January 8, 2024 • 27 mins
Joe Escalante's weekly dip into the business end of showbiz. The show was shortened by NFL football, but that doesn't stop Joe Escalante from bring you the latest info from Hollywood. This week: the latest from the box office, and the Steamboat Willy is now public domain. That's not stopping people from making huge legal mistakes when trying to make new Mickey Mouse stuff.
You really don't want to piss off Disney's legal department... Just ask DeSantis...
You really don't want to piss off Disney's legal department... Just ask DeSantis...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Joe wesco Lante live from Hollywood.If by Hollywood you mean Burbank. We
are across the street from a Wienerschnitzel. Here with two hours of the business,
end of show business, like wedo every Sunday right here on k
EIB eleven fifty on your AM dial. And the big news this week,
Mickey Mouse falling into the public domainfinally. Now, this is something everybody
(00:32):
knew was coming, and Disney actuallytried to stop it from happening. In
nineteen seventy six, the copyrights wereextended, and we they extend these in
the Congress. There's a lot oflobbying from big studios, especially Disney,
that didn't want Mickey Mouse falling intothe public domain because it's just kind of
(00:55):
an unknown what would happen. Butnow we kind of know what happens because
and then they tried in nineteen ninetyeight again they did. They had the
copyright term, the length that youcan get protection for a top copyright extended
twice and then there was just nomore that could do. No. At
(01:17):
some point, it's got to gointo the public domain. Now we know
what it's going to. What happensnow because we have this Winnie the Pooh
movie that was made when Winnie thePooh fell into the public domain. Parts
of Winnie the Pooh. Now,well, so what happens is someone makes
a really bad movie with Winnie thePooh in it, of an axe murder
(01:40):
or something like that. So theywere ready, and there's a couple of
these movies in the works. There'sa trailer for one now called Mickey's mouse
Trap, and it looks pretty badand it's got Okay, let me just
(02:00):
kind of tell you what is whatis in the public domain. It's not
all a Mickey mouse It's this cartooncalled Steamboat Willie, I think another one
of the silent version of another onecalled Plane Crazy. So Steamboat Willy.
You can take that movie now andyou could release it on a like Let's
(02:21):
say you owned a streamer. Youcould just put Steamboat Willi on there.
Find a copy somewhere. You mighthave to buy a copy off. Some
of that has a good copy.I don't know where you're going to get
it. But once you get one, like, they don't have to give
you a copy because it's in thepublic domain. So how are you going
to get a pristine high resolution digitalcopy of Steamboat Willie. Well, you're
(02:43):
not really You're going to be gettingone that's been copied off of something and
probably illegally. And then let's sayyou put that on your streamer. You
wouldn't have to pay the Walt DisneyCompany anything anymore, wouldn't even have to
give him credit. You could justshow it without credits and just say this
(03:07):
is a Steamboat Willie. Could changethe name of it, you can modify
it, you could colorize it,but only Steamboat Willie and then the plain
crazy thing. Can you make otherMickey Mouse things items and merchandise, No,
just Steamboat Willie. Can you takehim in the Wizard suit, Mickey
(03:30):
Mouse in the Wizard outfit, thewizards leaves. No, that's not in
the public domain. Only the SteamboatWillie and the Plane Crazy Mickey Mouse images
have fallen into the public domain.But every single frame of those cartoons is
fair game. Now you can,but you got to be careful that you're
(03:51):
not creating an association with Disney likethat you are presenting something, especially if
you make a derivative work out ofit. Usually you'd make a privative work
out of something and you copy partsof it, and you put it together
with something else, a mash upof something. What you've made is a
derivative work. The rights to thatderivative work still rest with the original copyright
(04:13):
holder. There's not a lot youcan do with it. You guy still
got to get their permission to beable to exploit it, and here you
just don't. You wouldn't have togo to anybody to get permission because it's
already in the public domain. ButI would be careful, like I wouldn't
if I was Disney and I reallywanted to, you know, police this
(04:38):
and just keep people from going crazywith it. I would. I would
file awsuits. Someone put out this, it's putting out this film, Mickey's
Mickey Mouse, Mickey's mouse Trap.I might file and say, hey,
look, you don't have a trademarkon the Mickey Mouse. The trademark of
Mickey Mouse for films is still ownedby us. That's a trademark, So
(05:03):
you can't use Mickey Mouse as thetitle of your film. I don't know
if that would work, if thatwould do anything, but that's just kind
of what I would do. AndI would make them drag these people into
court and make them defend it.That's what I would do if I'm Disney.
I'm not Disney, and so I'mnot doing that. So don't get
mad at me for thinking of thesediabolical ideas. But if you were making
(05:25):
this and someone said you can't usethe word Mickey mouse in the title this,
guys would say, this is Mickey'smouse trap. Yeah, we think
it's. It is still a violationof our trademark, because trademarks are there
to protect the consumer, and theyprotect the consumer against what's called a false
designation of origin, and that itassures the customer that they know where it
(05:48):
came from. This is a WaltDisney product, meaning there's not going to
be any perversion or filth in it. But if it's a horror film and
there's perversion in filth, you asa as a consumer, you want to
be warned that this isn't coming fromDisney. So you can't pretend that your
(06:11):
modification or your version of it camefrom Disney. Now you're not If you
just take the whole movie and releaseit on a DVD. I think that
I don't know how you make moneydoing that, because a lot of people
will do that because you could justI mean, people do it all the
(06:32):
time. Public domain books like theBible, people sell people sell copies of
the Bible, and that's in thepublic domain. So but actually not all
versions of the public domain of theBible are in the public domain. It's
kind of the same thing if yourtranslation and your organization of it might have
a copyright that is still in forceand you can't just you know, copy
(06:53):
it willy nilly, So you stillgot to be careful. Can you make
it T shirt? Yeah, youcan make a Steamboat Willi T shirt.
You can take all the images onSteamboat Willie and make shirts out of them
or make coasters out of them.So that's you know, maybe kind of
a business if you may have youhave something clever. A lot of people
(07:14):
have something clever, clever product,but they don't want to license it.
They don't want to license anything fromDisney because Disney will you know, charge
too much or they have too manyrules about the quality and the juxtaposition of
Mickey and Minnie and whatever else yougot and your thing. So this is
(07:34):
a chance for some people to say, Okay, I'm gonna make a steamboat
Willie cars. You make a carthat look like steam you can make a
steamboat. Maybe you want to makea steamboat and you want to look like
steamboat Willie, and you want MickeyMouse and Mini Mouse all over it,
and you're gonna sell it to peoplewho love steamboat Willie. You didn't have
(07:55):
to pay a license to Disney becauseit's in the public domain. So let's
tell you that's a free one.You can go ahead and take my idea
to make steamboat Willy steamboats. Ifyou get rich off this, let me
live in your guest house. Hey, be careful, because it doesn't It
doesn't take Disney much to just sendout letters to people and say we're gonna
(08:18):
file a lawsuit unless you take thisdown or you stop what you're doing because
we think it maybe hurts of thebrand. And then then you got to
go file an answer. You mayfile an anti slap motion and tell them
to go pound sand and they'll payfor your legal fees if that happens.
But you know it doesn't cost themmuch to try that and to send letters
(08:41):
and haul some people into court andsay you're doing it the wrong way,
you went too far, or youhurt our brand, or you made a
false designation. Of origin. That'sstill our trademark. Still you can't do
that, and then you got togo fight them. So we'll see what
happens. We will see what's happeningwith the traffic around La Joe Sclante Live
(09:03):
from Hollywood. Back in a moment, Joe Escalante Live from Hollywood. It's
by Hollywood, you mean Burbank.We are continuing with the business of show
business here on KiB and the boxoffice this weekend. Kind of an interesting
(09:24):
thing going on. Number one isWonka from Warner Brothers. It's done one
hundred and sixty four million in theUS right now, over three hundred million
worldwide, and it's been number onefor like three of the last four weeks
or four of the last five weeks. It opened a couple weeks before Christmas
(09:46):
and number one, then it wasnumber one again, and then it dipped
to number two when Aquaman came out, and then went were right up back
up to number one. And thatis due to some people say it's due
to more to the lack of competitionrather than it's so great, but I
thought it was pretty great. Numbertwo is Night Swim not doing well at
(10:09):
all, bad reviews. But ifyou remember Megan three didn't do that well
at the beginning, and then itjust kind of you know, also coming
from Blumhouse, and then it shotup. So that's helping Wonka that people
are saying, like I heard NightSwim isn't very good. Let's go see
Wonka. I heard it was good. Aquaman on the Lost Kingdom, I
(10:33):
heard it wasn't good. It's numberthree and number four is Migration. Remember
this cartoon was written by Michael White, so it's worth seeing anyone but you.
Number five, I can't do it. Boys in the Boat. Number
(10:54):
six heard it's good, the ColoredPurple. Number seven, number eight,
Iron Claw, which I saw andliked. Number nine Ferrari, which I
saw and liked. Number ten PoorThings. Haven't seen it, but it's
holding pretty strong. At number tenit's the Emma Stone movie. And number
(11:15):
eleven Hunger Games for honorable mention.Godzilla still hanging in there at number twelve.
Anyway, that my Godzilla. Idon't know if I left it off
my top ten last week when Idid my top ten, but it's definitely
in my top ten. I wouldsay it's my top five of the movie.
Now. Ferrari, which I sawon New Year's Day. It's pretty
(11:41):
good. Adam Driver plays Enzo Ferrari, who's trying to save the Ferrari Company
from bankruptcy by entering this team inthis thousand mile race, and it's you
know, the drama. It's arace movie. But there is the best
car crash scene I've ever seen.I would say it's in best car crashing
(12:05):
in movie history. It's you can'tbelieve what you're seeing. What happens if
a car plunges into a group ofpeople at a race at full speed,
Well, you're gonna see it.You're gonna find out whoa I mean,
(12:26):
a lot of the bodies are flying. There's a lot of bodies flying in
this movie. So I would watchit just for the car crashes. And
Penelope Cruise is great, animal driversgreat. Some people in the movie don't
have an accent that matches the others, but that's, you know, how
these things usually go. Who cares? Now, Iron Claw? I think
(12:52):
I talked about that last week.It's still worth seeing. It's not a
miracle, but it's pretty damn good. Interesting subject we talked about last week.
The wrestling. Wrestling is you knowthey boil wrestling down to just the
good parts so you don't have towatch the bad parts. What movies are
coming up? People are very excitedabout the bee Keeper and Mean Girls.
(13:16):
Now b Keeper and Mean Girls shouldknock Wonka off the top spot, but
maybe not, and Wonka holds onagain. Very strange. What else is
everyone excited about? I saw atrailer for Dune part two. This looks
(13:39):
kind of boring. Okay, let'sget back to the legal action in town.
Disney, as we talked about inthe last segment, has lost its
battle to keep all their copyrights outof the public domain for all time.
Not that they were really trying that, but you know, they didn't want
(14:01):
the steamboat Willie to Phone then thepublic domain and who would But why do
we have a public domain? Wehave a public domain because the society has
decided that people have a right tothe income from their creations. But after
a while they fall into the publicdomain so everybody can use them, because
(14:22):
we kind of don't want to gochasing down you know, the airs,
and the airs of airs come backand suing everybody for something they didn't even
create and their parents didn't even create. We don't need to do that.
It's fair for things to go intothe public domain, so they do.
(14:43):
But Disney had another loss copyright caselast week, which was an infringement case.
And this is kind of interesting becausethe legal principle is a little bit
scary. Someone's got a software andthey use the software to make animation,
like in the Beauty and the Beastmovie. So this has been going on
(15:03):
for a long time because that's anold movie. So Beauty and the Beast.
Now who does all this animation?Does Disney do it all? Do
they do all the effects? Now? They hire other companies to do lots
of it, you know, likethe short, small, nimble companies that
have new technologies. Then they're verygood at new softwares. And you know,
they go around and look at thesecompanies and they go, look what
(15:24):
these guys are doing. Man,that's that's pretty good. Let's well,
let's hire them and have them dothis or that on our next film.
Because it's not like there's full timeanimators working at Disney all the time.
Now they're contracting them per job.For the most part. There's a company
called there was a software called MovaContour, okay, and it's some software
(15:54):
that some guy named Rearden owned andhe noticed I guess that people were using
his software in movies and they weren'tpaying them. You know, it's like,
yeah, they were probably using wordperfect too, Microsoft word. But
so think of it like that,you wrote this movie with Microsoft word and
(16:15):
I invented Microsoft word. I wantmy money. So they he goes after
the company that took the company thattook his his software without using it.
(16:36):
But you know, why sue them? Why not show? Why not sue
Disney because it's Disney's the one thatmade all the money. So Disney said,
why are you talking to us?Those guys we hire them. They
say they can do this. Theyuse the software, we assume or they
(16:56):
even told us they have the rightto use this software they have a proper
license. It turns out they didn'thave a proper license. And it's a
complicated thing too, that kind ofchain of title. It wasn't clear who
owned that, whether they owned itor not, whether they bought it from
the right person or whatever. Butthey were using it, and the court
(17:17):
found that they didn't have a properlicense, and that Disney knew or should
have known, that they didn't havea proper license. So they are vicariously
liable and must pay the original guywho owns the software or created the software
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.Now for Disney, it's not that much,
(17:40):
you know, but they were fightingit because they were asking for one
hundred million, and the court found, which it often does that. Yeah,
it happened, but it's not amillion dollars worth of damages. It's
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.Like maybe if they would have licensed it,
that's what they want would have madeif it did have a proper license,
(18:00):
And since they're not, it's nota willful infringement, the penalties are
going to be less. So threehundred and fifty thousand dollars payable to the
guy who probably spent more than thaton lawyers in this process. Okay,
taking a break. Joe Scalante livefrom Hollywood, Joe Ascolouranti. Here's my
(18:42):
lawyer, Joe Escalante, live fromHollywood. If by Hollywood you mean we're
a bank here with two hours ofthe business end of show business, I've
got I got a good one here. This is a reality show called Love
Is Blind and they're being sued andthey're sue and there is just a legal
battle that was private, but it'sstarting to spill out in public. The
(19:07):
show is on Netflix, and itinvolves setting two people up and seeing if
they can fall in love without everseeing each other. And then I guess
they get to see each other,and then we see if they're superficial or
not whether they that's how I wantto think, like a burn victim,
(19:29):
And I mean, really, you'regonna I don't know, it seems like
the bottom. We've reached a newbottom in reality programming. But now I
know Netflix has a bit of aproblem on their hands because one of the
contestants is claiming serious abuse suffered aspart of the show. Being locked in
(19:59):
a hotel room or fun is takenaway and she's forced to spend time alone
with some guy named Carter Wall wholanded a spot in the series despite being
allegedly broke, jobless, homeless,violent, and addicted to amphetamines and alcohol.
(20:19):
That sounds pretty bad, so theydidn't vet this guy good enough.
She says all these things about himand once filming rapped. The woman her
name is Renee Poach, filming rapsand she ends her relationship with this guy.
(20:40):
But she made a few public remarksabout Love's blind nightmare because she just
thought it was a nightmare. Butyou know, you know, these people
have to sign non disclosure agreements sothat they can't talk about what happened behind
the scenes without running a foul ofthis non disclosure agreement. As a result,
(21:06):
the company they're called Delirium. Deliriuminitiated a private arbitration against Poach for
purportedly violating her non disclosure agreement.Now arbitration wy arbitration. It's probably in
the agreement, says we go toarbitration to avoid the messy quence, just
(21:26):
get a verdict quicker by hiring aarbitrator. They were asking for four million
dollars because she broke it's probably aliquidated damage's clause. It's probably in there,
and says if you do this,you agree now that it's going to
be four million dollars if you violatethis agreement in this way, and that's
(21:48):
a predetermined amount. So if youdo it, we don't have to prove
damages. You pay up four million, and you're signing it right here because
you want to be on the TVshow. So she earned eight thousand dollars
from her whole appearance, and theywant four million dollars out of her.
So think about that. She saysshe's traumatized by the event. They say,
you know, they deny it.They say she signed the not disclosure
(22:14):
anyway, so she can't talk aboutit. Her lawyer, he's like some
Hollywood heavyweights, Mark Garrigos and BrianFriedman, the lawyers. She says,
these so called reality TV contracts arein reality illegal. They're designed for an
(22:36):
illegal purpose and are void as amatter of law. That's his opinion.
But if she's signing something that is, you know, it'll be like she
has a First Amendment right to speak, but she also has a right to
(22:56):
contract to get the money and geton the show. She signed a contract.
She wanted to sign that contract becauseshe wanted to get on that show.
So now to come back later andsay that contract is illegal because it
prevents her from speaking. Okay,you got a lot to that's a heavy
burden to overcome, assigned NDA,especially if it has the liquidated damages on
(23:22):
that. But what a gross showanyway, So we have a couple men
behaving badly. Stories for you rightnow, Motley crue. I think we
might have talked about that before.He goes up in a helicopter and he
he is fondling some girl, makingher perform sex acts on him, all
(23:44):
him and the pilot, like justhim and a pilot and they get some
young girl and ah. So youknow, these are just allegations, nothing
proved, but that's what they're that'swhat he's fighting right now. And I'll
tell you I've said this before.Once you take the me too movement into
rock and roll, it's just likeit's almost like shooting pigs in a barrel?
(24:07):
Is that what it is? Afish in a barrel? Sorry?
And then Nigel Lithgow Nigel Lithgow avery successful producer of the American Idol show
and evidently Paula Abdul says he cameafter her and used his power. That's
(24:29):
basically her boss on the show,and she used he used his power to
intimidate her into getting nasty with him. Now, she says she didn't do
it, but he was still tryingto get it done. Now. Aside
(24:51):
from the allegations of assault, Paulaalso claims that lithgowt taunted her by calling
her at some point to say theyshould celebrate because it has been seven years
and the statute of limitations had run. That was him referring to what had
happened more than seven years earlier.You want to say that and Vin Diesel.
(25:18):
Vin Diesel has some former assistant isaccusing him of sexually assaulting her in
an Atlanta hotel room in twenty ten. Her name is Asta Johnson, and
the suit alleges violations including hostile workenvironment, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination
and wrongful termination, and sexual battery. Oh look, who's here again,
(25:44):
Attorney Brian Friedman. This is thefirst he's representing Diesel. Actually, this
is the first he's ever heard aboutthis more than thirteen year old claim.
And purportedly the woman only worked forhim for nine days and there is clear
evidence which completely refruits these outlandish allegations. That's what Brian Friedman says. The
(26:10):
lawsuit describes the plaintiff, her nameis Jonason, as a dedicated TV and
film professional who had worked in thefilm industry for a decade when the company
One Race hired her. That's beenDiesel's production company. This is September of
twenty ten to work directly for dieselOr job duties included organizing Potter parties and
(26:30):
staying close to Diesel while he wasat parties and without his longtime girlfriend,
with whom he has children. Ashe explained it, it would provide him
with cover if he was photographed withanother woman. I don't know what really
that means, but that's what shesaid. Why he wanted her next to
him a lot. So they're goingto parties together and her job is to
(26:53):
be right next to him, So, you know, not a good situation.
The suit alleges that in September oftwenty ten, Diesel went to his
hotel suite after drinking at a cluband was joined by several of the hostesses
and a security guard, and Jonasonsays she had not been drinking. At
(27:14):
some point, Jonason ends up inVin Diesel's bedroom to do something work related
evidently. Anyways, I'm not goingto go into all the details. It
just looks like things got out ofcontrol, and then they fired her after
she complained about it. And sonow this is where we're at with Vin
Diesel. I'm going to just cutit there before someone else is accused of
(27:37):
raping someone else and I have toread about it. This is Joe Scalante,
leaving you with just a taste ofthe greatest song ever written. We'll
see you next week.
Joe wesco Lante live from Hollywood.If by Hollywood you mean Burbank. We
are across the street from a Wienerschnitzel. Here with two hours of the business,
end of show business, like wedo every Sunday right here on k
EIB eleven fifty on your AM dial. And the big news this week,
Mickey Mouse falling into the public domainfinally. Now, this is something everybody
(00:32):
knew was coming, and Disney actuallytried to stop it from happening. In
nineteen seventy six, the copyrights wereextended, and we they extend these in
the Congress. There's a lot oflobbying from big studios, especially Disney,
that didn't want Mickey Mouse falling intothe public domain because it's just kind of
(00:55):
an unknown what would happen. Butnow we kind of know what happens because
and then they tried in nineteen ninetyeight again they did. They had the
copyright term, the length that youcan get protection for a top copyright extended
twice and then there was just nomore that could do. No. At
(01:17):
some point, it's got to gointo the public domain. Now we know
what it's going to. What happensnow because we have this Winnie the Pooh
movie that was made when Winnie thePooh fell into the public domain. Parts
of Winnie the Pooh. Now,well, so what happens is someone makes
a really bad movie with Winnie thePooh in it, of an axe murder
(01:40):
or something like that. So theywere ready, and there's a couple of
these movies in the works. There'sa trailer for one now called Mickey's mouse
Trap, and it looks pretty badand it's got Okay, let me just
(02:00):
kind of tell you what is whatis in the public domain. It's not
all a Mickey mouse It's this cartooncalled Steamboat Willie, I think another one
of the silent version of another onecalled Plane Crazy. So Steamboat Willy.
You can take that movie now andyou could release it on a like Let's
(02:21):
say you owned a streamer. Youcould just put Steamboat Willi on there.
Find a copy somewhere. You mighthave to buy a copy off. Some
of that has a good copy.I don't know where you're going to get
it. But once you get one, like, they don't have to give
you a copy because it's in thepublic domain. So how are you going
to get a pristine high resolution digitalcopy of Steamboat Willie. Well, you're
(02:43):
not really You're going to be gettingone that's been copied off of something and
probably illegally. And then let's sayyou put that on your streamer. You
wouldn't have to pay the Walt DisneyCompany anything anymore, wouldn't even have to
give him credit. You could justshow it without credits and just say this
(03:07):
is a Steamboat Willie. Could changethe name of it, you can modify
it, you could colorize it,but only Steamboat Willie and then the plain
crazy thing. Can you make otherMickey Mouse things items and merchandise, No,
just Steamboat Willie. Can you takehim in the Wizard suit, Mickey
(03:30):
Mouse in the Wizard outfit, thewizards leaves. No, that's not in
the public domain. Only the SteamboatWillie and the Plane Crazy Mickey Mouse images
have fallen into the public domain.But every single frame of those cartoons is
fair game. Now you can,but you got to be careful that you're
(03:51):
not creating an association with Disney likethat you are presenting something, especially if
you make a derivative work out ofit. Usually you'd make a privative work
out of something and you copy partsof it, and you put it together
with something else, a mash upof something. What you've made is a
derivative work. The rights to thatderivative work still rest with the original copyright
(04:13):
holder. There's not a lot youcan do with it. You guy still
got to get their permission to beable to exploit it, and here you
just don't. You wouldn't have togo to anybody to get permission because it's
already in the public domain. ButI would be careful, like I wouldn't
if I was Disney and I reallywanted to, you know, police this
(04:38):
and just keep people from going crazywith it. I would. I would
file awsuits. Someone put out this, it's putting out this film, Mickey's
Mickey Mouse, Mickey's mouse Trap.I might file and say, hey,
look, you don't have a trademarkon the Mickey Mouse. The trademark of
Mickey Mouse for films is still ownedby us. That's a trademark, So
(05:03):
you can't use Mickey Mouse as thetitle of your film. I don't know
if that would work, if thatwould do anything, but that's just kind
of what I would do. AndI would make them drag these people into
court and make them defend it.That's what I would do if I'm Disney.
I'm not Disney, and so I'mnot doing that. So don't get
mad at me for thinking of thesediabolical ideas. But if you were making
(05:25):
this and someone said you can't usethe word Mickey mouse in the title this,
guys would say, this is Mickey'smouse trap. Yeah, we think
it's. It is still a violationof our trademark, because trademarks are there
to protect the consumer, and theyprotect the consumer against what's called a false
designation of origin, and that itassures the customer that they know where it
(05:48):
came from. This is a WaltDisney product, meaning there's not going to
be any perversion or filth in it. But if it's a horror film and
there's perversion in filth, you asa as a consumer, you want to
be warned that this isn't coming fromDisney. So you can't pretend that your
(06:11):
modification or your version of it camefrom Disney. Now you're not If you
just take the whole movie and releaseit on a DVD. I think that
I don't know how you make moneydoing that, because a lot of people
will do that because you could justI mean, people do it all the
(06:32):
time. Public domain books like theBible, people sell people sell copies of
the Bible, and that's in thepublic domain. So but actually not all
versions of the public domain of theBible are in the public domain. It's
kind of the same thing if yourtranslation and your organization of it might have
a copyright that is still in forceand you can't just you know, copy
(06:53):
it willy nilly, So you stillgot to be careful. Can you make
it T shirt? Yeah, youcan make a Steamboat Willi T shirt.
You can take all the images onSteamboat Willie and make shirts out of them
or make coasters out of them.So that's you know, maybe kind of
a business if you may have youhave something clever. A lot of people
(07:14):
have something clever, clever product,but they don't want to license it.
They don't want to license anything fromDisney because Disney will you know, charge
too much or they have too manyrules about the quality and the juxtaposition of
Mickey and Minnie and whatever else yougot and your thing. So this is
(07:34):
a chance for some people to say, Okay, I'm gonna make a steamboat
Willie cars. You make a carthat look like steam you can make a
steamboat. Maybe you want to makea steamboat and you want to look like
steamboat Willie, and you want MickeyMouse and Mini Mouse all over it,
and you're gonna sell it to peoplewho love steamboat Willie. You didn't have
(07:55):
to pay a license to Disney becauseit's in the public domain. So let's
tell you that's a free one.You can go ahead and take my idea
to make steamboat Willy steamboats. Ifyou get rich off this, let me
live in your guest house. Hey, be careful, because it doesn't It
doesn't take Disney much to just sendout letters to people and say we're gonna
(08:18):
file a lawsuit unless you take thisdown or you stop what you're doing because
we think it maybe hurts of thebrand. And then then you got to
go file an answer. You mayfile an anti slap motion and tell them
to go pound sand and they'll payfor your legal fees if that happens.
But you know it doesn't cost themmuch to try that and to send letters
(08:41):
and haul some people into court andsay you're doing it the wrong way,
you went too far, or youhurt our brand, or you made a
false designation. Of origin. That'sstill our trademark. Still you can't do
that, and then you got togo fight them. So we'll see what
happens. We will see what's happeningwith the traffic around La Joe Sclante Live
(09:03):
from Hollywood. Back in a moment, Joe Escalante Live from Hollywood. It's
by Hollywood, you mean Burbank.We are continuing with the business of show
business here on KiB and the boxoffice this weekend. Kind of an interesting
(09:24):
thing going on. Number one isWonka from Warner Brothers. It's done one
hundred and sixty four million in theUS right now, over three hundred million
worldwide, and it's been number onefor like three of the last four weeks
or four of the last five weeks. It opened a couple weeks before Christmas
(09:46):
and number one, then it wasnumber one again, and then it dipped
to number two when Aquaman came out, and then went were right up back
up to number one. And thatis due to some people say it's due
to more to the lack of competitionrather than it's so great, but I
thought it was pretty great. Numbertwo is Night Swim not doing well at
(10:09):
all, bad reviews. But ifyou remember Megan three didn't do that well
at the beginning, and then itjust kind of you know, also coming
from Blumhouse, and then it shotup. So that's helping Wonka that people
are saying, like I heard NightSwim isn't very good. Let's go see
Wonka. I heard it was good. Aquaman on the Lost Kingdom, I
(10:33):
heard it wasn't good. It's numberthree and number four is Migration. Remember
this cartoon was written by Michael White, so it's worth seeing anyone but you.
Number five, I can't do it. Boys in the Boat. Number
(10:54):
six heard it's good, the ColoredPurple. Number seven, number eight,
Iron Claw, which I saw andliked. Number nine Ferrari, which I
saw and liked. Number ten PoorThings. Haven't seen it, but it's
holding pretty strong. At number tenit's the Emma Stone movie. And number
(11:15):
eleven Hunger Games for honorable mention.Godzilla still hanging in there at number twelve.
Anyway, that my Godzilla. Idon't know if I left it off
my top ten last week when Idid my top ten, but it's definitely
in my top ten. I wouldsay it's my top five of the movie.
Now. Ferrari, which I sawon New Year's Day. It's pretty
(11:41):
good. Adam Driver plays Enzo Ferrari, who's trying to save the Ferrari Company
from bankruptcy by entering this team inthis thousand mile race, and it's you
know, the drama. It's arace movie. But there is the best
car crash scene I've ever seen.I would say it's in best car crashing
(12:05):
in movie history. It's you can'tbelieve what you're seeing. What happens if
a car plunges into a group ofpeople at a race at full speed,
Well, you're gonna see it.You're gonna find out whoa I mean,
(12:26):
a lot of the bodies are flying. There's a lot of bodies flying in
this movie. So I would watchit just for the car crashes. And
Penelope Cruise is great, animal driversgreat. Some people in the movie don't
have an accent that matches the others, but that's, you know, how
these things usually go. Who cares? Now, Iron Claw? I think
(12:52):
I talked about that last week.It's still worth seeing. It's not a
miracle, but it's pretty damn good. Interesting subject we talked about last week.
The wrestling. Wrestling is you knowthey boil wrestling down to just the
good parts so you don't have towatch the bad parts. What movies are
coming up? People are very excitedabout the bee Keeper and Mean Girls.
(13:16):
Now b Keeper and Mean Girls shouldknock Wonka off the top spot, but
maybe not, and Wonka holds onagain. Very strange. What else is
everyone excited about? I saw atrailer for Dune part two. This looks
(13:39):
kind of boring. Okay, let'sget back to the legal action in town.
Disney, as we talked about inthe last segment, has lost its
battle to keep all their copyrights outof the public domain for all time.
Not that they were really trying that, but you know, they didn't want
(14:01):
the steamboat Willie to Phone then thepublic domain and who would But why do
we have a public domain? Wehave a public domain because the society has
decided that people have a right tothe income from their creations. But after
a while they fall into the publicdomain so everybody can use them, because
(14:22):
we kind of don't want to gochasing down you know, the airs,
and the airs of airs come backand suing everybody for something they didn't even
create and their parents didn't even create. We don't need to do that.
It's fair for things to go intothe public domain, so they do.
(14:43):
But Disney had another loss copyright caselast week, which was an infringement case.
And this is kind of interesting becausethe legal principle is a little bit
scary. Someone's got a software andthey use the software to make animation,
like in the Beauty and the Beastmovie. So this has been going on
(15:03):
for a long time because that's anold movie. So Beauty and the Beast.
Now who does all this animation?Does Disney do it all? Do
they do all the effects? Now? They hire other companies to do lots
of it, you know, likethe short, small, nimble companies that
have new technologies. Then they're verygood at new softwares. And you know,
they go around and look at thesecompanies and they go, look what
(15:24):
these guys are doing. Man,that's that's pretty good. Let's well,
let's hire them and have them dothis or that on our next film.
Because it's not like there's full timeanimators working at Disney all the time.
Now they're contracting them per job.For the most part. There's a company
called there was a software called MovaContour, okay, and it's some software
(15:54):
that some guy named Rearden owned andhe noticed I guess that people were using
his software in movies and they weren'tpaying them. You know, it's like,
yeah, they were probably using wordperfect too, Microsoft word. But
so think of it like that,you wrote this movie with Microsoft word and
(16:15):
I invented Microsoft word. I wantmy money. So they he goes after
the company that took the company thattook his his software without using it.
(16:36):
But you know, why sue them? Why not show? Why not sue
Disney because it's Disney's the one thatmade all the money. So Disney said,
why are you talking to us?Those guys we hire them. They
say they can do this. Theyuse the software, we assume or they
(16:56):
even told us they have the rightto use this software they have a proper
license. It turns out they didn'thave a proper license. And it's a
complicated thing too, that kind ofchain of title. It wasn't clear who
owned that, whether they owned itor not, whether they bought it from
the right person or whatever. Butthey were using it, and the court
(17:17):
found that they didn't have a properlicense, and that Disney knew or should
have known, that they didn't havea proper license. So they are vicariously
liable and must pay the original guywho owns the software or created the software
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.Now for Disney, it's not that much,
(17:40):
you know, but they were fightingit because they were asking for one
hundred million, and the court found, which it often does that. Yeah,
it happened, but it's not amillion dollars worth of damages. It's
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.Like maybe if they would have licensed it,
that's what they want would have madeif it did have a proper license,
(18:00):
And since they're not, it's nota willful infringement, the penalties are
going to be less. So threehundred and fifty thousand dollars payable to the
guy who probably spent more than thaton lawyers in this process. Okay,
taking a break. Joe Scalante livefrom Hollywood, Joe Ascolouranti. Here's my
(18:42):
lawyer, Joe Escalante, live fromHollywood. If by Hollywood you mean we're
a bank here with two hours ofthe business end of show business, I've
got I got a good one here. This is a reality show called Love
Is Blind and they're being sued andthey're sue and there is just a legal
battle that was private, but it'sstarting to spill out in public. The
(19:07):
show is on Netflix, and itinvolves setting two people up and seeing if
they can fall in love without everseeing each other. And then I guess
they get to see each other,and then we see if they're superficial or
not whether they that's how I wantto think, like a burn victim,
(19:29):
And I mean, really, you'regonna I don't know, it seems like
the bottom. We've reached a newbottom in reality programming. But now I
know Netflix has a bit of aproblem on their hands because one of the
contestants is claiming serious abuse suffered aspart of the show. Being locked in
(19:59):
a hotel room or fun is takenaway and she's forced to spend time alone
with some guy named Carter Wall wholanded a spot in the series despite being
allegedly broke, jobless, homeless,violent, and addicted to amphetamines and alcohol.
(20:19):
That sounds pretty bad, so theydidn't vet this guy good enough.
She says all these things about himand once filming rapped. The woman her
name is Renee Poach, filming rapsand she ends her relationship with this guy.
(20:40):
But she made a few public remarksabout Love's blind nightmare because she just
thought it was a nightmare. Butyou know, you know, these people
have to sign non disclosure agreements sothat they can't talk about what happened behind
the scenes without running a foul ofthis non disclosure agreement. As a result,
(21:06):
the company they're called Delirium. Deliriuminitiated a private arbitration against Poach for
purportedly violating her non disclosure agreement.Now arbitration wy arbitration. It's probably in
the agreement, says we go toarbitration to avoid the messy quence, just
(21:26):
get a verdict quicker by hiring aarbitrator. They were asking for four million
dollars because she broke it's probably aliquidated damage's clause. It's probably in there,
and says if you do this,you agree now that it's going to
be four million dollars if you violatethis agreement in this way, and that's
(21:48):
a predetermined amount. So if youdo it, we don't have to prove
damages. You pay up four million, and you're signing it right here because
you want to be on the TVshow. So she earned eight thousand dollars
from her whole appearance, and theywant four million dollars out of her.
So think about that. She saysshe's traumatized by the event. They say,
you know, they deny it.They say she signed the not disclosure
(22:14):
anyway, so she can't talk aboutit. Her lawyer, he's like some
Hollywood heavyweights, Mark Garrigos and BrianFriedman, the lawyers. She says,
these so called reality TV contracts arein reality illegal. They're designed for an
(22:36):
illegal purpose and are void as amatter of law. That's his opinion.
But if she's signing something that is, you know, it'll be like she
has a First Amendment right to speak, but she also has a right to
(22:56):
contract to get the money and geton the show. She signed a contract.
She wanted to sign that contract becauseshe wanted to get on that show.
So now to come back later andsay that contract is illegal because it
prevents her from speaking. Okay,you got a lot to that's a heavy
burden to overcome, assigned NDA,especially if it has the liquidated damages on
(23:22):
that. But what a gross showanyway, So we have a couple men
behaving badly. Stories for you rightnow, Motley crue. I think we
might have talked about that before.He goes up in a helicopter and he
he is fondling some girl, makingher perform sex acts on him, all
(23:44):
him and the pilot, like justhim and a pilot and they get some
young girl and ah. So youknow, these are just allegations, nothing
proved, but that's what they're that'swhat he's fighting right now. And I'll
tell you I've said this before.Once you take the me too movement into
rock and roll, it's just likeit's almost like shooting pigs in a barrel?
(24:07):
Is that what it is? Afish in a barrel? Sorry?
And then Nigel Lithgow Nigel Lithgow avery successful producer of the American Idol show
and evidently Paula Abdul says he cameafter her and used his power. That's
(24:29):
basically her boss on the show,and she used he used his power to
intimidate her into getting nasty with him. Now, she says she didn't do
it, but he was still tryingto get it done. Now. Aside
(24:51):
from the allegations of assault, Paulaalso claims that lithgowt taunted her by calling
her at some point to say theyshould celebrate because it has been seven years
and the statute of limitations had run. That was him referring to what had
happened more than seven years earlier.You want to say that and Vin Diesel.
(25:18):
Vin Diesel has some former assistant isaccusing him of sexually assaulting her in
an Atlanta hotel room in twenty ten. Her name is Asta Johnson, and
the suit alleges violations including hostile workenvironment, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination
and wrongful termination, and sexual battery. Oh look, who's here again,
(25:44):
Attorney Brian Friedman. This is thefirst he's representing Diesel. Actually, this
is the first he's ever heard aboutthis more than thirteen year old claim.
And purportedly the woman only worked forhim for nine days and there is clear
evidence which completely refruits these outlandish allegations. That's what Brian Friedman says. The
(26:10):
lawsuit describes the plaintiff, her nameis Jonason, as a dedicated TV and
film professional who had worked in thefilm industry for a decade when the company
One Race hired her. That's beenDiesel's production company. This is September of
twenty ten to work directly for dieselOr job duties included organizing Potter parties and
(26:30):
staying close to Diesel while he wasat parties and without his longtime girlfriend,
with whom he has children. Ashe explained it, it would provide him
with cover if he was photographed withanother woman. I don't know what really
that means, but that's what shesaid. Why he wanted her next to
him a lot. So they're goingto parties together and her job is to
(26:53):
be right next to him, So, you know, not a good situation.
The suit alleges that in September oftwenty ten, Diesel went to his
hotel suite after drinking at a cluband was joined by several of the hostesses
and a security guard, and Jonasonsays she had not been drinking. At
(27:14):
some point, Jonason ends up inVin Diesel's bedroom to do something work related
evidently. Anyways, I'm not goingto go into all the details. It
just looks like things got out ofcontrol, and then they fired her after
she complained about it. And sonow this is where we're at with Vin
Diesel. I'm going to just cutit there before someone else is accused of
(27:37):
raping someone else and I have toread about it. This is Joe Scalante,
leaving you with just a taste ofthe greatest song ever written. We'll
see you next week.
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