Wheat-dogg’s world
• • • • •

Four Superbowls ago, singer Janet Jackson had a “wardrobe malfunction” that exposed one breast for a microsecond on national TV. The FCC, responding to an Internet-fed viral protest, levied a huge fine — the largest ever — on CBS to punish it for degrading the morals of American society.

An appellate court today reversed the $550,000 fine, effectively telling the FCC to cool its jets.

The Philadelphia court based its decision on two factors, apparently.

First, it ruled that Jackson and fellow performer Justin Timberlake (who had grabbed the part of her costume that “malfunctioned”) were “independent contractors” and not CBS employees. Thus, the court ruled, CBS could not be held responsible for their actions.

Second, it sided with CBS’ opinion that the number of actual viewers protesting the boob flash could not be accurately determined. The FCC said in its brief that there had a record-setting 542,000 protests against the halftime (strip)show. But CBS in its brief noted that 85% of the protests were actually copies of a form letter prepared by single-interest groups.

Or to put it more simply, most of those 542,000 protesters probably weren’t even watching the Superbowl, so Janet’s split-second exposure could not possibly have scarred their tender sensibilities.

Unlike cable and satellite TV outlets, broadcasters like CBS that use the airwaves have to follow strict FCC programming guidelines. The rationale is that cable and sat-TV subscribers choose their programming by paying for it, but broadcast viewers have little control over what they see or hear on the TV.

The snippet lasted only a few seconds, and I’ll bet most viewers didn’t even notice the mistake.

It was during a CNN Special Investigation Report on food safety. The camera supposedly was trained on the Sun as it rises above the horizon. Diagonally. Toward the top left of the screen. In California.

Well, it cannot have possibly happened, not in the Northern Hemisphere anyway. Clearly the cinematographer was just running a sunset backwards to create a “sunrise,” a geographically wrong sunrise. Here’s why.

The Sun always rises in the east and sets in the west, no matter where you live, because the entire Earth rotates in the same direction. The path of the Sun across the sky, however, depends on your latitude, because the Earth is round.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, facing east, you will see the Sun rise over the horizon and follow a diagonal path toward the upper right (also known as the southern sky). At sunset, facing west, the Sun will slowly dive toward the horizon from the upper left (still the southern sky). The angle of that path relative to the horizon matches your latitude. (Where I live, that angle is about 38 degrees.) As you head north, that angle gets closer and closer to zero. So, during the Arctic summer the Sun cruises above the horizon, never setting.

Heading the other way, toward the equator, the angle of the Sun’s path increases to 90 degrees. At sunrise or sunset, the Sun drives straight up or down from the horizon.

OK, so I’m a little behind the times, but I just watched “Meet the Robinsons” on TV last night. Those of you more up-to-date with movies probably remember the motto of Cornelius Robinson, “Keep Moving Forward,” drawn from a quote from Walt Disney.

And so I got to wonder, what if we did not keep moving forward, as some members of our society would prefer? Where would be today?

The concept is the stuff of a myriad of science fiction novels, but let’s focus on just a few possibilities.

Nicolaus Copernicus, a Catholic cleric, on his own poked his nose into the organizations of the solar system. At the time, the prevailing belief (and church dogma) was that the Earth stood at the center of everything — Moon, Sun, planets, stars. This paradigm (there, I used Thomas Kuhn’s terminology) dictated that astrologers/astronomers had to undertake a frightening number of calculations to predict the locations of celestial objects in the sky.

By Copernicus’ time, those calculations were not all that accurate. Copernicus painstakingly measured the positions of celestial objects, and undertook to recalculate their motions. In the process, he apparently realized that life would be so much easier if the Sun was at the center, and not the Earth. While it did not make the calculations easier, at least it made them less exhausting.

Well, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting lots of money. Working as a non-union extra earns you about $7 a hour. I did get time-and-a-half for the overtime, but still the pay didn’t even cover gas and lodging in Nashville.

I am not upset. In fact, working as an extra in the next Hannah Montana movie (to be released next May) was an educational experience, if not a lucrative one. Ideally, you would have to be a local resident (which most of my co-workers are) to justify even taking the job.

Union extras get paid more, but to become a member of the Screen Actors Guild you have to have three separate speaking roles to qualify. A speaking role apparently means you say at least one line of dialog. Apparently, yelling “Hey, Hannah!” doesn’t count.

John Lennon’s heirs have lost their copyright infringement case against the makers of the film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. A federal judge ruled today that the movie can legally use a snippet of Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” without express permission from the copyright holders.

The decision clears the way for Expelled’s creators and marketers to distribute the film in Canada in time for a June 6 opening, and to market DVDs in the fall. The film needs the added revenue boost; it’s bombing in the US.

On April 22, Yoko Ono Lennon, her husband’s two sons, and his publisher, EMI Blackwood, filed a copyright infringement suit in US District Court in Manhattan, claiming that Premise Media — the film’s creator — had used a part of “Imagine” without their permission. The heirs asked for an immediate suspension of showing the film anywhere, recall of all existing copies and at least $75,000 in damages.

Premise Media, meanwhile, contended its use of the song was within the “fair use” doctrine of US copyright law. The Fair Use Project of the Stanford Law School then announced it would defend Premise and the other defendants in court.

Judge Sidney Stein ruled in favor of Premise Media, saying the use of “Imagine” in the film was legal.

Opening April 18 in 1,052 theaters nationwide, Expelled’s theater count has shrunk to a mere 83 theaters, and its daily gross receipts have sunk below $20,000. It will soon probably drop out of first-run theaters altogether.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge has promised a fast decision in a lawsuit brought by Yoko Ono to get the song Imagine taken out of a movie challenging the concept of Darwinian evolution.

A lawyer for the movie’s distributors has warned that the litigation could wreck the movie’s political message by preventing it from impacting viewers in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential campaign.

The movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, features Ben Stein challenging Darwinian theories and suggesting life could have originated through intelligent design. About 20 to 30 seconds of the song are played in the movie.

Ono has accused the movie’s producers of infringing the song’s copyrights by using it without her permission, giving the impression that the Lennon family had authorized it.

US District Judge Sidney Stein’s ruling will settle whether the producers of the film can release it to Canadian theaters and to DVD as planned. The Canadian premiere is scheduled for June 6, according to Premise Media’s attorney Anthony Falzone. DVD rights have to be finalized by the end of this month for an October release, he said.

As for the political impact of the film, this decision will have little effect. The movie is a dog. It has been losing audiences and theaters steadily since it opened April 18, despite all the publicity — good or bad — about it. If the producers of this film think it has any political impact, they’re dreaming.

A New York state judge heard Premise Media’s arguments yesterday against a preliminary injunction barring Premise Media and its associates from distributing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed further. There’s no word yet on the judge’s decision, which could mean he is carefully mulling the matter over.

The suit is only part of the movie’s legal woes, stemming from its use of a short clip of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.” The producers failed to obtain permission to use the song, and Lennon’s heirs and publisher are crying foul.

Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono Lennon, his two sons, and EMI Blackwood filed a copyright infringement suit April 22 in US District Court in Manhattan demanding at least $75,000 in damages, a complete recall of the existing version of the movie, now playing in about 200 theaters, and an injunction against further distribution of the movie.

EMI Blackwood and Capitol Records followed that suit up with another in state court, demanding a preliminary injunction against further distribution of the movie.

There were hearings yesterday in both the federal and state cases. In the state case, Judge Richard Lowe stayed a temporary restraining order issued April 30 barring further distribution of the movie until he rules on the preliminary injunction issue. There’s no word yet on the federal case, brought by Yoko and Lennon’s sons.

While its lawyers haggle in court about copyright issues, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed continues its inevitable decline into theatrical obscurity. The anti-evolution “blockbuster” pulled in gross box office receipts this weekend of only $102,690, and the number of theaters carrying the flick is now down to 210.

The movie opened April 18 with a great deal of hullabaloo in 1,052 theaters and pulled in an impressive (for a schlockumentary) box office receipts of $2.97 million. Its receipts and theater count have dropped precipitously since then, despite the predictions of its creators that it would be a box-office smash.

Instead it will probably fade into DVD obscurity, once certain legal problems are resolved. Currently, the makers of the film are under a court order not to distribute the flick any further while a copyright infringement suit is settled.

Premise Media, the creator of the movie, licensed several songs, but failed to obtain permission from the copyright holders of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” A short section of the song is used as a foil to suggest that “Darwinism” inevitably leads to atheism.

Lennon’s family and publisher filed suit against Premise Media and its associates April 24 alleging copyright and trademark infringement, asking for at least $75,000 in damages and the immediate withdrawal of the movie in its present form from all theaters. A few days later, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing further distribution of Expelled, including DVD releases.

So why did Stanford Law’s Fair Use Project decide to defend the makers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in a copyright infringement lawsuit? To protect their free speech rights, the project’s executive director said yesterday in his blog.

The legal tussle revolves around the movie’s use of part of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” to suggest how “Darwinism” might lead to atheism. Reports vary as to the length of the clip, from 10 to 25 seconds, but in any event the copyright holders to the song were not amused.

Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono Lennon, and sons, Sean and Julian, along with his publisher, EMI Blackwood Publishing, filed a copyright and trademark infringement suit April 22 in US District Court in Manhattan, demanding the current version of the film be pulled from theaters and that further distribution of the film be barred. They also asked for at least $75,000 in damages.

Until he hears both sides of the case next Monday, District Court Judge Sidney Stein issued a temporary restraining order April 30 preventing Expelled’s makers from distributing the movie to any more theaters or in DVD form. His order did not affect the movie’s screenings (dwindling as we speak) already in place.

EMI apparently also filed a similar suit in NY state court, though I do not have those details yet.

Premise Media, the producers of the anti-evolution film, contends that its use of the Lennon clip was permissible under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law, which gives critics and commentators some leeway in quoting copyrighted material.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed continued to lose box-office share over the weekend, pulling in gross receipts that were half what it pulled in the weekend before. Meanwhile, more than 200 theaters dropped the anti-evolution flick from the line-ups.

Box Office Mojo estimates the movie had weekend gross box receipts of $302,000 for the 402 theaters still screening it. Expelled opened April 18 in 1,052 locations and pulled in almost $3 million its first weekend.

Since then, weekend receipts have dropped by about half each week. Total gross receipts are now estimated to be $7.2 million.