Entertainment Law Matters

Hill v. Public Advocate of the United States, No. 12 Civ. 2550 (D. Colo. Sept. 26, 2012).

On Wednesday, September 26, 2012, married couple Brian Edwards and Thomas Privitere, along with Kristina Hill, their Brooklyn-based photographer, filed a lawsuit against an anti-gay rights organization named Public Advocate of the United States (“PA”).  The same-sex couple alleges that PA misappropriated their identities by copying a photograph that Hill had taken of them posing and kissing by the Brooklyn Bridge shortly after their engagement,

and incorporating it into two flyers distributed during local political races in Colorado:

The two individuals referred to in the posters – Jean White and Jeffrey Hare – were Republican primary candidates who had supported a bill that, if passed, would have granted same-sex couples the right to enter into civil unions.  If it weren’t clear from the bold lettering, the blood-red banner framing the words, the quotes around “family values” or the suggestive question marks – PA does not support same-sex marriage or civil unions.  Continue reading »

Let’s pause for a moment in our reporting of  current developments in entertainment law to pay homage to Leslie Nielsen, who died this past weekend.  People who are not obsessed with issues like fair use and parody (i.e., normal people), know Mr. Nielsen as an actor who transitioned from serious roles in motion picture and television dramas to become one of the leading comedic actors of our time.  Nielsen played the consummate straight man in comedies such as the classic Airplane! and the Naked Gun series of films.

But intellectual property lawyers see Nielsen in another role – his role at the center of two of the leading cases in the not very crowded field of copyright infringement litigations in advertising where defendants successfully asserted parody as a defense.  Continue reading »