Law and Movies

The film industry has been through several changes in every aspect, technological, artistic, in the distribution and of course legal. Throughout time there have been several legal cases that directly affected the course of the film industry, to mention some of the most important we could list the “Paramount Pictures Vs. USA case”; the “Sony Pictures Vs. Universal case” and the censorship cases have definitely affected the movie industry as of how it works today.

                                                      U.S. Vs. Paramount Pictures:

This case is the reason why the production studios can’t own movie theaters of their own and have to go through companies like AMC or Regal to play their movies. Before this case went to court, the production studios owned their movie theaters and played the movies that they made exclusively in their private movie theaters; by the time that the other theaters were able to play this movies; the movies would have been exposed to the audience for the long time and the other movie theaters would not have a reasonable profit from the movies they showed.  This would be the first time that the U.S. Supreme court would interfere with the arts world, and it changed the film industry in that the production studios would have to try harder to get their movie distributed because it was now illegal for the studios to own the movie theater in order to prevent a monopoly inside the industry.

Information Extracted from:

http://voices.yahoo.com/us-vs-paramount-pictures-day-movie-production-1466359.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc.

                                                  Sony Corporations Vs. Universal Studios

Also known as the “Betamax Case” occurred in 1984. This case states that the making of individual copies of complete TV Shows for time shifting purposes was considered “fair use” and does not constitute copyright infringement as Universal tried to declare when the new technology came out.

Sony manufactured the home video tape recorders (VTR’s) and sold them to the public. Universal own the copyrights for some of the TV shows that were being aired on sponsored Television spot, therefore Sony infringed the copyright from Universal by recording this shows on the VTR. Universal also stated that Sony was liable for copyright infringement due to the marketing of the VTR’s. The court declared that the non-commercial use of the material that the people recorded on the VTR’s was not considered as a copyright infringement due to its “time shifting purposes” nature. The court also stated that Sony was not liable for copyright infringement even if the home use of the VTR was, in fact, an infringing use.

Information Extracted from:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=464&invol=417

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.

                                                               Movie Censorship

Movie censorship by the government is rare nowadays for two reasons; the first one being that the movies are not often the subject of debates, and the second one being that the film industry implemented their own censorship system through the Motion Picture Association of America (M.P.A.A.) which institutes a rating system based in the content of the Motion Picture (nudity, violence, language, etc.)

The court acted in the censorship of movies when in 1951 the state of New York tried to banned an Italian film called “The Miracle” because it was condemned by the Catholic Church as “sacrilegious and blasphemous” and the New York Board of Regents revoked the license to show the film in public.

The distributor sued and in the “U.S. Vs. Paramount Pictures case” the court decided that the government was not able to ban a film on the basis of finding it “sacrilegious” and it stated that “expression by means of motion pictures is included within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” (U.S. Vs. Paramount Pictures.) The court left open the possibility for the government to censor movies due to clearly stated obscenity laws, but since the creation of the rating system of the M.P.A.A. Hollywood has found a way to censor the movies within his own industry and avoid this way the government.

Information Extracted from:

http://www.lehigh.edu/~infirst/moviecensorship.html

Although these cases are not exactly recent, are considered among the most important legal cases involving the film industry, since their repercussion still affects today how the film industry operates in distribution, censorship and its possible for us to record our favorite TV shows without breaking the law.