Everybody Dies

[rinue]

Great, I needed this as well. Aside from my films showing at the Hub on Saturday, other films will, surprise, be shown at the MAC at the same time, which I just found out and can't attend, but also I now have to go into mild legal defense mode, possibly soon to be upgraded to Extreme Legal Defense Mode, because:

1. Nobody asked me if they could show my film, and
2. IT IS NOT MY FILM. They're crediting me, and it's not my film. It's a film very similar to a film of mine, but it's been re-edited, the sound track has been changed, and MY NAME IS STILL ON IT AS EDITOR AND DIRECTOR.

Fucking Christ. I'd rather be plagiarized than mis-credited, especially given that I quite like my film and throughly abhor the altered one. And this is the third time I have had to go to the mattresses to block this recut, which is sort of "Happy Ending to Brazil" equivalent in terms of grossness. Why why why why why why why does this shit happen to me constantly.

I can of course bring to bear the full force of three different powerful legal entitites who also have a stake in the film, but honestly I'd rather let people have their film festival, just with the real film (even though they haven't secured the rights, which is what will get it blocked the second I e-mail the aforementioned powerful legal entitites). If it comes down to it, I'm fine with the film not showing, and I'm willing to lose friends over it. It would just be nice if I didn't have to.

Comments

[valancy_jane]

I can call in Debbie, my cousin the patent lawyer, if need be as well. Motherfuckers. [RAGE]

[rinue]

That's a nice thought, but I don't think I'll need her on this one; it has some serious legal muscle behind it already - it's owned by the DMA and is the one your husband scored for me. A lot of my, frankly, nausea about the situation is down to the fact that the person doing this should have known better (1) in the first place and (2) given the last two times she tried it. It's basically destroyed my ability to be friends with someone, not just because of the extreme disrespect involved in defacing my work, but because if someone doesn't understand it when I say:

"I am a professional filmmaker and people pay me for having good taste; I spent a lot of time and a lot of money accumulating the experience and education to make those decisions, and if you counterfeit work by me that is much worse than my actual work, it is notably more damaging than just showing work of mine and not paying me, because it compromises public perception of my ability to do my job and will materially affect my income and artistic status in the future, particularly given my current stage of development (wherein I am not doing student work but am not yet established, such that 100% of my capital is my expressed artistic viewpoint)."

then there's not much else I can say to make them understand. I say "someone has defaced artwork of mine and is passing it off as the real thing" and you either get it and are nauseous or you figure I'm being melodramatic and ignore me. The law is four square on my side, and I can and will compel compliance, but it doesn't change my feeling of violation.