Will the public ever see <i>Expelled</i>?

This makes me giggle like a little girl! :-)

Hmmm. The creationist camp takes a piece of material, the use and distribution of which it surely knows will create major legal problems, and in an attempt to get around this, ever-so-slightly alters the material to try and avoid said problems. Then it all backfires terribly. Now let me think.....where have I seen this happen before? Talk about slow learners.

giggity

I'm curious; isn't there a commandment about stealing in there somewhere? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

Allen MacNeill: I'm curious; isn't there a commandment about stealing in there somewhere? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

This legal action seems both just and necessary, but I have trouble crowing loudly about it. It's too damn easy for this to be spun as suppression by Darwinists who are willing to resort to court rather than allow the public to hear the facts, and that's exactly what will happen, probably at length. But, whaddya gonna do? Anyway, I doubt such a distortion will convince any significant number of people who aren't already on the IDCists' side.

The Expelled propaganda machine clearly could care less about the truth. So why should they care about copyrights? Or the law? Or anything for that matter except destroying the USA, setting up a theocracy, and recreating the Dark Ages.

My guess is they will just ignore Harvard and their lawyers and show it as scheduled. And hope they can seize power before the inevitable court cases, which can drag on for years.

Anyone want to bet on who will be the first to be burnt at the stake. They will be threefers, lawyers who work for Harvard to defend evolutionary biology.

RE MPW's qualms:

It’s not harassment or suppression; it’s the owners of a legitimate copyright using their full legal rights to make an illegal (not to mention immoral) copyright infringer and plagiarist cease and desist immediately.

Stealing someone else’s intellectual property is known to most intelligent people as “theft”, and most upright citizens consider theft to be immoral, as well as criminal.

Just another sterling example of the true moral compass of the promoters of the ID political agenda.

I was wondering how long it would take for the other shoe to drop. And damn did that sucker DROP!!!

Of course, just watch Ben Stein et al start whining and moaning about how this is just all part of the "Darwinist conspiracy"

It must have been quite an effort for all involved in preparing this challenge to Premise Media to keep it under wraps until today's announcement. My congratulations to all involved.

Excellent. Good for Premise Media for not just letting this go. This will definitely be a story to watch.

As I've said before, it's no wonder scientists don't take these people seriously. This video has been plagiarized by Stein and Dembski. And it wasn't that long ago that the "Warda and Han" article came out.

Ridiculous

Actually this was extensively telegraphed on the blogs but Premise Media wouldn't take a hint. At some point a copyright has to be defended.

David, it's XVIVO that's not letting Premise Media go.

I would say that I hope the matter isn't deliberately used to obstruct the release of the film, beyond the dispute over copyright.

They ought to defend the rights that they have, of course, but it won't look good to try to keep the film from being released, if good faith measures are taken by Premise and anyone else involved.

The movie will likely to continue to be a PR disaster regardless of what happens, and I wouldn't wish to save them the embarrassment, nor to go to any great lengths to keep anyone who wishes from seeing it.

I suppose it's even possible that Premise will try to drag this out in order to claim suppression, and to give the illusion that this is all a matter of forbidden fruits. But I doubt it, as I suspect that a number of people would like to make some money from it, or at least to recoup losses.

Anyway, though I have no reason to think it would be otherwise, let it be that resolving the issue is the point of these legal actions, and nothing else.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

This makes me giggle like a little girl! :-)

nor to go to any great lengths to keep anyone who wishes from seeing it.

Pete Dunkelberg: David, it's XVIVO that's not letting Premise Media go.

Yesssss! Notice at the bottom of the XVIVO letter that Peter Irons is the attorney.

My research group has invested hundreds of hours in creating animations of cellular processes such as in the outstanding "Inner Life of the Cell" (but we're not to their level of expertise yet!). The story-boarding, modeling, rendering and endless tweaking of specific compositions is work-intensive and it requires considerable thought and discussion about how things should be depicted. And there is a creative artistic component that my research assistants are only able to contribute because of their training in the fine arts. If someone decided to make a cheap knockoff based on one of our animations (without permission), I would do the same thing that XVIVO has now apparently done.

Largely because of the reported use of the XVIVO-like animations in Expelled (and Dembski's modified form of the animation), we have gone back and explicitly added copyright notices at the end of our animations to give anyone thinking about appropriating our work a fair warning concerning our intention to protect our intellectual property.

Yessss! Notice that the XVIVO letter lists Peter Irons as the attorney.

Olorin: Yessss! Notice that the XVIVO letter lists Peter Irons as the attorney.

jeh, you should always include copyright notices. Although they are no longer required, including the notice can give you extra damages. Also, be sure to register the copyright within 90 days of publication---more damages.

David, Peter Irons is a long-time civil-rights activist. He has written articles against the Discovery Institute, and has aided in several efforts against them. (YCLIU in Wikipedia)

I have been wondering myself if their release numbers are an exaggeration. Expelled's website implies that three theaters in Wichita will be showing the film. When I checked the future openings at these theaters, I could find no mention of Expelled being shown at any of them. I then went to http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809995068/info and searched a number of cities to see where the movie might be opening. I don't know how reliable Yahoo's Search engine is in this area, but if accurate, Expelled may not be in even 100 theaters.

I found it opening in 9 theaters in St. Louis and one in Springfield, Mo but no other city I looked at had more than one opening. None in Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles or New York City. Although, I did hear from another source that it may be in one theater in New York. It will open in one theater in Dallas, Houston, Denver, Aurora Colorado, Reno and Atlanta. I gave up at this point.

If someone has any more accurate information, or a better source, I would like to see it.

Ah, but of course, Springfield, Mo., a center of baptist fundamentalism. That doesn't surprise me. I taught at the state univ. there many years ago, but the atmosphere in the area can be quite oppressive, religiously speaking. In the public schools the creationist biology teachers used to hide their materials in their desks, perhaps they've become more open these days.

See Legal threats and copyright shakedowns for an alternative view of reality.

Keystone Cops!

Glen Davidson wrote: I would say that I hope the matter isn’t deliberately used to obstruct the release of the film, beyond the dispute over copyright.

I would say that I hope the matter isn’t deliberately used to obstruct the release of the film, beyond the dispute over copyright.

RE MPW’s qualms: It’s not harassment or suppression; it’s the owners of a legitimate copyright using their full legal rights to make an illegal (not to mention immoral) copyright infringer and plagiarist cease and desist immediately.

FL:

I would say that I hope the matter isn’t deliberately used to obstruct the release of the film, beyond the dispute over copyright.

I think very few evolutionists share your hope, Glen. Quite the opposite, honestly. FL

You can see some clips of the Expelled "Cell as an Automated City" scenes in Youtubes linked in a Davescot article titled "Clips of Our Fearless Leaders in Expelled"

After the usual sycophantic adulations on UD, Allen MacNeil gets in some good digs about the new lawyer letter (as mentioned in this post, and on ERV).

Anyone wanna make a pool on how long Davescot's post will exist before disappearing down the memory hole?

Well, according to Yahoo it isn't showing in my home town, which affords a certain relief. What a spectacular flop this entire enterprise is proving to be.

Unless of course one goes with the "any publicity is good publicity" school of thought. If that was one of "Expelled"'s purposes, then success is already achieved. It's tempting to wonder what the real agenda is for making such a horrendous blunder of a film and PR campaign; they really can't be that stupid, can they?

But then I think of a number of cases (some of them in court) where the creationists were indeed that stupid. And I see them making the same mistakes here. So maybe this is just the latest Big Clumsy Lie For Jesus making its lame-duck way into the world.

Not that it can't still do harm, I just don't see it significantly advancing the creationist agenda in an effective way.

David:

Olorin: Yessss! Notice that the XVIVO letter lists Peter Irons as the attorney.

Who is Peter Irons?

I would say that I hope the matter isn’t deliberately used to obstruct the release of the film, beyond the dispute over copyright.

— Glen Davidson

I'm with Glen. Let's hope the Expelled folks are made to pay royalties for the copy of the XVIVO video, AND have the film released and flop massively.

And having watched the clips, there is no doubt the Expelled version was lifted from the XVIVO original. There are too many absolute subjective similarities you wouldn't get from independent productions, as well as the copied error in the "walker" that PZ noted.

Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

gwangung:

Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

120,000 Japanese Americans disagree.

I'll alert the media.

And the York Daily Record just today carried an announcement of the movie, with the "Expelled" link. Unfortunately, they did not reference any reviews or mention this little problem.

Just reviewed the clips on UcD. In particular, the second clip. First, the Expelled clip titled "A Journey into the Cell" which starts as a remake of the XVIVO Actin Filament section, jumps to "the walker" and goes to the pulsating golgi apparatus. There were a few other scenes that were stolen. Doesn't look good for the producers of Expelled.

Robert O'Brien:

David:

Olorin: Yessss! Notice that the XVIVO letter lists Peter Irons as the attorney.

Who is Peter Irons?

Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

josefina:

Robert O'Brien: Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

So he's exactly like you, plus an imaginary siphoning pension. Do we have to pay extra for that?

Did you all know that Nim's Island, a family film, recently opened? Who cares, right? Well, you should, because in the story, the father of the young heroine (Nim) is a biologist. Not only that, but he is shown doing (gasp!) research! (It seems that Nim's mother has died before the story starts, but she was also a scientist who died while conducting research on whales.) Unless I blinked in the wrong place, I didn't see the Daddy gassing anyone in a concentration camp (but there was a sea lion who gassed a boatload of obnoxious tourists).

So now, what evil atheist company is behind this movie? Walden Media! (Their 2nd Chronicles of Narnia film will be out next month.)

Now isn't this the perfect antidote to Expelled? Why not take the kids and their friends, and tell them that real scientists do research, just like the nice Daddy in the film.

I learned today the reason theaters are not mentioning the opening of Expelled and therefore Yahoo isn't finding them. Here in Wichita, KS, the film is scheduled to open on two screens on the 18th. The reason for not mentioning it on their website is that it is an independent film and these films are notoriously unreliable in meeting opening dates. The person I spoke to was unaware of the XVIVO action.

When I asked how long the film was schedule to run, he said it would depend on its success. It could be gone in a week if few people attend. He also said that he had been receiving "lots of inquiries" from teachers and churches.

It appears that until theaters actually list in their schedule, the Yahoo source is unreliable.

Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

PvM:

Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

When O'Brien endorses someone like this you can be sure that the person is a highly capable and effective lawyer whose contributions to the defense of science have been invaluable.

Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

— Master of ignorance Robert OBrien

Peter Irons is [defamatory comment removed] who may or may not be receiving monies from my institution likes to [irrelevant and speculative defamatory comment removed]

— ROB

I don’t care. I am perfectly capable of forming my own view of Irons, and my view is as stated above.

— Robert OBrien

Nigel D:

I don’t care. I am perfectly capable of forming my own view of Irons, and my view is as stated above.

— Robert OBrien

And your view is entirely devoid of non-slanderous content, ROB. Oh, wait. You have written and published your view. That makes it libel, not slander. Well done, now crawl back under your rock until you have something factual and hence worthwhile to contribute.

Robert O'Brien:

josefina:

Robert O'Brien: Peter Irons is an obnoxious pettifogger who, in addition to siphoning off a pension from my university (I imagine), likes to play the gadfly.

So he's exactly like you, plus an imaginary siphoning pension. Do we have to pay extra for that?

That's just nonsense. Are you trying to make some sense?

Nigel D: And, since most of your comments here on PT either make no sense or are obviously wrong, you are also being hugely hypocritical accusing someone else of posting nonsense.

Robert O'Brien:

Nigel D:

I don’t care. I am perfectly capable of forming my own view of Irons, and my view is as stated above.

— Robert OBrien

And your view is entirely devoid of non-slanderous content, ROB. Oh, wait. You have written and published your view. That makes it libel, not slander. Well done, now crawl back under your rock until you have something factual and hence worthwhile to contribute.

Nigel, leave the ambulance-chasing to Peter Irons and Pepper-Hamilton.

Robert O'Brien:

Nigel D: And, since most of your comments here on PT either make no sense or are obviously wrong, you are also being hugely hypocritical accusing someone else of posting nonsense.

No, Nigel, it's just that you can't follow me. You wouldn't happen to be a biologist, would you?

Why are trolls fat?

You know they're going to spin this as more censorship!

Pete Dunkelberg: Why are trolls fat?

Pete Dunkelberg: Why are trolls fat?

Pete Dunkelberg: Why are trolls fat?

Ahem. Could it be because people keep feeding them?

Pete Dunkelberg: Ahem. Could it be because people keep feeding them?

Harry Gregory: When I asked how long the film was schedule to run, he said it would depend on its success. It could be gone in a week if few people attend. He also said that he had been receiving "lots of inquiries" from teachers and churches.

Robert O'Brien: Nigel, leave the ambulance-chasing to Peter Irons and Pepper-Hamilton.

MattusMaximus:

Robert O'Brien: Nigel, leave the ambulance-chasing to Peter Irons and Pepper-Hamilton.

Sore loser. Go cry somewhere else.

Pete Dunkelberg: Why are trolls fat?

Robert O'Brien:

Pete Dunkelberg: Why are trolls fat?

In my case, it is because I eat the lunches of my ideological opponents.

As to the questions, assuming Premise actually releases Expelled unaltered...

Almost no theatres are scheduled to show Expelled now. They are only hopeful that it will run in 100 theatres nationwide which is already wishful thinking. Those which are showing it seem to be in fundamentalist Christian territory and one can guess who the theatre operators showing it are. My guess is they would show it baring a court order or direct involvement. Any mainstream threatre will likely back off because any lawsuit is going to have some interesting supporters - including the major studios, guilds, etc. -- which won't wish to see theatres helping out copyright breakers. However, if XVIVO sues, they will likely ask for an immediate injunction, start the "cash clock", inform theatre owners of the lawsuit themselves, and/or the publicity will do it for them.

I doubt that we need to let them know. Most already know (hence Premise putting up the foot-note on their web-site), will hear about it after the lawsuit is filed, or will become directly involved via injunction, etc. It might actually help XVIVOs case if they do show it in more theatres.