How a big movie studio (unfairly) forced a student to give up his senior thesis

Back in '97 I was the CTO of a VC funded startup. Within weeks of our funding closing a company we had been working with for about a year initiated litigation over an IP matter.

Even though it was the company, and not me personally, who was being sued that time was the most stressful time of my life - the sheer injustice of it all left a deep scar on me. However, we had a good law firm and money in the bank - our lawyers more or less told them there was no case to answer and both sides backed down (although we did have to pay our own legal costs).

It was bad enough being involved in litigation with supportive colleagues, money and good lawyers - being in a similar, actually worse, situation as a broke student would be infinitely worse.

[Edit: as to the timing of the litigation, I believe the first rule of litigation is "sue people who have money"].

Question for any lawyers present: If a lawyer threatens to "ruin your life with litigation", etc., can't that be construed as a threat/bribe?

I would think it would be illegal to call a student, who doesn't know any better, and threaten to ruin their life, especially if the threats you're making aren't actually true.

In any case, the obvious next step in the student's situation is to contact a lawyer, and see if there's any merit to the threat. For all he knows, a lawyer would have told him that it's a totally empty threat and he shouldn't worry about it. It is naive to listen to the word of someone who is obviously opposing you.

> He told me that I was technically in my legal right to use Isaac Asimov’s material. However, if I chose to proceed, they would file multiple lawsuits totaling over 2 million dollars against me.

Hmm, if the lawyer admitted he was technically in the right, I wonder if recording that phone call could've gotten any lawsuits thrown out as frivolous.

Some observations:

1. If the studio had filed a lawsuit, there's a very good chance that, after seeing the Asimov estate's permission, the judge would have quickly tossed the case on summary judgment --- and quite possibly awarded the student his attorneys' fees under section 505 of the Copyright Act,[1] as happened recently in several of the Righthaven copyright-troll cases.[2]

2. A copyright lawyer might have been willing, for little or no money, to explain the facts of life to the studio lawyer on behalf of the student. The student then might have been able to respond to the studio lawyer (with utmost politeness, of course), "do what you gotta do." He could then have started making his movie and waited to see what the studio did.

3. It's likely that any lawsuit by the studio would have been quickly resolved one way or another, without much in the way of legal expense:

• If the student had won quickly on summary judgment, the odds are that his lawyer would have been paid by the judge.

• If the student had found he wasn't going to win quickly on summary judgment, then he could have caved to avoid further expense. The odds are that the studio would have gone along --- and might even have been willing to pay the student's legal fees just to get rid of the matter.

4. Either way, both the student and his lawyer would have gotten at least some reputational benefit from the resulting publicity.

5. Heck, they could have proposed settling the case along the lines that Southwest Airline's CEO settled a trademark dispute years ago over the term "Just Plane Smart": Herb Kelleher arm-wrestled the other side's CEO for charity, resulting in good PR for both sides.[3]

6. All this assumes, of course, that the article accurately states all the relevant facts. Lawyers know from hard experience that this always has to be confirmed.

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505

[2] http://www.copyrighttrademarkmatters.com/2011/11/01/righthav...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines#.22Just_Plan...

[Edited for style]

> I responded by sending them the consent form from the Asimov estate, and explained that it was a student project, not a commercial venture worth litigating. I turned over our script, our shooting notes, our shot list, copies of our tapes and even the concept art drawings.

I think the moral of the story is: Don't give the studio more information than you have to. The consent form would have been enough.

If the studio's goal had been to take money from you, you would have been right to let them know you had no money. But it wasn't: What they wanted was to stop you releasing the film. In that situation you want to appear as professional as possible. Just sending a cover letter from a lawyer with the consent form would be a start.

I presume by "One download at a time" the author is referring to the downloading of his own films? Downloading Hollywood films won't kill Hollywood, as it only spreads Hollywood's influence and makes the problem worse.

The way to kill Hollywood is to ignore it. That's got to be more terrifying to a studio than being pirated. Paul Graham had it right in his "Kill Hollywood" piece: it's not pirating that will kill Hollywood, but irrelevance. Startups, new ways to entertain people and new ways to make movies.

This is an incredibly ridiculous story. This student is exactly the type of person Hollywood should be nurturing: a creative student with vision, perusing his creative 'dream' and not letting his limited means get in the way of his vision.

It's a real pity that this happened, and a lost opportunity for the film industry. It could have been simple for them to take this as an opportunity and make something great out it. Instead, they alienated the type of person they need.

That said, I don't think this is an excuse to take 'revenge' on these companies, "one download at a time".

There are some simple things that could be done to protect against this kind of abuse:

- Loser pays the winner's costs, but capped such that the loser won't be bankrupted. This effectively means that when a big company loses, they get to pay for all of the trial, but individuals can still lose without being totally doomed.

- A judge could be allowed to grant "free trial" if he thought the case had merit and one of the parties couldn't afford the legal costs. This would mean that the state would cover the legal costs of that party no matter the outcome.

Forced or bullied? It may seem like a small distinction, but it sounds like he backed down after a single threatening phone call, without calling their bluff.

It’s important to note that the film was based on one of Asimov’s short stories, “Reason”, but was not a direct interpretation. It was not titled “I, Robot”, and barring the inclusion of the laws of robotics, was almost wholly original.

If that's the case, then why not remove any Asimovian references, disavow any connection with "I, Robot" and complete the film?

Don't get me wrong, the studio behaved badly and this guy didn't deserve the treatment he received from them, but it sounds like there were perfectly acceptable options available that didn't require shutting down the project completely.

It seems like the best course of action here would have been to take down the website... and then just finish filming anyway. It wasn't actually worth it to the studio to send somebody there to confirm that filming had stopped. They were just tying up loose ends and getting rid of online promotion that was competing with them. If the film was really good and got a distributor, then there would have been a bigCorp there to swat away this frivolous lawsuit. If not, then it would have just flown under the radar.

Why isn't anyone mentioning the fact that if this kid (at the time) owned the rights to the I, Robot via permission he could have sued the producers of "I, Robot" for a portion of their profits.

This was a defensive lawsuit that had nothing to do with shutting down his student project -- it was to protect themselves from a party that could have potentially tied them up for years in court demanding money if he had properly lawyered up.

Americans, why don't you introduce the concept where courts are encouraged to award all costs against the loser? This culture is widespread in the commonwealth, and strategic court actions are less common. It should be a really simple change.

I think the student made one big mistake here: he didn't ask why (or at least, didn't disclose the answer to such a question). Aside from legal threats that appear to hold little if any merit, there's no reason this student should have let his career end. Irrespective of the choices he made, let this be a lesson to many. When you're talented and smart, you have much more leverage than you think. You have to go beyond the bs and if not to eliminate it, at least justify why someone is trying to harm you.

P.S. This doesn't just apply to "Hollywood," it happens everywhere.

This would be "protecting the artist", yes?

The (American) judicial system is broken when this type of class justice arises. This is a dangerous development.

What the studio lawyers did was typical and it stinks. This is a valuable story to be told. But i hate to say it, this guy would probably not have made it in the movie business as a director (if that is what his aspiration was).

First of all, having one failure and then giving up - that business is constant rejection and having to overcome difficulties with every project. Projects fall apart all the time. Lawsuits happen all the time. You have to stick out your neck financially over and over.

I'm not judging him, it's a crappy thing he went through, but if you want a career in the arts you have to be undeterred by situations like this.

This is exactly why SOPA / ACTA et al must be stopped.

If this happened me, in 2012, I would go straight onto kickstarter to get donations for the legal fees and fight these dickheads tooth and nail.

That's an unfortunate, sad story.

However, in situations like this where you might have some legal leverage, it never hurts to attempt some sort of negotiation. He could, for instance, negotiate himself into some sort of production position in the upcoming shoot or on some other set.

This is going to sound really harsh: Aside from nepotism and sheer luck, people do really make it in the film industry based on pure will and this could have been his opportunity. However, in the end he murdered his darling and packed it in. With an attitude like that (harsh, I know) his chances were slim. The film industry is not a meritocracy, and his art alone would not have carried him to success. He needed to hustle, in both senses of the word.

If he did try something like that, then I feel doubly worse for him, though.

This is apropos the story, albeit slightly tangential. I don't remember all the specifics, but during my time at university, I remember a student being sued by some outside party related to his academic work. My university mobilized every resource at their disposal to defend the student and the lawsuit went away. The OP mentions attending a "small private college"; maybe my story is a hidden benefit of the large institutional machine. I would have expected the school to provide him counsel at a minimum.

...don't universities have lawyers, and honestly shouldn't they be a free resource to students in cases like this?

I wonder how the movie studio would have liked the publicity over ruining a film students life.

Threatening to bankrupt someone with a nuisance lawsuit that has no merit is not looked favorably on by judges, and a lawyer who says as much risks sanctions from both a judge and the bar association.

That's... that's just so sad. And so infuriating.

guerilla tactic: if the trial ever proceeded it would have launched this guy's film career by giving him immense public exposure instead of just another sob story on reddit.

why did it take the lead of the studio's lawyer's team to make the phone call - it would imply how seriously they were concerned about real potential risks.

instead his surrender was exactly what the studio lawyers aimed for.

btw since this was 10 years ago it's conveniently outside the statute of limitations for slander - so he doesn't have to prove this story is even real and not just viral promotion bs for his lame student project.

... and that's why loser pays system is better. This guy would just get one of those lawyers who you have to pay only after the case (that is if you lose) and have them eat their C&D letters.

Beat you by 5 hours :P

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3593031

Absolutely shocking story. It must have been gut-wrenching.

This sort of shit is like a red rag to a bull for me. I would have went ahead and called their bluff and let them get it into court; I would have hoped against the odds that with all the evidence you had the judge would have thrown it out and it would have cost those bringing the action dear.

Of course, reason might not have triumphed and you would have lived to regret it.

But that's just me, and I'm an idiot. Though, I like to think, an idiot with principles.