Okay, this is weird...

[catsittingstill]

Remember that movie, Expelled?  Started as "Crossroads" claiming to be a documentary about the intersection of religion and science, turned out to be an anti-evolution movie equating biologists and Nazis, yeah you remember the basics.

Well 1) it turns out the makers of Expelled copied the best part, a computer animation of various proteins working in a cell, from a video called "The Inner Life Of The Cell" made for Harvard by a small company called XVIVO  (The video is great, by the way; I can see why they wanted to use it.  I'm less clear on why they wanted to plagarize it. )  XVIVO has naturally taken action to protect their copyright.

2) Apparently the makers of Expelled stole other parts of the movie from PBS.

3) And now it turns out that the makers of Expelled are suing XVIVO.  I'm a little opaque on for what.  As near as I can figure out, it's for sullying Expelled's good name by complaining that it plagarizes their work.

I think someone over at PBS should look into this.  If the makers of Expelled really did steal from PBS, PBS should sue the snot out of them.

Comments

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

...

Okay, so let me get this straight:
They're suing someone they plagiarized for slandering them with accusations of plagiarism.

I mean, if it were a counter-suit, with XVIVO bringing the original suit, I could maybe understand, but even then:

Is this not the very definition of "coming to court with unclean hands"?

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Once you believe you have a heavenly mandate, it's an incredibly short step to the idea that everything you do is right and anyone who opposes you is completely in the wrong.

Fortunately, this lot is only armed with lawyers, not, say, the US military.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Heh. That's a lot cleaner than my initial response, which involved several expletives and the phrase "sense of entitlement".

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

"Once you believe you have a heavenly mandate, it's an incredibly short step to the idea that everything you do is right and anyone who opposes you is completely in the wrong."

Which also explains a lot about the Bush Administration.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

/innocently stares up at his halo...

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Eeep--and they *are* armed with an army.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it could be worse.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Is this not the very definition of "coming to court with unclean hands"?

I was not familiar with this usage until you brought it up, but other than that, I would have thought so.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

There is a maxim that "he who seeks equity must come into court with clean hands." What that basically means is that the courts will refrain from granting equitable relief to parties not acting fairly.

Without having seen the complaint, I can't give an opinion whether it is potentially applicable in this case.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

What do you expect? These are conservative Republicans here. If they do it, it's not illegal, and if there's conflict, it is the other guy's fault. And they're being persecuted just because they're Christians.

If they run over a pedestrian, their first instinct is to file suit against the pedestrian for damage to their car, alleging that the pedestrian willfully jumped in front of the car for the purpose of filing a fraudulent injury claim and intentionally inducing guilt on the driver. No shame whatsoever.

These are the same people who obtained interviews with professors by falsely claiming to be doing a different kind of movie than they actually had in mind, then purposely edited the interviews to make the professors look foolish, and finally tried to ban them from showings of the movie and then lied about that. A little plagiarism is nothing to them.

In fact, you can next expect them to accuse XVIVO of trying to "hide" their work from the public, and to rhetorically ask if XVIVO is afraid to have an honest debate about the issues. Finally, they'll try to promote their "film" by claiming that the vast leftist conspiracy, that has controlled everything in America for decades now, is trying to censor them.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of something from an episode of the "Real Ghostbusters" animated series that someone quoted to me awhile back:

"Yes, evil cheats. Evil lies. Evil does whatever it must to get ahead. That's why we call it 'evil'."

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

And they're being persecuted just because they're Christians

I have occasionally wondered if Christianity is like someone who was abused as a child. They went through some bad times they didn't deserve and now whenever anyone disagrees with them, they have flashbacks. I wouldn't have thought an institution could have that response, but I'm beginning to wonder.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Sorry to interrupt a serious discussion, but I can't resist.

XVIVO is going to court to


(wait for it)


WIN BEN STEIN'S MONEY!

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Okay, that has officially made my day. Thank you.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

:D

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

(now I'm trying not to literally laugh out loud at your icon and disturb my officemates)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I like your icon too.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

(snort). Okay, you made me laugh both times I saw this; the first time when it hit my e-mail and the second time when I ran across it while responding to comments.

Let's hope they do.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

You see, if it weren't for evilution, they wouldn't have made this movie and wouldn't have violated copyrights and resorted to deception to get their interviews. All these immoral acts were caused by belief in evolution--this is proof that evilution corrupts the moral fiber of our nation.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Careful Peter--remember, it is impossible to parody fundamentalists so outrageously that your audience can reliably tell the parody from the real thing.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I have to agree with you. I had almost included a little "God wrote the bible; Satan wrote the rocks" crack in that reply, until I reacall reading somewhere that had been seriously proposed by creationists.

Eep.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that they stole material from XVIVO and PBS to use in their movie. After all, they stole their "science" from the Book of Genesis.

My guess is the lawsuit against XVIVO is a message that "Expelled" has so much rightwing money behind it that they can make it to expensive for XVIVO to pursue its lawsuit.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Seems likely :-7

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

And I thought theft was on the list of Top Ten Things God Frowns Upon....

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's just Thou Shalt Not Steal material things? Maybe stealing somebody's artistic creations is okay?

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I've wondered that ever since the vocally Christian rocket dealer in Connecticut was spotted selling photocopies of one of my books without permission, as "public service." My best guess about his reasoning was that if the bible doesn't cover intellectual property issues, they must be mere legal technicalities and not genuine moral or ethical issues.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Countersuits are a normal part of litigation; this is a response. And Premise Media has picked a North Texas court for their action; they may have a sympathetic judge. Premise may be hoping to exhaust XVIVO's resources. But still, what a bone-headed thing to do!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I hope it doesn't work out that Premise wins by having more money. That would just be wrong.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I doubt it very much--I doubt this will make it past even a conservative appellate court. Though in the current legal environment, I suppose it might. We're all--conservatives as well as liberals--spoiled by the judiciary of 1960-2000; there have been times in US history when decisions that are "just wrong" were common.