clinton Affair" which
| names it after the person with the most agency in that series of
| events.
| prepend wrote:
| I think saying "the Clinton Affair" is not specific enough so
| the press calling it "Lewinsky Scandal" is more understandable
| and has nothing to do with agency, I think.
|
| There are multiple Clinton affairs and multiple scandals so any
| headline using those terms wouldn't make sense.
| "Clinton/Lewinsky Scandal" would make more sense and be clear.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| It's named after the one who told other people about the
| relationship. That's about as fair as you can get.
| iratewizard wrote:
| I think the big difference with the Lewinsky scandal is two
| things: everyone knows who Clinton is, so "the Clinton Affair"
| is not as precise; and Monica Lewinsky was not an innocent
| victim.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Lewinsky was abused by a man in power. In a corporate
| environment she could have easily sued. If they would have
| met in a bar then the situation would have been different.
| You are incorrect.
| himinlomax wrote:
| From what I remember about her (and that was 20 years ago),
| it seems to me she wouldn't have necessarily considered
| herself abused or victimized without the media and
| political circus that followed.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It really doesn't matter what she thought in context of
| the situation. The fact remains her boss, the President
| of the United States of America, the most powerful person
| on the planet, used his position on his employee to get
| sex.
| iratewizard wrote:
| You weren't there. You can barely claim having a 3rd hand
| account of the situation. You're a fool who forms strong
| opinions around assumptions and political spin. You are
| incorrect.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I actually can claim what I said because of the facts of
| the case. No one can deny she was his intern, no one can
| deny that he was the President, no one can deny that he
| shouldn't have done it given his position of power over
| her future. You are the one who is incorrect.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| You said: "Lewinsky was abused".
|
| "she was his intern" does not mean "was abused".
|
| "he was the President" does not mean "was abused".
|
| "he shouldn't have done it given his position of power
| over her future" does not mean "was abused".
|
| If you have a specific claim as to why you think Lewinsky
| was abused, perhaps you should state that claim. (Of
| course, you don't actually have one.)
| xivzgrev wrote:
| At least could call it the Clinton Lewinsky affair. Calling
| it just the Lewinsky affair puts it all on her.
| bahmboo wrote:
| What was she guilty of?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Adultery? History tends to always blame the woman and
| shrugs at the man even though it takes two to tango.
| horsemans wrote:
| Lewinsky has never been married. Clinton was the
| adulterer.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Depends on who is defining the term, and in case of law,
| jurisdiction. Some places define both parties as guilty
| of adultery. Some only do so contingent on whether it was
| the man that was married, or the woman (e.g. Utah).
|
| Morally, it is fairly unambiguous. If the unmarried
| partner _knew_ they were banging a married person, they
| are just as responsible.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| > Morally, it is fairly unambiguous. If the unmarried
| partner knew they were banging a married person, they are
| just as responsible.
|
| Perhaps that's your moral view, but it does not represent
| everyone else's morals, so I don't know why you're
| claiming it to be "unambiguous". There's plenty of people
| who would say that the unmarried person in an affair
| shares less of the blame than the married person in the
| affair. For starters, the married person breaks a
| contract, whereas the unmarried person does not have a
| contract to break.
| golemotron wrote:
| This falls into the same category as France asserting control
| over the use of the word 'Champagne'.
|
| People use words. People talk about events and other people. It's
| part of being alive.
| kube-system wrote:
| Not at all the same. Food labelling laws are a consumer
| protection.
| golemotron wrote:
| I'm doing a search now for hospital visits by people who
| accidentally drank wine that was mislabeled as champagne.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are plenty of consumer protections that have nothing
| to do with safety. Many countries have origin labelling
| requirements for a lot of goods, and they rarely were
| predicated on safety. Misrepresentation doesn't have to
| physically harm people to be bad.
| delusional wrote:
| Reading this, I can't help but ponder the role of mass media in
| society. How much of our collective worldview is based on
| marketability of stories in Hollywood? I don't think the writers
| on Stillwater had any intrinsic interest in retelling her story
| unfaithfully, but ultimately they are in the business of
| modifying the story for maximum market appeal. In this case that
| sucks for Amanda. An incorrect version of her story has entered
| the public consciousness as myth and I, like Amanda, imagine that
| this myth will stop much needed debates about the system that led
| her to innocently going to prison.
|
| How many of the myths that I believe in, and interpret the world
| by, have been distorted by market forces? It's a really scary
| question if I'm honest.
| [deleted]
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| The reason she's mentioned in US media now and then rather than
| the victim and perpetrator is because she's American and the
| public will be interested. In the U.K. newspapers talk about
| Meredith Kercher.
|
| That doesn't make it right or excuse the dreadful treatment
| though. I can't see how using her name to promote the film isn't
| slanderous/libellous.
| lvs wrote:
| No, the reason was that she is very attractive. That sells
| advertising. It's as simple as that. Many of the vile things we
| complain about in media all come down to the business model.
| pajko wrote:
| From law's viewpoint, you don't own your face and your
| fingerprints. The police can force you to unlock your devices via
| face or fingerprint recognition, or can do it itself by force
| against your will, but can't force you to unlock via passcode
| (which is in your head).
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Not quite, it's a little murkier:
|
| https://www.eff.org/issues/know-your-rights
|
| (But since that Israeli company is selling iPhone hacking kits,
| locks probably don't matter anymore.)
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Not that simple. From the law's viewpoint you own your car or
| house, but there are legal ways of compelling you to do certain
| things with it, or even surrendering it.
| gpas wrote:
| I'm italian and I remember very well the shitshow that followed
| the tragedy. When a case has no clear ending, and the press has
| already issued its weekly verdicts, noone comes out fully
| innocent and in that moment justice has failed.
|
| I'm surprised to read her name for the second time in two weeks,
| now even here on hn.
|
| Just a week ago, out of the blue, even if people had rightfully
| forgotten her...
|
| https://twitter.com/amandaknox/status/1418628570453200897
|
| She has all the rights to tweet everything she wants, but that's
| not the best way to go under the radar.
|
| I'm convinced that, when there's the will, the world is big
| enough for anyone to disappear and get a new life.
| silviot wrote:
| I'm confused: are you taking into account the existence of this
| movie? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillwater_(film)
|
| It's one of the points of the article. You really, really
| should take that into account before saying something like
|
| > I'm convinced that, when there's the will, the world is big
| enough for anyone to disappear and get a new life.
|
| and blame her tweets for the attention she gets.
| [deleted]
| GoodJokes wrote:
| She has made her whole career about this event. I don't blame
| her, but she is now fully in the game too.
| ghaff wrote:
| Is the direct connection actually explicit in the film somehow?
| (e.g. "based on the Amanda Knox saga") My impression, not having
| seen the film, is not.
|
| Usually, when there's a fictionalized novel/film based on a real
| world person (well, outside of someone really famous like JFK),
| it's usually obvious to everyone and all the reviews will mention
| it but the work will often explicitly disclaim any connection to
| actual people and events. Not much anyone can or should be able
| to do about that.
| teddyh wrote:
| The answer to the literal question is simple. Other people use
| your name, not you, so the name belongs to other people. Render
| unto Caesar, etc.
|
| Your name refers to, not your identity (whatever that is), but
| _the idea of you in the heads of other people_.
| pjc50 wrote:
| What is Elton John's name and who owns it?
| ghaff wrote:
| This can actually be a somewhat complicated issue when
| businesses are involved. When a family name is trademarked as
| part of a business, a different family member can sometimes
| be prevented from using their family name in a competing
| business, e.g.
| https://www.bullyhillvineyards.com/about/heritage
| bahmboo wrote:
| Reminds me of the artist formerly known as Prince. We need a
| Prince symbol emoji.
| ectospheno wrote:
| I feel like your answer not only ignores the entire premise of
| the article but also throws fuel on the power differential fire
| discussed within.
| tiahura wrote:
| He's providing the unavoidable answer that the author feels
| is unfair - your reputation doesn't belong to you, it belongs
| to everyone else.
|
| She believes it's unfair because powerful people are able
| shape hers. I suppose the alternative is to have our
| reputation determined by unbiased Facebook factcheckers.
| adjkant wrote:
| So are you against all defamation lawsuits? This is more or
| less just an extension of that train of thought: people
| deserve to not have their reputation ruined unfairly by
| powerful structures. There's a big difference between
| gossip of people you know and a Hollywood movie.
| kortilla wrote:
| This movie isn't defamation. It doesn't paint her as a
| murderer.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| It paints her as dreaming of murdering her and asking a
| friend to "take care of her"
| olah_1 wrote:
| This reminds me of identity in Secure-Scuttlebutt. It's my
| favorite naming system.
|
| Basically you're just an unpronounceable identity. Other people
| give you names. Different people call you different things.
|
| After all, when you're born, you're just given a name.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| By that logic trademarks should not exist
| teddyh wrote:
| Trademarks exist to protect against _consumer confusion_
| (intentional or not), nothing else.
|
| In this case, the name of a person is used to refer to the
| events which happened to that person and the related media
| circus. Is this confusing to anybody? No.
| elric wrote:
| Additionally, trademarked names are made up by the
| trademark owner (or by people they pay). Your name is made
| up by your parents/guardians, and you generally have no say
| in it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Your _default_ name is the one you get from your parents,
| but there are all sorts of personal or professional
| reasons to change it, and it used to be standard for
| women to change their names at least once in a lifetime.
| smeyer wrote:
| I changed my last name when I got married. Does that mean
| that I own my last name but not my first name (which has
| been unchanged since birth)?
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| Might I suggest you make an actual attempt to wrestle with
| the issues the article presents.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| In this case, the consumer is being confused into thinking
| the film is about Amanda Knox, which it isn't (according to
| the producer). So the marketing is deceptive, or the
| producer is being deceitful.
|
| Either way, if Amanda had had a trademark on her name, she
| could have sued, I suppose.
|
| I'm not keen on the idea of trademarking ones own name
| though. I don't envisage many poor people bringing suit for
| wrongful use of their name. It would be used by rich people
| to intimidate reporters, and we'd all end up worse-
| informed.
|
| I think Amanda's complaint about the film and its promotion
| are valid, and I definitely think she should have been
| involved in the production. I think the producers should
| immediately start negotiating compensation with her, as a
| matter of goodwill.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _In this case, the consumer is being confused into
| thinking the film is about Amanda Knox_
|
| Are they? As I understand it, the name was not used in
| marketing, only mentioned once in an interview about
| where the story inspiration came from.
| moron4hire wrote:
| The name of this person is being used to refer to a
| fictional story. The events as depicted did not occur. It's
| absolutely confusing.
| OskarS wrote:
| It's a really powerful article, and it's hard to argue with any
| of it. What a nightmare it must be to have what happened to
| Amanda Knox happen to you. A totally innocent person, who was not
| only imprisoned for years for a crime she had nothing to do with,
| but also had her name dragged in the mud by the global press for
| years. To such an extent that most casual observers still think
| she had something to do with the crime.
|
| It's clear that the filmmakers have no _legal_ obligation to Knox
| (and she acknowledges as much in the article), but I think it is
| equally clear that they have a _moral_ obligation to not slander
| her using a thinly veiled fictional character.
|
| It's a shame too, because the real "Amanda Knox saga" would make
| for a much more interesting movie: what is it like to have your
| roomate murdered, your life destroyed, and your identity robbed
| from you by the global tabloid press? That's the real Amanda Knox
| story.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Jimmy Dell : I think you'll find that if what you've done for
| them is as valuable as you say it is, if they are indebted to
| you morally but not legally, my experience is they will give
| you nothing, and they will begin to act cruelly toward you.
|
| Joe Ross : Why?
|
| Jimmy Dell : To suppress their guilt.
|
| - The Spanish Prisoner
| Cederfjard wrote:
| > It's a shame too, because the real "Amanda Knox saga" would
| make for a much more interesting movie: what is it like to have
| your roomate murdered, your life destroyed, and your identity
| robbed from you by the global tabloid press? That's the real
| Amanda Knox story.
|
| What are the themes of this new movie, then, if not those?
| ukoki wrote:
| > What are the themes of this new movie, then, if not those?
|
| It falsely implies that Amanda is partially guilty for one
| (from the article):
|
| > McCarthy told Vanity Fair that "Stillwater's ending was
| inspired not by the outcome of Knox's case, but by the
| demands of the script he and his collaborators had created."
| Cool, so I wonder, is the character based on me actually
| innocent?
|
| > Turns out, she asked the killer to help her get rid of her
| roommate. She didn't mean for him to kill her, but her
| request indirectly led to the murder. How do you think that
| impacts my reputation?
| OskarS wrote:
| I haven't seen the movie so I have no idea, but I can't but
| quote from the article itself:
|
| _"..is the character based on me actually innocent?_
|
| _Turns out, she asked the killer to help her get rid of her
| roommate. She didn't mean for him to kill her, but her
| request indirectly led to the murder. How do you think that
| impacts my reputation? I continue to be accused of "knowing
| something I'm not revealing," of "having been involved
| somehow, even if I didn't plunge the knife." So Tom
| McCarthy's fictionalized version of me is just the tabloid
| conspiracy guilter version of me."_
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Thanks. I can see now how the tone might appear different,
| but it was a genuine question.
| [deleted]
| danso wrote:
| Haven't read the blog post but in her tweet thread last
| night, Knox spoils how the movie ends --- and also, based on
| the trailer, the movie theme seems to be much more about
| American-dad-out-of-America than the media and justice issues
| surrounding the real case.
|
| Spoiler tweet: https://twitter.com/amandaknox/status/14208722
| 27277262852?s=...
| sundvor wrote:
| To be fair, spoiling the ending of the movie was necessary
| to make her case - which also had said side benefit, giving
| her the most minor of retributions.
|
| It seems like she got judged massively simply because she
| was/ is a very attractive woman; media who are under
| instruction to capitalise on attractive females[0] had no
| qualms about doing so in her case either.
|
| It's all up pretty disgusting and I'm extremely
| disappointed with Matt Damon for getting involved with this
| movie _now_ - reopening all those wounds yet again -
| without even checking in with her.
|
| [0] There's evidence of this in Kevin Rudd's Royal
| Commission on Murdoch in Australia -
| https://youtu.be/X68NVLPVzuI
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| There is a quite interesting Amanda Knox documentary that she
| was very much involved in making on Netflix. If you want the,
| "saga" its worth a watch.
| contravariant wrote:
| > the real "Amanda Knox saga" would make for a much more
| interesting movie: what is it like to have your roomate
| murdered, your life destroyed, and your identity robbed from
| you by the global tabloid press? That's the real Amanda Knox
| story.
|
| I might be confused but isn't that the exact plot of the movie
| she is referencing?
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Apart from the detail where the real Knox is innocent and the
| movie Knotnox conspired with the killer, as the article
| explains.
| prepend wrote:
| The real Knox was acquitted and found not guilty. That's
| different from being innocent.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| No, the Italian Supreme court definitively acquitted them
| and explicitly ruled that they were innocent. I'm sure
| that doesn't change your viewpoint on anything though.
| macintux wrote:
| She was explicitly declared innocent by the court system,
| not merely "not guilty".
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| >It's clear that the filmmakers have no legal obligation to
| Knox (and she acknowledges as much in the article)
|
| I think you and she are being generous. Amanda 'jokingly'
| floats the idea of defaming and slandering Matt Damon under the
| guise of fictionalization. She makes an excellent point-- Matt
| wouldn't put up with that. The only plausible distinction he
| can make is that his movie is not a gross distortion of the
| moral character of a living person, which seems like the sort
| of thing courts can and do sort between litigants who cannot
| agree.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| >Matt [Damon] wouldn't put up with that.
|
| welllllll.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPWJOJYVKc
| nostromo wrote:
| How is a silly portrayal at all equivalent to insinuating
| someone murdered (or caused the death of) their friend?
|
| Besides, there is a higher level of protection from libel
| in the US as a private person vs a public figure.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Matt Damon is good friends with Trey Parker and Matt Stone,
| and the only reason they made him like that is because the
| doll maker messed up on Damon's doll and he looked like a
| dunce.
| jasode wrote:
| _> floats the idea of defaming and slandering Matt Damon
| under the guise of fictionalization. She makes an excellent
| point-- Matt wouldn't put up with that._
|
| But it seems like Matt Damon would have to put up with it.
| What could Matt realistically do? Filing a lawsuit would
| probably go nowhere. See the informal "small penis" rule by
| fiction writers:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule
|
| The 2010 film "The Social Network" didn't even bother with
| fictionalized names and made Mark Zuckerberg look bad but he
| didn't sue. One legal opinion thinks MZ didn't have an easy
| case of defamation which would make the lawsuit a waste of
| time:
| https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/07/articles/the-
| law/...
| spoonjim wrote:
| Mark Zuckerberg couldn't have sued because the media would
| have spun that into a PR disaster for Facebook, and they
| already have enough of those.
| xofer wrote:
| IANAL, but I think she absolutely has a legal case. It
| costs a lot of money to make a case "go nowhere" even with
| the slightest validity.
|
| The small penis thing doesn't seem relevant here, and even
| if so, it's a strategy for making it more difficult to make
| what would be a valid claim.
| jasode wrote:
| _> IANAL, but I think she absolutely has a legal case._
|
| If she does, it seems like a bunch of greedy lawyers
| looking for a big pay day would be willing to _take her
| libel case on contingency_ which would cost her nothing.
| If a lawyer is willing to risk a ton of their own firm 's
| money because they're confident of a winning big multi-
| million dollar judgement from the filmmaker, that would a
| good signal that Amanda has an excellent case.
|
| Maybe her phone is ringing off the hook with calls from
| such lawyers but I doubt it because such defamations
| lawsuits against works of fiction have been historically
| hard to win.
|
| Another aspect that's made more confusing by the various
| replies in this thread is that the film's official
| marketing (trailer, official website, posters) do not
| mention "Amanda Knox" or even have a tagline of "inspired
| by a true story". Instead, it's the _various news media_
| (such as Vanity Fair magazine article she cited) making
| the parallels to Amanda Knox.
|
| Yes, the filmmakers may be sly about avoiding the mention
| of "Amanda Knox" while being fully aware that the media
| outlets will make that connection in the minds of the
| public for them.
|
| _> The small penis thing doesn't seem relevant here,_
|
| To clarify in case the sequence of ideas got lost in the
| replies... I mentioned the "small penis" informal rule
| was a _strategy for Amanda Knox to hypothetically write a
| fiction story_ about someone named "Mack Dorkin not
| being well-endowed" and the real Matt Damon not pursuing
| a lawsuit to silence her. It wasn't about "Stillwater"'s
| filmmakers using that strategy to protect themselves from
| Amanda Knox.
| whall6 wrote:
| I laughed out loud reading the small penis wiki
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| "small penis" was Chrichton making a mean joke, not a legal
| theory.
| jasode wrote:
| _> "small penis" was Chrichton making a mean joke, not a
| legal theory._
|
| I had already used the adjective _" informal"_ to
| describe the so-called "rule" so there was no need to
| nitpick that it wasn't "legal theory".
|
| In any case, it seems like you didn't carefully read the
| wikipedia article so your attempted correction is not
| accurate. You've got your timeline mixed up.
|
| The "small penis rule" was mentioned by journalist
| Dinitia Smith in 1998 _(6 years before Michael Chrichton
| used it in his 2004 book)_ in a New York Times article.
| She was relaying a legal strategy told to her by attorney
| Leon Friedman.
|
| Excerpt from the NY Times 1998 article:
|
| >Leon Friedman, who was Sir Stephen's American lawyer in
| his dispute with Mr. Leavitt and who moderated the
| Authors Guild panel, observed that ''under New York State
| law, you cannot use a person's name, portrait or picture
| for purposes of trade without their permission.'' You
| can, however, use a person's identity if you don't use
| his name, he added.
|
| >That is, unless you libel them. ''Still, for a fictional
| portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a
| reader of the book would have no problem linking the
| two,'' said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel
| lawyers have what is known as ''the small penis rule.''
| One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits
| is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr.
| Friedman said. ''Now no male is going to come forward and
| say, 'That character with a very small penis, 'That's
| me!' ''
| [deleted]
| aenario wrote:
| "The social network" does not make Mark Zuckerberg look
| bad. He looks like a poor socially inept nerd who got
| scammed by Parker, it makes one want to pity him.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| The film shows how he betrayed and stole Eduardo
| Saverin's money.
|
| If Zuckerberg looks like a shit person, it is because he
| is a shit person.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I'm currently reading a book called "Facebook The Inside
| Story" and while it's definitely an anti-Facebook
| perspective it illustrates a number of ways the movie was
| unfair to Mark.
|
| The biggest problem, to me, was suggesting that Mark
| basically stole the concept from the Winklevoss twins.
| The book traces the origins of the idea and clarifies the
| context. Things like: there are many other similar social
| networks, a boy at Mark's previous school had created and
| shared a "Facebook" project, the Harvard school newspaper
| was explicitly calling for the creation of a school wide
| Facebook (and that call inspired Mark to try and create
| one first), etc. It's less like he stole the idea from
| the Winklevoss twins and more like the idea was out there
| in many ways. What he did to the Winklevoss twins was
| tell them he was working on their project while working
| on his own intentionally trying to derail them.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > The biggest problem, to me, was suggesting that Mark
| basically stole the concept from the Winklevoss twins.
|
| I don't think the film suggests that at all. It says the
| Winklevoss think this, of course. But it doesn't agree
| with them.
|
| > What he did to the Winklevoss twins was tell them he
| was working on their project while working on his own
| intentionally trying to derail them.
|
| That's also exactly what the movie says. The film is on
| the Winklevoss's side at all - it makes them look
| ridiculous for thinking their "innovative" idea is that a
| harvard.edu address is exclusive. They're douchebags who
| want to make a website to put on the internet what is
| already happening at the Finals clubs (buses bringing in
| hot women to party with harvard legacies).
|
| The part of the film that I thought was the biggest
| problem was that it framed the whole Facebook project as
| Mark's way to deal with loneliness. The film starts with
| him being dumped by Erica. The film ends with him
| refreshing (pathetically) the pending friend request to
| her on Facebook.
|
| In reality he had a long term girlfriend when he started
| developing Facebook and she is now his wife.
|
| Mark maybe a socially awkward human who doesn't quite
| understand that Facebook has become a weird perversion of
| actual social interaction, but he is not alone the way
| the film constantly repeats (Eduardo: "I was your only
| friend")
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I agree with you that the film also slights Zuckerberg by
| suggesting he has few or no friends and was creating
| Facebook over a girl. There are a number of things I
| think the film "gets wrong". The removal of Saverin made
| a lot more sense to me in reading the Facebook book I
| referenced above compared to when I saw the movie - where
| it felt much more like betraying a friend.
|
| When I saw the film I did get the impression that it
| supported the "Mark stole the idea from Winklevoss twins"
| narrative. Granted, I saw it years ago and I may be
| remembering things incorrectly, but that's what I
| (remember that I) took away from it.
|
| A big concept that I think the movie "gets wrong" (scare
| quotes because the movie successfully tells an
| entertaining story and isn't trying to be a faithful
| history, so the movie isn't exactly wrong, just not
| reflective of reality) is the focus on the drama with the
| twins, Saverin, and Mark. The book spends much more time
| with Facebook design decisions and a broader cast.
|
| The movie's narrower focus on a few main characters and
| their drama makes it seem like the consequential moments
| of Facebook's history are things like getting the idea
| from the Winklevoss twins. The movie thinks more about a
| spark of an idea - Facebook, whereas the book thinks more
| about taking a prototype and turning it into a big
| business. I think the latter is more of what is important
| about Facebook.
| fnord77 wrote:
| everyone looked bad in that movie.
|
| I think Aaron Sorkin relishes in making people look
| really horrible.
| ghaff wrote:
| Really? I won't say everyone in The West Wing is a saint.
| But most everyone on both sides of the aisle comes across
| as a lot more idealistic and principled than you're
| likely to find in the real Washington DC.
| tyingq wrote:
| >"The social network" does not make Mark Zuckerberg look
| bad
|
| It depicts that he did steal the idea from the Winklevoss
| brothers. It also painted a picture that he directly
| conspired with his investors to screw Eduardo Saverin.
|
| I suspect that's all at least partially true, but perhaps
| not as clear cut as the film shows.
| narag wrote:
| Maybe something was lost in translation, I watched the
| movie dubbed to Spanish, but what I remember is that the
| Winklevoss tried to exploit Zuckerberg and Saverin was
| slacking after the first few months, so Zuckerberg only
| responded in a crude but not totally unreasonable
| fashion.
|
| Movies tend to make us identify with the main character,
| maybe that's why I saw his actions as adequate to the
| throat-cutting environment.
| tyingq wrote:
| I meant the sort of timeline that unrolled...you see
| things like this excerpt, supposedly an email between
| Zuck and the Winklevosses:
|
| _" I read over all the stuff you sent me re: Harvard
| Connection and it seems like it shouldn't take too long
| to implement, so we can talk about it after I get all the
| basic functionality up tomorrow night."_
|
| Where that's happening, in the movie, well before Zuck
| starts working on "The Facebook". Without any other
| context that perhaps it wasn't Zuck's first exposure to
| that kind of idea.
| adventured wrote:
| > but what I remember is that the Winklevoss tried to
| exploit Zuckerberg and Saverin was slacking after the
| first few months, so Zuckerberg only responded in a crude
| but not totally unreasonable fashion.
|
| I don't know what Saverin was actually up to in those
| days (reality vs the fiction of the movie), however the
| movie clarified that Saverin was taking the subway in New
| York "12 hours a day" trying to generate advertising
| sales for Facebook. It notes that he had taken an
| internship and quit the first day to direct his time in
| pursuit of trying to garner ad sales for Facebook. Parker
| insults Saverin about this in the confrontation scene at
| the Palo Alto house they're renting ("you're just one
| step away from bagging Snookies Cookies"), and then
| Saverin clarifies to Zuckerberg in the hallway what he's
| up to.
|
| The movie makes it appear as if they decided to cut
| Saverin out of the company because he froze the company
| accounts out of spite, after Zuckerberg tells Saverin
| that he needs to move out to California, that he's at
| risk of being left behind. There's a phone call between
| Zuckerberg and Saverin (during which Saverin's girlfriend
| lights something on fire), where an upset Zuckerberg
| confronts Saverin about freezing the company accounts,
| where he rants about the risk that it posed to Facebook
| and its uptime.
|
| Did Saverin actually do that, and did that play a role in
| why they tried to cut him out of the company? Maybe
| somebody else here that knows a lot more can chime in.
|
| This story with quoted personal instant messages & emails
| indicates Saverin began running unauthorized ads on
| Facebook to promote his own thing and that there was a
| more elaborate decay in the relationship between the
| founders:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-movie-
| zuckerberg-im...
| andi999 wrote:
| Couldn't the small penis be considered part of the slander?
| _jal wrote:
| Money and connections open other options for applying
| pressure. For instance, see the alleged behavior of Harvey
| Weinstein towards Rose McGowan involving spooks for hire.
|
| (I'm not talking about Damon at all here, I don't know much
| of anything about him. Just pointing out that lawsuits are
| far from the only tools available to those with means.)
| Jenk wrote:
| And yet Zuck, a billionaire, _didn't_ do anything like
| that.
| kelnos wrote:
| It's possible that he wanted to, but was advised that
| making a big deal about it would only draw more attention
| and make things worse.
| prepend wrote:
| So I guess he didn't have enough money and power to open
| the right doors?
|
| Or perhaps it's really hard to win a defamation case
| against works of fiction. No matter how much money and
| power you have.
| Nursie wrote:
| It perhaps it doesn't matter and ignoring it is the best
| course of action?
| kelnos wrote:
| Even if you win the case, you've still drawn a lot of
| extra unwanted attention to it.
| kbenson wrote:
| Zuckerberg is, and was, especially after the movie came
| out, _much_ more famous than Weinstein, and the
| portrayals in question are different. One is
| unflattering, the other is attempting to cover a felony.
|
| When there's an unflattering depiction out there of you,
| bringing more attention to it might be counterproductive,
| depending on how bad it is.
|
| If you're worried about _going to prison_ , all of a
| sudden how unflattering you're seen likely becomes
| secondary to that.
| etothepii wrote:
| I'd contribute to the Kickstarter.
| [deleted]
| mmarq wrote:
| While Amanda Knox is not guilty of Meredith Kercher's murder,
| she is guilty of accusing a random guy of being the murderer. I
| think she was sentenced to 2-3 years for this false accusation.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| You're talking about the one where the European Court of
| Human Rights condemned Italy for not giving her a fair trial?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-knox-
| court/european...
| mmarq wrote:
| I didn't know about that, but it doesn't surprise me, given
| the shit show Italian courts are.
|
| Thank you
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| They really would have done her service if they would have just
| left her name out entirely and just said "the movie stands on
| its own merit". They could have handled this so much better if
| they would have just talked to her from the start rather than
| near completion/release of the movie. Particularly in promoting
| it.
| rchaud wrote:
| They could if it was an indie movie. If Matt Damon's
| starring, that's an 8-figure sum that's got to be made back
| somehow. Marketing costs for movies today are as much as the
| film budget itself.
| ksec wrote:
| >Marketing costs for movies today are as much as the film
| budget itself.
|
| I think I will have to fact check on this when I have time.
| Seems to be off to me as the numbers and scale dont make
| much sense.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| "Capitalism" and "moral obligation" are probably mutually
| exclusive, e.g. Milton Friedman's "The Social Responsibility of
| Business is to Increase its Profits". [1] Friedman would argue
| that the movie maker has a social responsibility to its
| employees and shareholders, and that bending truth to meet
| these obligations would be its moral imperative.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr...
|
| edit: To downvoters, I'm not agreeing with the perspective,
| just saying that there is one.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| What's the alternative? Giving the responsibility of resource
| allocation to the state? Aren't they the ones who locked her
| up, which is the overwhelmingly huge original problem?
|
| The state locked someone up who it knew was innocent, and
| years later a business badly misrepresented that person's
| story. Damn it, capitalism!
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Well, if the state recognized the crime of the state and
| prohibited the film from being created... then that seems
| like a good alternative?
| saghm wrote:
| There are plenty of ways to make money that don't involve
| screwing over innocent people. Maybe I'm a bleeding heart
| socialist, but I think the moral imperative to blue ruin
| someone's life trumps the one to make a few more dollars.
| saghm wrote:
| Too late to edit, but "blue" was a phone autocorrection of
| "not"
| tonystubblebine wrote:
| Matt Damon especially has plenty of options to make money.
| I can't believe this was even the most lucrative script in
| his inbox when he accepted it.
| [deleted]
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > Capitalism" and "moral obligation" are probably mutually
| exclusive
|
| How else are we supposed to read this than something you are
| making the case for when you so directly say they are
| probably mutually exclusive?
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| I was referring to the "moral obligation" not to take
| someone's story and make it a different story for the sake
| of a profit, which the original poster was referring to as
| a "moral obligation". An alternative perspective is the
| "moral obligation" to ones employees and shareholders. What
| is a "moral obligation" is a matter of perspective.
|
| I try to avoid a lot of documentaries and "historical"
| films because of these conflicting sentiments. Going into
| seeing a film, you know that profit, in most cases, is the
| end goal.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I agree that they're mutually exclusive. It's not
| necessarily a good thing. I think pretty much all
| capitalists, as people, have some sense of moral
| obligation. That's not to say that the two concepts
| necessarily overlap, or that the world wouldn't be a better
| place if they were somehow forced to. I think it isn't
| controversial, as a matter of philosophy, to say that
| capitalism (as distinct from its observed consequences) is
| not connected to morality one way or another, any more than
| bubblesort has a moral value.
| dnautics wrote:
| your statement is contradictory. Two things cannot be
| "mutually exclusive" and "not connected". If they are
| mutually exclusive, then there must be communication
| between the concepts to coordinate the exclusion, the
| connection suggested by the word "mutually".
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Aye, perhaps using the word "capitalism" set people off.
| In capitalist terms the demand for the product by
| consumers justifies the corporation creating the product
| for them. It might not be "right" or "wrong", but in this
| case, it does seem like people are on the side of it
| being morally unjustified despite the profit incentive.
|
| I guess our capitalist "vote" is simply not paying to see
| this film.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Companies are given a charter to operate and limited
| liability by the government, in return for performing a
| public good. At least that was how the idea of corporations
| came into being.
|
| Capitalism is an economic system, not a system of government.
| Theoretically we can change the any of the rules corporations
| operate under through our government, if people cared enough
| and/or weren't so distracted with other things. Other
| governments hold companies in their jurisdictions to
| different standards, like the Chinese, various European
| countries, Cambodia, etc. All different.
|
| The fact that our culture values money more than many other
| things, and that we allow corporations and their rich owners
| to fund politicians has got us to where we are now. The
| establishment is always resistant to change.
| dnautics wrote:
| they're not mututally exclusive, they're orthogonal. If
| people want moral goods, capitalism will (imperfectly) skew
| towards providing them. If the people want trash, capitalism
| will (imperfectly) skew towards providing trash.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| You are correct. They can definitely have an intersection.
| Some companies actually do some good in the world AND make
| profits. They don't have to be "mutually exclusive"
| treeman79 wrote:
| The primary good of capitalism is having such huge
| efficiencies of resources and manufacturing.
|
| That we have to keep redefining poor people such that
| they can have air conditioning, car, housing, fridge, be
| fat as hell, and still be defined as poor.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Not all of us buy into the claims capitalism can do no
| wrong and should be turned upon the world with no limits
| that some libertarians seem to have. You will never hear
| me say capitalism is in essence a bad thing, but like
| most concepts it has to have limits. Otherwise you get
| fascism, J.P. Morgan, Epstein, etc.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I disagree that the concept that "Capitalism and moral
| obligation are mutually exclusive" is a valid concept to even
| consider. They are certainly orthogonal, but do not exclude
| each other.
|
| Capitalism isn't a philosophy for living life, or if it can
| be considered as such, it's definitely not a complete one. In
| contrast, Communism is a philosophy for life, as it extends
| beyond the economic sphere and into the political and social.
|
| How you organize work and trade is not the complete picture.
| The continued assertions that "Capitalism is immoral" as a
| valid viewpoint, versus just being ammoral, are part of why
| both corporations have been allowed to run amock and why
| dangerous philsophies like Communism have been on the rise
| again.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| Given that capitalism is underpinned by the right to own
| property, it would seem the more accurate argument is that
| this particular immorality stems from an imperfect
| capitalism, that is: one with incomplete property rights. It
| is not at all obvious to me that capitalism and morality are
| in someway orthogonal let alone mutually exclusive.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > That responsibility is to conduct the business in
| accordance with their desires, which generally will be to
| make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic
| rules of the society, both those embodied in law _and those
| embodied in ethical custom_.
|
| Emphasis mine. Surely it's against ethical custom to "bend
| the truth", to destroy someone's reputation, framing them as
| somehow involved in a murder.
| duxup wrote:
| I had similar questions when it came to the film Sully.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sully_(film)
|
| In that film they portray the NTSB investigators as trying to
| paint the pilot in a bad light during the investigation.
| According to the folks involved in the investigation, including
| the pilot, this never happened.
|
| These are real people, they don't have the reach or voice of a
| movie, what happens when someone decides to portray them
| unfairly?
|
| Legally I don't think there's anything to be done, there would be
| too many bizarre second order effects if you simply couldn't
| portray someone without their permission. At the same time it
| seems morally questionable to not involve them, specifically if
| their voice is so much smaller than the medium.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| There is a Richard III society, dedicated to rehabilitating the
| king after his unfortunate portrayal by Shakespeare.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Antonio Salieri should also get one of those. He was a pretty
| good composer in the scheme of things, and there is no
| evidence that he ever had anything against Mozart, much less
| did anything bad to him.
| bravo22 wrote:
| I don't know if this is true but I really want it to be.
| [deleted]
| jfk13 wrote:
| http://www.richardiii.net
| ghaff wrote:
| Pretty much every film based on real people and events takes
| liberties in service of narrative flow and drama. Sometimes one
| or more of the original parties are involved. Often they're
| not.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I can't stand historical dramas, because I feel like watching
| them is likely to make me less informed about the events they
| attempt to portray.
|
| "Artistic license" in historical dramas feels very Orwellian
| to me.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Except they almost never "punch up".
|
| You don't have blockbusters fictionalizing "the Trump saga"
| where he sells state secrets to Putin. Or Ruppert Murdock
| "Godfather" style fictional drama. Perhaps once they're long
| dead, but surely not before.
|
| It's the Amanda Knox of the world that get the "let's milk
| this while it's fresh" treatment.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| You're not aware of Succession?
| cwkoss wrote:
| Is Succession supposed to be based on a true story?
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Citizen Kane
| Igelau wrote:
| Like GP said: "almost never"
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It craftly avoids naming the media barrons though. I
| completely understand why, but it should be noted.
| assface wrote:
| > Pretty much every film based on real people and events
| takes liberties in service of narrative flow and drama.
|
| Blood on the Blackboard: The Bart Simpson Story
|
| https://youtu.be/02-U9fHefPI
| input_sh wrote:
| It's one thing to take some liberties to draw the plot
| forward (like Alan Turing's brother "dying on a ship" in The
| Imitation Game), it's a whole other thing to portray someone
| that's alive and young as (at least partially) responsible
| for a crime they were fully acquitted of.
|
| I'd say that's more of a conspiracy theory realm than
| artistic liberties realm.
| neaden wrote:
| Well the Imitation Game also erased the work of Polish
| codebreakers, falsely made it so Turing knew Cairncross was
| a Soviet spy when in real life they probably never even
| met, and made Denniston into a villain who wanted to
| destroy Turing's life work when in real life they had a
| good relationship, made Turing seem like he had Autism, and
| made up a plot about Clarke getting recruited by being good
| at crossword puzzles when in reality she got the job from
| by having excellent references. So I would say there is
| plenty to criticize at how it misrepresented people.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >this never happened.
|
| This is just Hollywood trying to add drama for the sake of
| making the story more "interesting". Little thought is given to
| potential collateral damage to truth. All protected under the
| umbrella comment "based on true events".
| kortilla wrote:
| At least that's just entertainment. Journalism frequently
| mischaracterizes people and events just to paint a narrative.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, and facts aren't always known with certainty (as in
| this case) and their interpretation will vary based on who's
| interpreting.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Fortunately I learned this rather early, as in 6th grade some
| journalist came to our classroom to interview our teacher and
| us for some story.
|
| I sat close enough to hear our teacher being interviewed, so
| it came as a shock when I later read the newspaper and saw my
| teacher being quoted as having said the exact opposite of
| what she actually said. And this was in one of the top three
| newspapers in our country.
| andi999 wrote:
| Probably because of this behavior it was in the top three.
| duxup wrote:
| >At least that's just entertainment
|
| I'm not convinced people see it that way, and as far as the
| director, he seemed to think his 'entertainment' was in fact
| accurate, or at least said so / was incentivized to do so.
|
| Meanwhile the people who are depicted, you likely wont ever
| hear from.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'd argue that entertainment is much more likely to leave a
| lasting impression on people. Storytelling is far more
| effective at making people remember something than a well
| written article. If you were to quiz people about the life of
| Alexander Hamilton I suspect most people would give answers
| congruent to the musical and not what actually happened in
| the history books.
| [deleted]
| gist wrote:
| Terrible what happened to her but truth is she is a public figure
| and has not avoided the limelight either. (Not that that matters
| with my argument but will mention). She is fair game for any
| creative pursuit (song, movie, book, news article, blog post) and
| nobody owes her any courtesy to reach out they can if they want.
|
| Imagine if you wrote randomly to Amanda Knox vs. some other non
| well known person. Generally you would not expect to get a reply
| from Amanda (who probably has all sorts or randos and non randos
| (ie random person) reaching out) but a well written letter to a
| non famous (or notorious) person you'd probably get a reply.
|
| Nobody owes her anything just like she is not obligated to anyone
| as similar to the rest of us. She doesn't get any special
| courtesy because of what happened to her just another regular
| person at this point.
|
| This reminds me of how a good looking man or women often is. They
| reject people all the time but when they get rejected they get
| all indignant that they were not treated with respect.
| villgax wrote:
| Good luck Mikrowe
| sharikous wrote:
| Oh please, she was an accused murderer. There was no sure proof
| she did it, nor that she was innocent, so she was cleared.
| Notably she lied in court several times.
|
| She benefitted from the media attention to make money for herself
| and she is now publishing an essay she was not asked to do in
| which she tries to make many moral "who is the victim" points (of
| course claiming she is the victim).
|
| You could argue she should have been granted anonymity but I
| cannot see her as a helpless victim.
| dkersten wrote:
| > There was no sure proof she did it
|
| Exactly. And yet she was treated as one by the media and
| justice system. She even spent time in prison for it. Even
| though there was no proof she did it.
|
| > nor that she was innocent
|
| There's no proof that you're innocent either, maybe you did it
| and should spend a few years in prison until later acquitted?
| Absence of proof of innocence does NOT imply guilt.
|
| > of course claiming she is the victim
|
| She was a victim. Not the same as the murder victim, but she
| got her reputation ruined, had her family go into debt trying
| to pay legal fees and SPENT YEARS IN PRISON. For something that
| there was no evidence she did, was evidence someone else did
| (who by the way got less time than she got, before she was
| acquitted), and for which she was eventually found innocent of
| and acquitted for.
|
| Maybe develop some empathy.
| danso wrote:
| > _Oh please, she was an accused murderer. There was no sure
| proof she did it, nor that she was innocent, so she was
| cleared_
|
| From the Economist:
|
| https://www.economist.com/europe/2015/03/28/innocente
|
| > _The Court of Cassation in Rome found Ms Knox and Mr
| Sollecito not guilty on the grounds that they had "not
| committed the act". Italian law recognises different levels of
| acquittal; this is the most categorical._
| Twixes wrote:
| She was accused of murder, but in the end explicitly cleared by
| the Supreme Court as innocent.
| duxup wrote:
| >she is now publishing an essay she was not asked to do in
| which she tries to make many moral "who is the victim" points
| (of course claiming she is the victim)
|
| So? Is that a bad thing?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I think some people believe you shouldn't fight back when
| you're tried and convicted in the court of public opinion
| even if you are proven innocent in actual court. That you
| should just roll over and die so their suppositions aren't
| challenged. It reflects and extremely weak stance and lack of
| confidence in your own take on the situation.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jeezzbo wrote:
| A recursive signatory deriving root ID Rights + data use under
| control of people directly fixes this.. a process that repeats is
| a requirement to prevent second-class process from deriving
| system outcomes no longer produced "of, by, for" people,
| Individuals All, as root dependency of accurate governance in a
| civil Society. Recursive Signatory:
| https://www.moxytongue.com/2021/07/recursive-signatory.html
| ekster wrote:
| This reads like some kind of Sovereign Citizen / Time Cube
| babble.
| jeezzbo wrote:
| Then you didn't read, and/or don't understand recursive
| idea.. a process that repeats. CS didn't come into existence
| until 1950's, so lack of process integrity for digital
| ID/Data Rights shouldn't be surprising, but structure yields
| results, not literature. Might want to get out of mass media
| rags too.. "Sovereign Citizen" is anarchistic, this is about
| structural integrity of a civil Society using accurate
| administrative precedence. Functional literacy required..
| research "Self-Sovereign Identity" for more..
| ekster wrote:
| Yes I live in the EU where we have SSI, I was more
| referring to all the magical and fuzzy thinking surrounding
| it on that page.
| jeezzbo wrote:
| Ah, EU.. SSI is American concept.. recursive signatory is
| too, represents data structure "of, by, for" people.
| Foreign concepts in EU don't quite translate same in that
| admin context. Regardless EU efforts remain in tact, as
| Human Rights don't come from database.. thus EU chasing
| SSI accuracy.
| ekster wrote:
| Mmkay
| jeezzbo wrote:
| Also, no "we" in SSI.. only people, Individuals all. "We"
| is a literary concept that doesn't exist in nature,
| regardless of legal abstractions, lazy thinking, and data
| aggregation. I realize EU brains struggle with that.
| mcguire wrote:
| Note, from Deadline (): " _UPDATE 7 /30/21: To Clarify Legal
| Status Of Amanda Knox. The 2007 case of Amanda Knox, the American
| convicted in an Italian court of murdering her roommate (after
| being convicted and spending four years in jail Knox was
| acquitted and freed in 2011. She was later definitively
| exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court Of Cassation in March
| 2015), was the impetus for writer-director Tom McCarthy's
| Stillwater, but in the 10 years since beginning, abandoning and
| starting over, it has evolved into something much more - and much
| better._"
|
| I find it interesting that they mentioned she was convicted twice
| in a paragraph about her legal status, with the acquitted and
| exonerated part relegated to a parenthetical. _And_ to have a
| plug for the movie.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I wasn't familiar with this movie until now. How much does
| official marketing material mention Amanda Knox? From a quick
| look up, she doesn't appear to be in the official synopsis on
| e.g. Rotten Tomatoes.
|
| Because, hypothetical thought experiment here:
|
| ---
|
| Let's say Tom McCarthy had the idea for a screenplay while
| watching the Amanda Knox trial. He doesn't know, at that point,
| whether she is guilty or innocent, and it really doesn't matter--
| the case is just inspiration for a fictional story, which can
| play out however the author wishes.
|
| So he makes that movie, and it's in production, and one day in an
| interview a reporter asks "Where did you get the idea for this
| movie?" Maybe they even ask "This story seems kind of similar to
| the Amanda Knox case, was that an inspiration?"
|
| At this point, does Tom McCarthy need to lie, or decline to
| answer? Should he not be allowed to share his creative process
| with the world?
|
| Or, perhaps he just never should have made the movie in the first
| place... but that seems wrong, doesn't it? Creatives get
| inspiration from all sorts of odd places, and I don't want to
| limit them!
|
| ---
|
| Again, I have no idea if the real situation played out like this
| at all, and in fact, I'm just going to guess that it was far more
| egregious. But it's what I was thinking about when reading this
| piece.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Matt Damon kinda panics when asked (3:00 mark) -
| https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/1392101154650271749
|
| So there is a lot in what you are saying.
|
| They have not shut the idea down though, because they know it
| means a lot of money. Just like the people asking know it means
| money for their ratings.
|
| Amanda Knox has made them a lot of money with this article
| which has blown it up more.
|
| She has also gotten her blog out and now I'm listening to her
| podcast. It's her only way to profit on all this.
|
| The movie maker is not in wrong. The movie is about a violent
| Dad as far as I can see. It's the media who's been here the
| whole time.
| dml2135 wrote:
| > Or, perhaps he just never should have made the movie in the
| first place... but that seems wrong, doesn't it? Creatives get
| inspiration from all sorts of odd places, and I don't want to
| limit them!
|
| I thing the point of this article is no, that's not wrong. The
| story was clearly based on Amanda Knox, and making this movie
| perpetuates the harm that has been done to her. This isn't an
| exercise of creative freedom, it's an exploitive cash grab.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| But it's hard to _not_ get inspiration from the real world,
| isn 't it? How much would the writers have to change before
| the movie was no longer about Amanda Knox? Would it be
| sufficient to change her gender? What if it took place in the
| nineteenth century, or in a Game of Thrones-esque fantasy
| universe? Or would it all be for naught as soon as a reporter
| asked the right interview question?
| ghaff wrote:
| One of the most successful franchises on TV, "Law and
| Order," at least used to frequently advertise episodes as
| "ripped from the headlines."
| dkersten wrote:
| The article explains this, that Tom McCarthy mentioned her in a
| Vanity Fair promotional interview. Nobody said they put it on
| posters or anything.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| But was that the first time Amanda Knox's name had been
| mentioned in connection with this movie? I guess what I'm
| wondering is, how did we get to the point where she was
| mentioned in seemingly every critical review of the film? Is
| Amanda Knox's name really _that_ powerful?
| mindcrime wrote:
| This reminds me of the situation with Takedown / Track Down[1].
| That movie was riddled with factual inaccuracies, especially ones
| slanted towards making Kevin Mitnick look bad and ones meant to
| glorify Tsutomu Shimomura. As I recall, there was a scene that
| featured a chase through the streets of Seattle between the two
| men, it may have even featured a physical tussle between them,
| but my memory is a bit fuzzy now. Anyway, in reality, at the
| point in time depicted there, the two had never even met, much
| less participated in a foot chase / scuffle on the streets of
| Seattle.
|
| I think Mitnick ultimately sued and got a settlement of some
| sort, FWIW.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_Down
| kortilla wrote:
| > The New York Times did in profiling Matt Damon, "the sordid
| Amanda Knox saga." Sordid: morally vile. Not a great adjective to
| have placed next to your name. Repeat something often enough, and
| people believe it.
|
| This is pretty stupid. When you read, "sordid Jewish genocide" do
| you think "sordid" is describing "Jewish"?
|
| There is quite a bit of bullshit in the article about power
| imbalances that isn't coherent either. Both her and the murder
| victim had no power yet she is fine with putting the murder
| victim's name up for an alternate headline.
|
| There may have been a point in there somewhere, but it got buried
| by a cheap attempt to ride the #metoo zeitgeist.
| PavleMiha wrote:
| I don't think anyone has, or would ever, use the expression you
| created, but the article describes why this bothers her: "Not a
| great adjective to have placed next to your name. Repeat
| something often enough, and people believe it."
|
| I for one wouldn't like something to be described as "the
| sordid <my name> saga" if I was innocent.
| kortilla wrote:
| http://www.albionmonitor.com/0403a/copyright/rs-
| bush911scam....
|
| What do you think Sordid describes in that title? If you
| thought "9/11", you thought wrong.
|
| Let's try this a different way. If you read "the unjust
| Amanda Knox scandal", would you think Amanda Knox is unjust?
| rideontime wrote:
| > This is pretty stupid. When you read, "sordid Jewish
| genocide" do you think "sordid" is describing "Jewish"?
|
| Of course not, it should read "sordid Israeli genocide." Or are
| you saying it should be "sordid Palestinian genocide"?
| hnthrowaway8493 wrote:
| Wow. Phrase above was almost certainly talking about the
| Holocaust.
| rideontime wrote:
| Oh? Without any context to suggest that, I guess my mind
| went to the currently ongoing genocide instead.
| Supermancho wrote:
| This is so poorly written, I'm not even sure what it's trying to
| communicate. This seems to be a bunch of ideas, events, and
| themes thrown together to try and elucidate some sort of response
| regarding a travesty of justice and a movie. I fail to see how
| this is worth reading, by anyone.
| kortilla wrote:
| Note that she is mad she is not making money from the movie, not
| that her name is associated with the event:
| https://twitter.com/amandaknox/status/1418628570453200897
| mkl wrote:
| I see no indication of what you're claiming in that tweet or
| her replies to it.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Made me go look up the tale. I recall part of why the whole thing
| looked weird was that she said that the owner of the bar where
| she worked was there when the body was discovered.
|
| That dude, Patrick Lumumba, lost his bar and eventually moved to
| Poland. He was unhappy about the whole thing since he was only
| her employer.
|
| She got 3 years for slandering him but says she was pressured
| into it.
|
| Bloody hell. That's a warning to not talk during an
| investigation. Looks like they were going to pin something on
| her.
| himinlomax wrote:
| > That's a warning to not talk during an investigation
|
| That's assuming the authorities respect your right to do so.
| It's not even that clear cut a right in England for example, in
| that there are cases where not talking to the police can be
| held against you. Also while the right to an attorney and
| against self-incrimination is enshrined in the European
| declaration of Human Rights and enforced by the ECHR, it took
| dozens of that court's decisions for France to start
| implementing it in earnest. I don't know about the situation in
| Italy in that respect but their justice system is usually a
| fucking mess, like their bridges.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, I believe it. I don't trust any results from them. It's
| not all Inspector Montalbano there.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It's interesting to me how the truth got lost, and how
| uninterested people are in the aftermath. The real killer ended
| up with a sentence almost half the length of what Amanda Knox
| got. And he is already out of prison. Italy's justice system is
| very different from the US's, for better or worse.
| soheil wrote:
| > Italy's justice system is very different from the US's, for
| better or worse.
|
| You clearly mean worse based on your previous sentence. Mind
| shedding some light on those "differences" for the uninitiated?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I do not mean worse. I mean different, with 'better' and
| 'worse' being subjective. Rudy Guede is 34 years old, out of
| prison with decades more life to look forward to. After
| cutting short the life of Meredith Kercher at 21, some people
| would argue that he should pay with more of his own life,
| maybe all of it. In the US, obviously, there's a good chance
| he'd never get out of prison.
| throwamanda wrote:
| This instantly reminded me of OJ Simpson's trials and acquittal.
| What makes this so believable, at least here on HN? Because she's
| a young beautiful woman and not a scary black man? I hope people
| here , which is one of the more rational communities out there,
| would stop applying double standards. Maybe she is an eloquent
| writer, but why should rhetoric (or looks) be the determining
| factor when it comes to public empathy? #metoo and
| #blacklivesmatter both happened but I'm yet to see black people
| being judged less harshly and trusted by the public.
| kortilla wrote:
| Perhaps because she didn't lose a civil case on the same manner
| and they actually caught the real killer? OJ probably would
| have gotten more sympathy if there was some kind of viable
| alternative story.
| Atreiden wrote:
| Is this comment in good faith, or are you needlessly playing
| Devil's Advocate?
|
| There are very few similarities in their cases other than the
| fact that they were both tried for Murder.
|
| - OJ was never convicted, he was acquitted outright. Amanda
| Knox was convicted. And only acquitted after appeals 4 years
| later.
|
| - OJ did not get charged in a foreign country, in which local
| police and courts failed to provide due process. In fact, he
| received arguably the best legal defense in the country.
|
| - OJ released a book afterwards - "if I DID IT: Confessions of
| the Killer" describing the murder in great detail. I mean,
| you've seen the book cover, right?
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4f/If_I_di...
|
| I'm really stumped by this comment. OJ got off, and essentially
| bragged about it. How is there any similarity here?
|
| > why should rhetoric (or looks) be the determining factor when
| it comes to public empathy? #metoo and #blacklivesmatter both
| happened but I'm yet to see black people being judged less
| harshly and trusted by the public.
|
| I think you're massively conflating these two topics. There's a
| real discussion to be had on race dynamics and conflict in
| relation to public sentiment, but it's a real stretch to say
| that's at play here unless you have a better example than OJ.
| deanCommie wrote:
| One nuanced clarification: OJ didn't pick the title of the
| book. His murdered wife's family sued him claiming that the
| outcome of the civil lawsuit he previously lost prevents him
| from profiting from the case, won, and took over release of
| the book.
|
| They get all the profits of the book, and crucially they
| chose the book cover and the font selection.
|
| OJ as far as I know never bragged about getting away with
| murder, though I will grant the book concept is incredibly
| poor taste even if he was innocent.
| ineptech wrote:
| Fascinating article. I thought she was exaggerating when she
| complained about people accusing her of being a media whore,
| until I scrolled down to the [flagged] [dead] and saw someone
| doing just that.
|
| But I don't think she has a choice. In the past, it would've been
| possible for someone in her shoes to choose obscurity. In the
| past, the real Amanda Knox and the idea of Amanda Knox that
| exists in the collective unconscious of the media and media
| consumers would've drifted apart. Now, it's hard to imagine how
| that could happen. Even if she invented a new identity and moved
| to a small town in Alaska (which would be a new kind of prison
| sentence in some ways), it'd be newsworthy.
| danso wrote:
| > _I thought she was exaggerating when she complained about
| people accusing her of being a media whore_
|
| Not to pick on you, but why would you reflexively think her to
| be exaggerating about being called a media whore? People do
| that with literally everyone whose public complaints become a
| news story. And what motive would Amanda Knox have in
| particular? She was labeled an actual whore for the many years
| when the case was still in active prosecution.
| ineptech wrote:
| It's not a boolean, it's a threshold. I'm not surprised that
| anyone ever made that accusation, but I was surprised that it
| was among the first few comments on HN.
| kortilla wrote:
| > She was labeled an actual whore for the many years when the
| case was still in active prosecution.
|
| Source? I remember it being on TV and don't remember
| allegations of prostitution.
| mmarq wrote:
| She was definitely accused of being a "whore", as in a
| woman who is not, say, as chaste as people expect her to
| be. All Italian media informed us that Knox's motive was
| sex, whatever that is supposed to mean, because she was a
| maniac with a sex addiction. If I remember correctly, and I
| may not, the prosecur made some appalling comments about
| Knox's sexual promiscuity when interviewed for the Netflix
| documentary.
|
| Corriere della Sera, which is probably the most prestigious
| Italian newspaper, published this: https://www.corriere.it/
| cronache/07_novembre_25/amanda_cacci... ("Amanda just
| wanted sex"/Former partner Elis Prenga: <<A hunter of
| men>>./Lumumba: "She made sexual advances to customers").
|
| This played into the Italian stereotype of American women,
| which are supposedly more sexually active than they are
| supposed to be, and so immoral but also easier to pick up
| than local women.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I suspect @danso is just mentioning the -- breathlessly
| repeated by the italian press -- allegations that Amanda
| purchased condoms, had sex and -- omg -- had a _vibrator_.
| danso wrote:
| That's right, I shouldn't have used "actual" (at least I
| didn't say "literally") -- I mean in the colloquial sense
| of "non-married woman engaging in purportedly non-
| traditional sexual activity"
| sombremesa wrote:
| Moving from a Western to an Eastern country or vice versa (and
| using a pseudonym on top) is actually a pretty good way to
| become near-anonymous, unless you're a Michael Jackson level of
| celebrity.
|
| Of course, not everyone has the background to be able to
| smoothly pull that off.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| If I were in Amanda Knox's shoes, I would probably be very
| reluctant to move to any foreign country, especially a
| foreign country with a judicial system substantially
| different from the US one.
| ludocode wrote:
| > But I don't think she has a choice.
|
| Some countries recognize a "right to be forgotten". This is a
| good example of where such laws can help. She doesn't currently
| have a choice because many Western countries don't recognize
| this right. This is something that could change.
| danso wrote:
| Huh? The "right to be forgotten", as it exists in the EU, is
| specifically about search engine indexing. That would not
| meaningfully affect someone who would have been an infamous
| celebrity with or without the Internet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten#Current_.
| ..
| mikem170 wrote:
| I wonder if a country with different libel laws would help
| her? For example, I've heard it's easier to sue for libel
| in the UK than in the US.
| ghaff wrote:
| Arguably, at some point in the past, this would have been an
| obscure story and she'd still be in an Italian jail cell.
|
| I sort of disagree though that someone like her couldn't drop
| out of the public eye if she wanted to. There are tradeoffs to
| be sure but it seems pretty possible.
| notquitehuman wrote:
| How? Please outline in detail how she should disappear so
| that I may share this information with the person who needs
| it.
| ghaff wrote:
| I didn't say disappear. But if someone only middling well
| known changes their name and appearance eg hair, moves,
| doesn't go out of their way to call attention to themselves
| that would put their photo online, stays off social media,
| etc. they can almost certainly mostly fly under the radar.
|
| 10 years later most people have forgotten about Amanda Knox
| and what she looks like. And if someone goes "Are you
| Amanda Knox?" you laugh and say you get that a lot.
|
| Again, this isn't disappearing from say law enforcement.
| But it's avoiding authors, reporters, "fans" of the case,
| from reaching out.
| toast0 wrote:
| For a US citizen, the process would be roughly
|
| 0) choose a new name with a common first name and a common
| last name in a combination with many existing people, but
| preferably no particularly notable celebrities. If your
| first name is already common, great. Start using that name
| in situations where you don't need to prove identity (this
| establishes a common law name change)
|
| a) research name change laws in the 50 states and the
| territories to determine which states don't require
| publication or allow for a confidential name change in the
| relevant circumstances.
|
| b) reside in a state chosen from that list for at least the
| minimum time
|
| c) go through the procedure to change your legal name to
| your (new) common law name
|
| d) establish a residency somewhere else
|
| e) open new bank etc accounts in your new legal name and
| close out old ones
|
| f) if your old name comes up again, say "yeah, people
| always asked me if I was the famous X, and I didn't want to
| deal with it"
|
| Maybe cultivate a new style as well.
| podric wrote:
| Should there be a way to trademark your own name in order to
| prevent its misuse in creative works? That way, film studios
| should have to pay a licensing fee to have your name anywhere in
| the film or its marketing material.
|
| It's strange to think that fictional characters often have more
| protection and control over the use of their name than real
| people.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This can't happen. An option like that would conflict directly
| with freedom of speech and freedom of the press. As much as I
| hate what happens to people like her, there are far more cases
| like Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin that need to be put under
| the spotlight. Don't get me wrong, I hate what happens to
| people like here that get caught in the crosshairs. This
| director and company making the movie should be ashamed of
| themselves for either not dissociating themselves from her
| story or at the very least working with her and reaching some
| understanding where they have respect for her story. A lot of
| people know she was innocent but I would say the majority don't
| and only followed the story in the beginning.
| Frost1x wrote:
| We probably just need to fix loopholes in slander and libel
| laws and give common people more power to enforce them without
| making it a huge financial risk. People realized many many
| years ago how people's names come be abused and drug through
| the mud and created a recourse for it.
|
| Changing someone's name just a bit or creating fictional
| characters you can copyright that everyone knows is a
| substitution or can find the substitution if they're interested
| in linking the fictional depiction to the real depiction is
| just a loophole around slander and libel, which the author
| points out with Damien Matthews or whatever in the example.
| Completely legal and now you have artistic freedom to reshape
| the story however you want. The person with the most resources
| to fight legally typically wind here.
|
| Throwing some disclaimer line in like "this is no based on
| actual people or events" or whatever seems to give far too much
| of a liability waiver. It's really just plain wrong and the
| author makes a great point about naming an event and agency.
| Branding is very powerful and can create subconscious links
| that otherwise shouldn't exist. Naming is a bit tricky though
| because you often pick an easy memorable name to associate with
| something. Naming sort of act like a hash map with collision
| handling in my brain.
|
| When I see Bill Clinton's name or "Clinton" a whole slew of
| thoughts and memories link to that name or phrase and it can be
| difficult to determine what someone says. When you say Monica
| Lewenski's name on the other hand, she acts as a memorable
| unique identifier to the event, unfairly to her. I know exactly
| what you're talking about and I know about Bill, power
| differentials at play, and so on but the name needs to be
| unique and memorable in language. As the author points out,
| this naming convenience comes at a cost to those who might get
| improper associations for responsibility, so it's complicated.
| I think we should strive for branding that leaves out names
| where possible. Watergate seems like a great branding job, I
| immediately know it's Nixon and it doesn't dissolve him of any
| responsibility. Should the facts change and I read about
| Watergate later, say it was Deepthroat actually responsible
| somehow, the name Watergate name still exists and associations
| of responsibility in the future can change. Abstract your
| branding to avoid finger pointing.
| mikem170 wrote:
| The libel and slander laws in the U.K. different than in the
| U.S. [0]:
|
| > "English laws are much more favorable for someone looking
| to protect their reputation," says Jenny Afia, a lawyer in
| London who often represents people making libel and privacy
| claims.
|
| > In American courts, the burden of proof rests with the
| person who brings a claim of libel. In British courts, the
| author or journalist has the burden of proof, and typically
| loses.
|
| > "So you've got the rich and powerful shutting down and
| chilling speech which is critical of them," says Stephens.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/3942739
| 02/...
| briffle wrote:
| That would quickly be abused to silence critics as well.
| Imagine if Brock Turner trademarked his name, and went after
| anyone discussing his story.
|
| Not to mention, your name is not unique. I know of at least 2
| other people in the US with the same first and last name as me.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Imagine if Brock Turner trademarked his name
|
| That's a separate and interesting discussion itself, IMO. On
| the one hand, how do you have sympathy for someone who does
| what he did? On the other hand, do we not believe in
| rehabilitation, redemption, or anything like that? It is
| getting easier to believe that the mania over Brock Turner
| has led to a disproportionate response. And to go against the
| mob is to risk becoming a pariah yourself. When the mob is
| the size of the Internet, this seems pretty scary.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I agree with this. I have no idea if the guy was a terrible
| person or made a terrible decision in the moment and did
| what he did. Either way he deserved a punishment greater
| than he received. With that said he is portrayed in the
| media and social media as if he is the second coming of
| Hitler. A ton of people do far worse things and are allowed
| to continue with their lives after serving their time. If
| people are not allowed a chance at rehabilitation (within
| reason, I think some crimes are unforgivable, but not his)
| then we are a lesser society.
| handelaar wrote:
| "Rehabilitation" usually comes after an appropriate
| criminal punishment being issued and received, not before.
| That reasonable people think that getting just twelve weeks
| in jail for his crimes -- which he at no point admitted --
| is an offensive undersentencing in no way justifies their
| description as a "mob".
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That is a bit disingenuous. This isn't people thinking
| that the justice system should have slapped him down
| harder. This is people who drop into every thread where
| his name comes up and insist that it should never just be
| "Brock Turner", but rather "The Convicted Rapist Brock
| Turner."
|
| Arguably the biggest argument in support of the justice
| system failing in this case is that it did not deter this
| kind of vigilante attitude; that is an important part of
| why the system exists in the first place.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| Trademarks can't be used to go after people who mention your
| mark, only people who use it to promote their own commercial
| endeavors (and even then, subtle mentions like "compare to X"
| are generally ok).
|
| If Brock Turner had a trademark, he could use it to block
| Brock Turner: The Movie, but not us on this forum talking
| about Brock Turner, convicted rapist.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| For a laugh, I set my name as a google alert. I get stories
| about a meteorologist, a guy who woke up and had lost 20
| years of memory, a CEO of a sports media company, some random
| person with the same name who works as a dog groomer friended
| me on FB. Really not sure how trademarking that would work
| out.
| dooglius wrote:
| I didn't get the impression the film used her name
| [deleted]
| madaxe_again wrote:
| No. See:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_persons_fictitious_discl...
| sneak wrote:
| You don't own your reputation. That's out of your hands. You
| can not and should not be able to control what other people
| think and say about you.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Not even if they are causing you real harm by lying?
|
| Other countries don't allow as much of that as the U.S. does,
| like the U.K. for example [0]:
|
| > "English laws are much more favorable for someone looking
| to protect their reputation," says Jenny Afia, a lawyer in
| London who often represents people making libel and privacy
| claims.
|
| > In American courts, the burden of proof rests with the
| person who brings a claim of libel. In British courts, the
| author or journalist has the burden of proof, and typically
| loses.
|
| > "So you've got the rich and powerful shutting down and
| chilling speech which is critical of them," says Stephens.
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/3942739
| 02/...
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Non-sarcastic question: suppose I trademark my name and then
| someone with my name opens an account on a web site, or a
| resturant, or writes a script. Are they in violation? (It is
| strange to me that, say, Twitter is a worldwide namespace. We
| had a resturant in our East Coast US town that had to change
| its totally-boring name because they were threatened by a West
| Coast resturant with that name.)
| kube-system wrote:
| Trademarks are narrow in scope to a particular line of
| business. If you trademark a restaurant named "Jim's", that
| means other people cannot open other _restaurants_ named
| "Jim's", but they could open any other kind of business under
| the same name.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's even stricter than that. Getting a trademark on
| something as simple as "Jim's" for a restaurant is near
| impossible because there are already thousands of
| restaurants and bars that use that name.
| kube-system wrote:
| We're saying the same thing. Just swap "you" and "other
| people" in my comment. The law works the same for
| everyone.
| theqult wrote:
| Thanks for your opinion fucking fuggitive bitch. Now please, take
| a plane and come for your sentence.
| octopoc wrote:
| Can't she sue the movie producers of Stillwater? Even if the
| movie producers didn't officially acknowledge inspiration, Vanity
| Fair mentions it:
|
| > This new film by director Tom McCarthy, starring Matt Damon, is
| "loosely based" or "directly inspired by" the "Amanda Knox saga,"
| as Vanity Fair put it in a for-profit article promoting a for-
| profit film, neither of which I am affiliated with
|
| There is clearly precedence for this type of lawsuit because of
| this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_persons_fictitious_disclai...
| karaterobot wrote:
| The court case is in the public record, they don't use any real
| names, and they made it clear that it is not meant to be her
| story, so I would assume they are covered.
|
| I also suspect Dreamworks' lawyers would have briefed the
| director on what he could and couldn't say in an interview if
| there was any danger of them getting sued.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| No she can't, the story is far too different. It only touches
| on a few major points of her story but is 90% different, it
| would never hold up in court and she would be out court costs
| and probably financially ruined after the trial was over.
| ghaff wrote:
| Your link explains _why_ that disclaimer is now routinely used.
| gumby wrote:
| I think she became a public figure (through no fault of her
| own, as far as I can tell) and thus would unfortunately likely
| not be afforded the libel protections of a private citizen.
| mitchellst wrote:
| Not a lawyer, but from my understanding of libel law, the
| "public figure" thing isn't the problem. Merely being famous
| (and famous for being falsely accused!) won't necessarily
| make you a public figure for libel purposes. But there's
| another part of the standard: a defendant must knowingly say
| things that are substantially false. Referring to Ms. Knox as
| a "convicted murderer" in a news article, for example, is
| deceptive in context but it is technically correct. She was
| convicted. And then on the movie side, it's explicitly
| fiction, and the character does not share her name. So they
| can claim the defense that any "false" claim is about their
| invented character, not about her... and by the way, they
| have lots of first amendment juice for artistic expression.
|
| In the end, you're right. It's a sad story, but she doesn't
| appear to have legal protection from libel law. The
| filmmakers should probably be ashamed of themselves, but you
| don't make a Matt Damon movie without a go-ahead from some
| high-priced lawyers who know they're in the clear from a
| liability standpoint. Though, ethics perhaps weren't
| considered...
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| It's horrible that you can't choose not to become a public
| figure. You have rights which someone else can get rid of by
| giving you enough attention.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's a balance with freedom of press/speech and like most
| things there are casualties.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It seems like it shouldn't be so hard to solve, either.
| Someone should not become a public figure without
| demonstrating some kind of intent. If they are not pushing
| a narrative, trying to influence public opinion, etc, then
| they do not lose protection. We cannot let the defamers be
| the ones controlling the definition.
| kortilla wrote:
| So when some CEO decides they don't want to be a public
| figure?
| ghaff wrote:
| As I understand it, a CEO would generally be a public
| figure within the scope of what he does as a CEO. Note,
| though, that in the US, most of what being a public
| figure affects is the standard for libel (NYT v.
| Sullivan). Even if you're not a public figure, there's
| mostly nothing preventing me from writing about you if I
| want to and truth is pretty much a defense against libel.
| [deleted]
| jnwatson wrote:
| Law and Order would have been sued out of business. The "ripped
| from the headlines" mechanism is a tried and true method for TV
| procedurals.
|
| You might own your likeness, but you don't own your life story.
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