Pixar’s latest movie, Brave, looks like a medieval Scottish version of Whip It, where the main girl’s family want her to wear dresses and braid hair, but she’s all like “WHATEVER, I’MA DO TOMBOY STUFF INSTEAD!” But it turns out reminding people of a Drew Barrymore movie isn’t their only problem, as now the Atlanta Braves are challenging Pixar’s attempt to trademark ‘Brave.’ STOP TRYING TO STEAL OUR WORD THAT WE STOLE FROM THE INDIANS AND USED TO CREATE A CRUDE, RACIAL CARICATURE!

It all started back in March of last year when we reported on trademark applications which appeared to have been confirming a title change for what was then known as The Bear and the Bow, but is now known to be Brave.

Fast forward to this past summer when — after filing a number of extensions — the Atlanta National League Baseball Club, owners of the Atlanta Braves,  formally filed an objection to many of the trademark applications. Although trademarks are specific to their singular and plural forms and the Braves do not possess any trademarks for the word BRAVE (only BRAVES), the organization believes that damages will occur as a result of Disney’s trademarks being approved as they have used the singular form before on merchandise and insist it is common for fans, media, et al to use the singular form when referring to a single player, whereas the pluralized form refers to the entire team.

Private negotiations between The Walt Disney Company and the Atlanta National League Ball Club are currently taking place in regards to several of the objected filings with the ball club intending to file an objection against yet another of the registrations. [StitchKingdom]

Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I think the problem here is that “brave” is actually a common word with various meanings, and people probably shouldn’t be allowed to “own” a word that’s already been in use for thousands of years. Except for that Precious chick with “Precious,” that just seems fair.

If you want to trademark a word, you have to make it up yourself. Like “dickfinch.” It’s a small bird that lives in your pants.

I will never stop enjoying using this picture to go with this story.

About a month ago, an unnamed actress anonymously sued IMDB for revealing her age, which she says they obtained through her credit card information and posted without her permission, saying revealing their age without permission puts actresses pushing 40 at a disadvantage in trying to get roles if they can pass for younger. Which is true, I’m sure it sucks trying to live long enough for your ironic, Betty White fame. Anyway, this week, IMDB fired back, and it was basically the legal and public statement equivalent of a dismissive wanking motion. IMDB AIN’T CARE!

Amazon.com, owner of iMDb, believes it knows the identity of this woman, and it tells a Washington federal court that before she filed the lawsuit, she first tried to get the service to post a false birthdate so she could fool potential Hollywood employers into thinking she was younger than she actually is. Now a judge is being asked to dismiss the lawsuit so as to not perpetuate a fraud on the public.
In its motion to dismiss filed last week and obtained by THR, the company questions whether the judicial system should be used to help an actress hide her 40 years of age. According to IMDb:
“Truth and justice are philosophical pillars of this Court. The perpetuation of fraud, even for an actor’s career, is inconsistent with these principals. Plaintiff’s attempt to manipulate the federal court system so she can censor iMDb’s display of her birth date and pretend to the world that she is not 40 years old is selfish, contrary to the public interest and a frivolous abuse of this Court’s resources.”
The judge is being asked to dismiss the case because the original lawsuit was an alleged violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 10(a). IMDb believes the plaintiff has no proper reason to file her case anonymously, so the company is attempting to get the case dismissed if the woman doesn’t step forward to reveal herself. [THR]

Look, no one’s arguing that aging actresses aren’t all dangerous amoral sociopaths who should be locked up as a preventative measure like the wolfman. I mean, I think we’ve all seen the Real Housewives. But IMDB’s whole statement just seems like a diversionary tactic. You either revealed someone’s age without her permission or you didn’t. If it was naked pictures, I could see, those are for everyone, but otherwise that’s just wrong.

"Hello, I'm here to read for the role of Edward Cullen."

In the wake of the unnamed actress suing IMDb for revealing her true age, the two major actors guilds have also fired a shot at the website. From a joint statement by SAG and AFTRA:

“Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strongly believe that businesses like IMDb have a moral and legal obligation not to facilitate age discrimination in employment,” said the guilds. “Entertainment industry employers who would never directly ask a potential employee’s age routinely access that information through IMDb and its professional subscription site IMDbPro. IMDb has the power to remove the temptation for employers to engage in age discrimination by accessing this information.”

”IMDb publishes the actual dates of birth of thousands of actors without their consent, most of them not celebrities but rank-and-file actors whose names are unknown to the general public,” they said. “When their actual ages then become known to casting personnel, the 10+ year age range that many of them can portray suddenly shrinks, and so do their opportunities to work.”

In order to understand what’s going on here, I think it’s important to look at this issue from both perspectives. One one hand, it must be incredibly tough to be a 45-year-old actress. Outside of like three roles a decade (all given to Sandra Bullock), Hollywood tends to pin women into two categories: “young hot starlet” or “spinster/Mom.” Obviously, the former pays better and gives you the chance extend your career in a cutthroat industry. On the other hand, as long as IMDb keeps doing this, the two sides will keep fighting about it and it will give me a chance to post banner pics where I pretend Abe Vigoda is reading for roles in teen movies, which is HILARIOUS to me.

So, yeah, both sides make some pretty valid points.

A few days ago, a judge threw out a suit by an EOD soldier against the makers of The Hurt Locker, saying that the film version of the guy was different enough to be “transformative,” and refuting the guy’s assertion that the film had somehow slandered his reputation. But since Hurt Locker writer Mark Boal had been embedded with the plaintiff’s unit (hehehehe…), the suit at least made sense. Today, we learned of Michael Alan Rubin, a California man who is suing the makers of The Hangover II, who he’s never met, saying they stole his life story. Because that makes sense. What kind of lawyer would even take this case?

Rubin is representing himself in the case…

Ahh, it’s all becoming clear…

According Rubin’s federal lawsuit, filed last week in Calfornia, he married a Japanese woman named Tamayo in 2007 in Japan. Together, the couple honeymooned in Thailand and India where differences started arising over Rubin’s financial condition. During the honeymoon trip, Tamayo refused to share a hotel room with the luckless plaintiff.

In India, Rubin says he met a Bollywood producer who gave him work as a leading actor on several films. At which point, Rubin wanted to turn his experience with Tamayo into a feature film, so he wrote a script entitled Mickey and Kirin and allegedly deposited a copy with the Writers Guild of America. He later heard from a Hollywood friend about Hangover II, the story of some Asian misadventures by Americans on the road to a wedding.

“The production of Hangover 2 is not a complete ‘literary’ or ‘artistic’ works of the Hangover Defendants as credited in Hangover 2,” says the complaint. “In fact, the production of Hangover 2 was a result of infringement of the Plaintiff’s treatment ‘Mickey and Kirin’ and exploitation of the private real life of Plaintiff in an insulting manner.” [THR]

“First they stole my life story verbatim! Then they insulted me by changing all of the events and details! And your honor, may it please the court, I’d like to ask that the jurors cover their heads in tinfoil to keep from being influenced by my neighbor’s parrot, who’s always had it in for me, and can change people’s thoughts. He’s very sneaky.”

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Picture unrelated. ...We think.

An unnamed actress is suing IMDB for a million dollars after she says they revealed her age. She says she never revealed her age and that IMDB obtained it from her credit card information and posted it publicly without her permission. Oh come off it, Jennifer Aniston, everyone knows how old you are.

…actress is demanding $1 million from Amazon.com, accusing the company’s popular movie Web site, IMDb, of revealing her age by using her credit-card information.
The actress, who filed the federal suit in Seattle as “Jane Doe,” says she was keeping her age a secret because if Hollywood producers knew how old she was, she’d get fewer roles.
“In the entertainment industry, youth is king,” the suit says.
“If one is perceived to be ‘over-the-hill,’ i.e. approaching 40, it is nearly impossible for an up-and-coming actress, such as the plaintiff, to get work.”
The woman’s exact age isn’t listed in the suit. It says she is living in Texas.
She claims in the suit that IMDb, which is owned by Amazon, got her private information in 2008, when she subscribed to the site’s pay service, IMDbPro.
“Shortly after subscribing to IMDbPro, plaintiff noticed that her legal date of birth had been added to her public profile … revealing to the public that the plaintiff is many years older than she looks,” the suit says. |NYPost|

Yeah, well Dominican shortstops don’t like revealing their true age either, but what happens when you get out there on the casting couch and pull a hammy? These productions have to know what kind of risk they’re getting into. It doesn’t matter how old you think you look, the closer to 40 you get, the more liable you are to blow out a rotator cuff on your producer-handjob arm, and that’s just a bad situation for everyone. I feel bad for IMDB, who were just trying to protect their producers. But good for this broad, who’s probably going to make more on this suit than she ever did on residuals.

Meanwhile, I think the 23-year-old actresses of the world should band together and file a class-action suit against Cameron Diaz for stealing all their roles of “fresh-faced secretary” and “hot, young teacher.”