4 ms·

>floats the idea of defaming and slandering Matt Damon under the guise of fictionalization. She makes an excellent point-- Matt wouldn't put up with that. But

by jasode 5y ago

>floats the idea of defaming and slandering Matt Damon under the guise of fictionalization. She makes an excellent point-- Matt wouldn't put up with that. But it seems like Matt Damon would have to put up with it. What could Matt realistically do? Filing a lawsuit would probably go nowhere. See the informal "small penis" rule by fiction writers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule The 2010 film "The Social Network" didn't even bother with fictionalized names and made Mark Zuckerberg look bad but he didn't sue. One legal opinion thinks MZ didn't have an easy case of defamation which would make the lawsuit a waste of time: https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/07/articles/the-law/for-non-lawyers/why-mark-zuckerberg-wont-sue-for-defamation-over-the-facebook-movie/ https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/07/articles/the-law/...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
_jal 5y ago
Money and connections open other options for applying pressure. For instance, see the alleged behavior of Harvey Weinstein towards Rose McGowan involving spooks for hire. (I'm not talking about Damon at all here, I don't know much of anything about him. Just pointing out that lawsuits are far from the only tools available to those with means.)
- Jenk 5y ago
  And yet Zuck, a billionaire, _didn't_ do anything like that.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    It's possible that he wanted to, but was advised that making a big deal about it would only draw more attention and make things worse.
    - prepend 5y ago
      So I guess he didn’t have enough money and power to open the right doors? Or perhaps it’s really hard to win a defamation case against works of fiction. No matter how much money and power you have.
      - Nursie 5y ago
        It perhaps it doesn’t matter and ignoring it is the best course of action?
      - kelnos 5y ago
        Even if you win the case, you've still drawn a lot of extra unwanted attention to it.
      - kbenson 5y ago
        Zuckerberg is, and was, especially after the movie came out, much more famous than Weinstein, and the portrayals in question are different. One is unflattering, the other is attempting to cover a felony. When there's an unflattering depiction out there of you, bringing more attention to it might be counterproductive, depending on how bad it is. If you're worried about going to prison, all of a sudden how unflattering you're seen likely becomes secondary to that.
  - munificent 5y ago
    I have a theory that you can measure someone's power by how many people can hate them without them having to care. Why should Zuck care if the movie paints him in a poor light? He is an near-infinitely powerful megabillionaire before the movie, and he is one afterwards. The movie could show him eating babies for an hour and a half and it likely wouldn't budge Facebook's stock price. If I were to name this theory, I'd call it "The Law of Larry Ellison". Because no matter what you do, you'll never be as hated as Ellison and look how much that has affected him. I don't think he's sailing is megayacht to his giant private Hawaiian island and crying himself to sleep because the world doesn't like him.
    - whoaisme 5y ago
      Power didn't stop Kim Jong Un from hacking Sony.
srtjstjsj 5y ago
"small penis" was Chrichton making a mean joke, not a legal theory.
- jasode 5y ago
  >"small penis" was Chrichton making a mean joke, not a legal theory. I had already used the adjective "informal" to describe the so-called "rule" so there was no need to nitpick that it wasn't "legal theory". In any case, it seems like you didn't carefully read the wikipedia article so your attempted correction is not accurate. You've got your timeline mixed up. The "small penis rule" was mentioned by journalist Dinitia Smith in 1998 (6 years before Michael Chrichton used it in his 2004 book) in a New York Times article. She was relaying a legal strategy told to her by attorney Leon Friedman. Excerpt from the NY Times 1998 article: >Leon Friedman, who was Sir Stephen's American lawyer in his dispute with Mr. Leavitt and who moderated the Authors Guild panel, observed that ''under New York State law, you cannot use a person's name, portrait or picture for purposes of trade without their permission.'' You can, however, use a person's identity if you don't use his name, he added. >That is, unless you libel them. ''Still, for a fictional portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a reader of the book would have no problem linking the two,'' said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel lawyers have what is known as ''the small penis rule.'' One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr. Friedman said. ''Now no male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, 'That's me!' ''
aenario 5y ago
"The social network" does not make Mark Zuckerberg look bad. He looks like a poor socially inept nerd who got scammed by Parker, it makes one want to pity him.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I'm currently reading a book called "Facebook The Inside Story" and while it's definitely an anti-Facebook perspective it illustrates a number of ways the movie was unfair to Mark. The biggest problem, to me, was suggesting that Mark basically stole the concept from the Winklevoss twins. The book traces the origins of the idea and clarifies the context. Things like: there are many other similar social networks, a boy at Mark's previous school had created and shared a "Facebook" project, the Harvard school newspaper was explicitly calling for the creation of a school wide Facebook (and that call inspired Mark to try and create one first), etc. It's less like he stole the idea from the Winklevoss twins and more like the idea was out there in many ways. What he did to the Winklevoss twins was tell them he was working on their project while working on his own intentionally trying to derail them.
  - deanCommie 5y ago
    > The biggest problem, to me, was suggesting that Mark basically stole the concept from the Winklevoss twins. I don't think the film suggests that at all. It says the Winklevoss think this, of course. But it doesn't agree with them. > What he did to the Winklevoss twins was tell them he was working on their project while working on his own intentionally trying to derail them. That's also exactly what the movie says. The film is on the Winklevoss's side at all - it makes them look ridiculous for thinking their "innovative" idea is that a harvard.edu address is exclusive. They're douchebags who want to make a website to put on the internet what is already happening at the Finals clubs (buses bringing in hot women to party with harvard legacies). The part of the film that I thought was the biggest problem was that it framed the whole Facebook project as Mark's way to deal with loneliness. The film starts with him being dumped by Erica. The film ends with him refreshing (pathetically) the pending friend request to her on Facebook. In reality he had a long term girlfriend when he started developing Facebook and she is now his wife. Mark maybe a socially awkward human who doesn't quite understand that Facebook has become a weird perversion of actual social interaction, but he is not alone the way the film constantly repeats (Eduardo: "I was your only friend")
spoonjim 5y ago
Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t have sued because the media would have spun that into a PR disaster for Facebook, and they already have enough of those.
andi999 5y ago
Couldn't the small penis be considered part of the slander?
xofer 5y ago
IANAL, but I think she absolutely has a legal case. It costs a lot of money to make a case "go nowhere" even with the slightest validity. The small penis thing doesn't seem relevant here, and even if so, it's a strategy for making it more difficult to make what would be a valid claim.
- jasode 5y ago
  >IANAL, but I think she absolutely has a legal case. If she does, it seems like a bunch of greedy lawyers looking for a big pay day would be willing to take her libel case on contingency which would cost her nothing. If a lawyer is willing to risk a ton of their own firm's money because they're confident of a winning big multi-million dollar judgement from the filmmaker, that would a good signal that Amanda has an excellent case. Maybe her phone is ringing off the hook with calls from such lawyers but I doubt it because such defamations lawsuits against works of fiction have been historically hard to win. Another aspect that's made more confusing by the various replies in this thread is that the film's official marketing (trailer, official website, posters) do not mention "Amanda Knox" or even have a tagline of "inspired by a true story". Instead, it's the various news media (such as Vanity Fair magazine article she cited) making the parallels to Amanda Knox. Yes, the filmmakers may be sly about avoiding the mention of "Amanda Knox" while being fully aware that the media outlets will make that connection in the minds of the public for them. >The small penis thing doesn't seem relevant here, To clarify in case the sequence of ideas got lost in the replies... I mentioned the "small penis" informal rule was a strategy for Amanda Knox to hypothetically write a fiction story about someone named "Mack Dorkin not being well-endowed" and the real Matt Damon not pursuing a lawsuit to silence her. It wasn't about "Stillwater"'s filmmakers using that strategy to protect themselves from Amanda Knox.
whall6 5y ago
I laughed out loud reading the small penis wiki

by jasode 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

_jal 5y ago

Money and connections open other options for applying pressure. For instance, see the alleged behavior of Harvey Weinstein towards Rose McGowan involving spooks for hire. (I'm not talking about Damon at all here, I don't know much of anything about him. Just pointing out that lawsuits are far from the only tools available to those with means.)

Jenk 5y ago
And yet Zuck, a billionaire, _didn't_ do anything like that.
- kelnos 5y ago
  It's possible that he wanted to, but was advised that making a big deal about it would only draw more attention and make things worse.
  - prepend 5y ago
    So I guess he didn’t have enough money and power to open the right doors? Or perhaps it’s really hard to win a defamation case against works of fiction. No matter how much money and power you have.
    - Nursie 5y ago
      It perhaps it doesn’t matter and ignoring it is the best course of action?
    - kelnos 5y ago
      Even if you win the case, you've still drawn a lot of extra unwanted attention to it.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      Zuckerberg is, and was, especially after the movie came out, much more famous than Weinstein, and the portrayals in question are different. One is unflattering, the other is attempting to cover a felony. When there's an unflattering depiction out there of you, bringing more attention to it might be counterproductive, depending on how bad it is. If you're worried about going to prison, all of a sudden how unflattering you're seen likely becomes secondary to that.
- munificent 5y ago
  I have a theory that you can measure someone's power by how many people can hate them without them having to care. Why should Zuck care if the movie paints him in a poor light? He is an near-infinitely powerful megabillionaire before the movie, and he is one afterwards. The movie could show him eating babies for an hour and a half and it likely wouldn't budge Facebook's stock price. If I were to name this theory, I'd call it "The Law of Larry Ellison". Because no matter what you do, you'll never be as hated as Ellison and look how much that has affected him. I don't think he's sailing is megayacht to his giant private Hawaiian island and crying himself to sleep because the world doesn't like him.
  - whoaisme 5y ago
    Power didn't stop Kim Jong Un from hacking Sony.

srtjstjsj 5y ago

"small penis" was Chrichton making a mean joke, not a legal theory.

jasode 5y ago
>"small penis" was Chrichton making a mean joke, not a legal theory. I had already used the adjective "informal" to describe the so-called "rule" so there was no need to nitpick that it wasn't "legal theory". In any case, it seems like you didn't carefully read the wikipedia article so your attempted correction is not accurate. You've got your timeline mixed up. The "small penis rule" was mentioned by journalist Dinitia Smith in 1998 (6 years before Michael Chrichton used it in his 2004 book) in a New York Times article. She was relaying a legal strategy told to her by attorney Leon Friedman. Excerpt from the NY Times 1998 article: >Leon Friedman, who was Sir Stephen's American lawyer in his dispute with Mr. Leavitt and who moderated the Authors Guild panel, observed that ''under New York State law, you cannot use a person's name, portrait or picture for purposes of trade without their permission.'' You can, however, use a person's identity if you don't use his name, he added. >That is, unless you libel them. ''Still, for a fictional portrait to be actionable, it must be so accurate that a reader of the book would have no problem linking the two,'' said Mr. Friedman. Thus, he continued, libel lawyers have what is known as ''the small penis rule.'' One way authors can protect themselves from libel suits is to say that a character has a small penis, Mr. Friedman said. ''Now no male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, 'That's me!' ''

aenario 5y ago

"The social network" does not make Mark Zuckerberg look bad. He looks like a poor socially inept nerd who got scammed by Parker, it makes one want to pity him.

ALittleLight 5y ago
I'm currently reading a book called "Facebook The Inside Story" and while it's definitely an anti-Facebook perspective it illustrates a number of ways the movie was unfair to Mark. The biggest problem, to me, was suggesting that Mark basically stole the concept from the Winklevoss twins. The book traces the origins of the idea and clarifies the context. Things like: there are many other similar social networks, a boy at Mark's previous school had created and shared a "Facebook" project, the Harvard school newspaper was explicitly calling for the creation of a school wide Facebook (and that call inspired Mark to try and create one first), etc. It's less like he stole the idea from the Winklevoss twins and more like the idea was out there in many ways. What he did to the Winklevoss twins was tell them he was working on their project while working on his own intentionally trying to derail them.
- deanCommie 5y ago
  > The biggest problem, to me, was suggesting that Mark basically stole the concept from the Winklevoss twins. I don't think the film suggests that at all. It says the Winklevoss think this, of course. But it doesn't agree with them. > What he did to the Winklevoss twins was tell them he was working on their project while working on his own intentionally trying to derail them. That's also exactly what the movie says. The film is on the Winklevoss's side at all - it makes them look ridiculous for thinking their "innovative" idea is that a harvard.edu address is exclusive. They're douchebags who want to make a website to put on the internet what is already happening at the Finals clubs (buses bringing in hot women to party with harvard legacies). The part of the film that I thought was the biggest problem was that it framed the whole Facebook project as Mark's way to deal with loneliness. The film starts with him being dumped by Erica. The film ends with him refreshing (pathetically) the pending friend request to her on Facebook. In reality he had a long term girlfriend when he started developing Facebook and she is now his wife. Mark maybe a socially awkward human who doesn't quite understand that Facebook has become a weird perversion of actual social interaction, but he is not alone the way the film constantly repeats (Eduardo: "I was your only friend")

spoonjim 5y ago

Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t have sued because the media would have spun that into a PR disaster for Facebook, and they already have enough of those.

andi999 5y ago

Couldn't the small penis be considered part of the slander?

xofer 5y ago

IANAL, but I think she absolutely has a legal case. It costs a lot of money to make a case "go nowhere" even with the slightest validity. The small penis thing doesn't seem relevant here, and even if so, it's a strategy for making it more difficult to make what would be a valid claim.

jasode 5y ago
>IANAL, but I think she absolutely has a legal case. If she does, it seems like a bunch of greedy lawyers looking for a big pay day would be willing to take her libel case on contingency which would cost her nothing. If a lawyer is willing to risk a ton of their own firm's money because they're confident of a winning big multi-million dollar judgement from the filmmaker, that would a good signal that Amanda has an excellent case. Maybe her phone is ringing off the hook with calls from such lawyers but I doubt it because such defamations lawsuits against works of fiction have been historically hard to win. Another aspect that's made more confusing by the various replies in this thread is that the film's official marketing (trailer, official website, posters) do not mention "Amanda Knox" or even have a tagline of "inspired by a true story". Instead, it's the various news media (such as Vanity Fair magazine article she cited) making the parallels to Amanda Knox. Yes, the filmmakers may be sly about avoiding the mention of "Amanda Knox" while being fully aware that the media outlets will make that connection in the minds of the public for them. >The small penis thing doesn't seem relevant here, To clarify in case the sequence of ideas got lost in the replies... I mentioned the "small penis" informal rule was a strategy for Amanda Knox to hypothetically write a fiction story about someone named "Mack Dorkin not being well-endowed" and the real Matt Damon not pursuing a lawsuit to silence her. It wasn't about "Stillwater"'s filmmakers using that strategy to protect themselves from Amanda Knox.

whall6 5y ago

I laughed out loud reading the small penis wiki