Let the courts find out who's right in this case.
The show fucked up. Maybe legally, maybe not. But there’s no denying the show could have just as easily left the entire line out or used a fake name. And I think any reasonable person can understand how Gaprindashvili must feel having had one of her greatest accomplishments erased on the world stage.
So why can’t anyone at Netflix understand?
Netflix messed up. Make it right and move on. Fighting this in court is stupid and it’s a terrible look for Netflix.
> Even if the work contains a disclaimer stating that it’s fictional, a libel claim can still arise. However, plaintiffs must clear certain hurdles. In order to state an actionable claim for defamation, a plaintiff must show: publication, defamatory meaning, false statement, identification and damages. In libel suits arising out of fiction, arguably the toughest hurdle for plaintiffs to clear is the identification, or “it’s me” requirement.
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center....
Do you think Netflix is going to claim they were referring to a different female chess world champion with the same name?
Netflix will not lose this case. But the purpose of the case is to threaten Netflix with bad publicity not with legal damages -- after all a woman was offended! She was exploited by Big Bad Netflix!
And already there are lots of people cheering her on as some kind of victim and all that's happened so far was that the paperwork for the suit has been filed and of course an immediate press release was sent out and ant-netflix reporters were recruited to begin writing hitpieces on Netflix.
The case may well be dismissed, and if it's not dismissed, it has virtually no chance of succeeding. But that may be a while from now, and in the meantime Netflix is suffering bad PR. I'm sure it can all go away for the right payment, though.
She & her legacy as the first female grandmaster were defamed to hundreds of millions of people for a throw-away line. That is real damages. The studio should have known better when they made that change to the script and they should have settled before it went to the media. I'm surprised they didn't given Reed's politics.
If the artist feels that the statement is more important, by all means they refuse.
Edit: there's a legend that long time ago everyone had an eye of wisdom, called enochion, that allowed to see reality as it is; but that was in the pre-flood era and today we only see deceptive mirages and shadows.
It's an extremely dangerous precedent to set that anyone offended by fiction can sue the artist and win. that precedent would also have the inverse effect that an independent author could write a piece of fiction where Netflix lost to Blockbuster and went bankrupt then Netflix sues that author for offending and misrepresenting the company's history.