UPDATED! Defamation and The Donald: How To CYA When Standing Up To A World-Class Bully

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There’s a difference between a dispassionate telling of the facts, and a heated accusation of wrongdoing. The more your remarks hew towards the latter, the more likely you veer into defamation territory, which robs you of the high road and puts you in danger of getting sued yourself. The last thing you want, as a victim of copyright infringement or breach of contract, is to defend yourself against a defamation claim. And the more prominent they are, the less likely they are to feel bad for suing you. After all, they have a bottom line to maintain, don’t they? 

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Paramount Releases Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines, Shows Other Studios How To Interact With Fans

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Surely you’ve heard by now the story of the troubled fan film, Star Trek: Axanar. The film, which had earned over a million dollars from backers on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, was sued by Paramount for violating “innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes." While Star Trek fan films have been around forever (I was a Trekkie as a kid and remember seeing them a lot at meetings and conventions), Paramount was concerned about Axanar’s size and scale - high quality visual effects, name actors, feature-length runtime, etc. I guess they were concerned that a film of sufficient quality could impact not only the release of Star Trek Beyond, but its future slate of Trek films and spinoffs. 

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Forgettable Song Could Have Long-Term Negative Effects For Other Artists

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Forgettable Song Could Have Long-Term Negative Effects For Other Artists

You remember Blurred Lines right? It was the smash hit single of 2013 that simultaneously launched (for being catchy) and destroyed (for being rapey) Robin Thicke's career. Well, I'm here to report that this utterly forgettable pop song has now has earned an inauspicious spot in our culture because of a surprisingly foreboding jury decision that found against Thicke and his co-writers Pharrell Williams and Clifford "T.I." Harris, Jr. 

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Sony’s No Good Terrible Very Bad Year Just Demonstrated The Need For Copyright Reform

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Sony’s No Good Terrible Very Bad Year Just Demonstrated The Need For Copyright Reform

It’s really really really really really really really hard to avoid infringing on copyrights, even if you’re a big multi-national corporation. Sony should have known better, but there is just so much content out there - visual, musical, and otherwise - and the internet has made it tremendously easy to access all of it instantly and without much forethought.

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Ask Greg - The Facts As You See Them, or Why You Should Be Careful About Accusing Someone of Wrongdoing on Social Media

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Ask Greg - The Facts As You See Them, or Why You Should Be Careful About Accusing Someone of Wrongdoing on Social Media

I’ve always admired the usage of social media to rally support and sway public opinion, but mostly as an outsider. I've never advised any of my clients to do it and I think it would be a colossal mistake in all but the most deserving situations. 

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