Friday, April 25, 2008

Expelled filmmakers notified of Yoko Ono lawsuit

Isn't all publicity good publicity?

By John P. Meyer

Nothing if not opportunistic, the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed have taken the sour grapes hurled at them by John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono (and others) and are distilling them into a headier mixture.

According to a press release, Ms. Ono and her cohorts are suing Premise Media (the production firm behind the film) for their use of less than 15 seconds of the song, "Imagine," in the documentary, which ranked #10 at the box office among films opening in wide release nationally last week, grossing $2.97 million.

As stated in the release (distributed by the filmmakers), fair use doctrine allows the public to use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism. Executive Producer Logan Craft states: "While some may not like what we have to say or how we say it, we have the free speech right to do so - just as other political and social commentators have been doing for years."

The release goes on to state that "...the 'Imagine' clip was used as part of a social commentary in the exercise of free speech. The brief clip - consisting of a mere 10 words - was used to contrast the messages in the documentary and was not used as an endorsement of Expelled."

Frankly, it looks like the instigators of the lawsuit are playing right into the hands of the filmmakers, who're naturally (and in time-honored fashion) taking the approach that "all publicity is good publicity."

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