![]() ![]() “If they want their show to be deemed to be ‘true’, they cannot then evade all legal responsibility if they get it wrong and defame one of the characters or disregard their privacy. “Producers of ‘true life dramas’ cannot have their cake and eat it,” argues Crossley. And it is no good adopting a whimsical tone to tell of a supposed treachery in the hope it will aid the defence of a defamation claim. Controversial stories make for good drama and storytelling can mean taking sides. As the London-based media lawyer Dominic Crossley of Payne Hicks Beach points out, the passage of time is helpful because it allows an accepted version of an incident to emerge. So far there have been no big legal wins, but the fast pace of translation from real life to screen is perilous. The situation is, however, getting more complex. And in most territories nothing prevents the producer of a drama doing what they want.” But there is no legal basis for that in English law no trademark, copyright or intellectual property protection. “There is still this idea we have some form of ownership and so are the people who can grant rights. The legal area, like music plagiarism, is thought to be in flux and worth a shot.Īs Christopher Gabbitas of UK firm Keystone Law sees it, on both sides of the Atlantic the common misconception is that a life story belongs to the individual. In America cases rarely make it through the first stage of proceedings, yet more claimants are now chancing their arm. Those in the know frequently point out how naive it is to try to punish the makers of a drama or film that has given a hurtful impression. She did not cooperate with Netflix, who had signed a £240,000 rights deal with Sorokin, and so she lost her chance to influence its version. Before Netflix swooped on the Sorokin plot, Williams had been poised to develop a drama based on her book, My Friend Anna, with HBO. They now fuel such a steady diet of box-set series that viewers hardly notice how much they are consuming, whether they are lapping up retellings of old scandals or retracing the steps of a notorious criminal.Ĭontemporary sensation is at a particular premium. The docu-drama Operation Varsity Blues, about corruption in the college admissions system in America, also prompted a suit from parents who believed the show destroyed their reputations.īehind this run of legal spats is the new appetite for drama based on real-life stories. And Linda Fairstein, a former Manhattan prosecutor, was upset when she felt she looked racist in When They See Us, a drama about a 1989 miscarriage of justice. The former Soviet chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili has taken action against the company for implying in its hit drama Queen’s Gambit that her character had not regularly competed against men. Netflix has not commented on the case, but her claim is one of several recent attempts to get compensation from the streaming giant after an allegedly unfair portrayal in a drama. ![]() Rachel DeLoache Williams said her screen portrayal in the Netflix series Inventing Anna made her look ‘greedy and snobbish’. Her defamation lawsuit argues that she appears “a greedy, snobbish, disloyal, dishonest, cowardly, manipulative and opportunistic person”. Rachel DeLoache Williams, a former associate and financial victim of Anna Sorokin, who used social media to con her way into the bank accounts of high-society Americans, is just one of the latest combatants on an increasingly crowded legal battlefield. Last week, the former Vanity Fair photo editor portrayed as a key character in Inventing Anna chose to ignore the playful tone of the show’s disclaimer and said she would sue Netflix over her portrayal. ![]() And when some of those improbable events really did take place, then litigation is a growing risk. Yet even a heavily fictionalised, improbable story can be judged to have impugned real people. ![]() “It is the stated position of the United States Air Force that their safeguards would prevent the occurrence of such events as are depicted in this film,” director Stanley Kubrick’s audience is informed. It is a trick that is by now almost a cinematic cliche, with notable examples including the words that open the apocalyptic 1964 comedy, Dr Strangelove. ![]()
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