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June 21, 2006

Stoned to Death: Paramount Takes on Filmmaker Who Bootlegged 'WTC'

Kudos to my colleague Ray Pride for landing the plum role of Exhibit C in the case of Paramount Pictures vs. Chris Moukarbel, which pits "one of the world's leading creators and distributors of motion pictures" (per the 'Mount's lawsuit) against a 28-year-old Yale artist who shot and uploaded to the Web part of a "bootleg script" for Oliver Stone's upcoming World Trade Center.

The video--a far more accomplished and encouraging piece of work than just about anything in the official WTC trailer--wound up linked to Film Threat, the Filmmaker Magazine blog and, eventually, on Pride's Movie City Indie page. Nearly three weeks later, the 'Mount is fighting back:

12. Upon information and belief, Defendant has distributed and caused to be distributed to the public the infringing Picture, either directly or by hyperlink, on at least the following websites:

http://www.pointsofdeparture.net http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2006/06/advance-copy.php http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2006/06/world_trade_cen.html ...

14. Upon information and belief, the Infringing Picture is described on these various websites as: "a 12-minute film adapted from a bootleg script of Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and its post-collapse setting," which is "pre-empting Oliver Stone's forthcoming World Trade Center." (emphasis added).

While not named in the lawsuit, Film Threat actually has a copy of Paramount's injunction pasted where the film used to be (if you can get the page to open; my efforts have yielded one crashed browser after another). And one final shout-out to the 'Mount, which, with one legal brief, has drummed up more interest in Moukarbel's film than anyone ever had in Stone's. At least they are marketing successfully for somebody.

(Photo: Chris Moukarbel / Witte De With)

Posted by stvanairsdale at June 21, 2006 03:47 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Annie Frisbie at June 23, 2006 02:58 PM

Posted by: RC of strangeculture at June 23, 2006 04:45 PM