I’m sure by drawing attention to it I’m essentially ensuring its demise–although, maybe not. Remember that six minute preview of The Dark Knight that’s been showing in front of IMAX prints of I Am Legend? The one that popped up on YouTube via camcorder bootleg and was promptly removed, causing the Guardian to make up a story about it having been “leaked” mistakenly? Um, it’s back, in the form of a new, better bootleg. Oddly, this one was posted three days ago–a lifetime for such a blatant copyright violation. Did the YouTube police take an extended holiday? Or has Warner Brothers decided to back off and let the blogs at it? Regardless, if you’re interested, you should probably watch it ASAP.
While Tom Cruise continued to abstain from publicizing his own politics on theLions For Lambs press tour, the film’s director and co-star Robert Redford “lash[ed] out against the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq” at a press conference in Rome yesterday. “We have lost lives, we’ve lost sacred freedoms, we’ve lost financial stability; we’ve lost our position of respect on the world stage,” said the sometime Sundance Kid.
“The world’s first user-generated movie” begins shooting this week in London. MySpace users picked the director and some of the stars; Ewan Bremner’s in it, too. Be very afraid.
I’m not sure exactly what “two-way plug-and-play technology” entails, but the MPAA thinks it puts their copyrights at risk, and they want the FCC to ban consumer electronics manufacturers from making and selling it.
Sometime last week, YouTube removed a trailer for a movie called Blue, Bunny, in response to a request from Vincent Gallo, who apparently complained that the clip violates his copyright on his directorial effort, The Brown Bunny. As you are probably aware, The Brown Bunny is an experimental art film in which Chloe Sevingy famously administers real live oral sex on the fearless director himself. Blue, Bunny is apparently a sunny comedy that takes place on the set of an independent film in which the director/lead actor attempts to convince his blonde starlet that filming her administering real live oral sex on the fearless director is, in fact, necessary.
But aside from the obvious inspiration for its parody, Blue doesn’t look much like Brown at all, nor does it directly reference Vincent Gallo. And perhaps rightly, its makers are somewhat puzzled as to how/why Gallo was able to justify its removal from YouTube. “Frankly, we’re stunned that the trailer tickled Gallo’s radar,” reads a blurb on Blue, Bunny’s website. “Surely a celebrity of his stature doesn’t have the time to scan the internet for every obscure reference to his name.”
It’s also not entirely clear which trailer Gallo demanded YouTube remove. Two are currently available on MySpace. The first barely explicates its narrative connection to The Brown Bunny before the title appears. The second trailer, embedded above, is a little more explicit, but it also directly references the copyright act protecting fair use, indicating that it might have been put together in response to Gallo.
Regardless: not only does Gallo come out of this looking like a trigger-happy ass, but is YouTube so lawsuit-scared that they’re now removing every clip they get a complaint on without bothering to consider actionable validity? You be the judge.
While Tom Cruise continued to abstain from publicizing his own politics on the Lions For Lambs press tour, the film’s director and co-star Robert Redford “lash[ed] out against the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq” at a press conference in Rome yesterday. “We have lost lives, we’ve lost sacred freedoms, we’ve lost financial stability; we’ve lost our position of respect on the world stage,” said the sometime Sundance Kid. 
