With the fairly large number of lawsuits and potential lawsuits related to the "Borat" movie, it has made me start thinking if we're going to see this as part of the remix and mashup world that user-generated content on the Internet is becoming.
I bring it up in the context of Borat because the way it was made has a lot of similarities with the way amateur content is made for the Internet.
Even a guy that was filmed for the movie, but not included in it, sued the creators because the footage ended up on the Internet.
A number of people suing claim what they thought they were partaking in, wasn't what was being communicated by the producers and directors. That's another possibility where people could be sued: mashing up a person's picture or image, and presenting them in an unfavorable light.
It seems in the past that this hasn't been sued with too much success, as courts tend to dismiss the cases, still, if a small number of cases are won, or people want to wear you out, they could file an endless stream of lawsuits to frustrate and tie you up.
I think lawyers and opportunists are going to put a lot of effort into finding ways to make some money off of cases based on user-generated content. Borat may be a trial balloon to see what does and does not work before lawyers really start pursuing it.
It would be hard to believe that it won't be attempted at a minimum, and entered into wholeheartedly if some cases happen to be successfully litigated.
We should keep an eye on what's happening in these areas while we go ahead. I think there will start to be more lawsuits in this particular arena, if for no other reason than to find out if it can be a new revenue stream for lawyers.
I think the lawsuits against Borat may possibly be a strategy to try to develop a precedent for other lawsuits in the future; especially in the mashup world of the Internet.
Comment Preview