Yoko Ono in Lennon film fight
p2pnet news | Movies:- Yoko Ono has her hands full fighting flicks she doesn’t like.
She doesn’t want a pro-intelligent design documentary featuring the famous Lennon song Imagine to be shown, and is also demanding that a second movie with shots of John Lennon smoking dope and talking about spiking then president Richard Nixon’s tea with LSD, be banned.
She’s suing the Massachusetts company, “that wants to release a film culled from footage shot at Lennon’s that’s never been seen by the public,” says the Guardian, going on >>>
The nine hours of footage, shot by Yoko’s previous husband, Anthony Cox, show the couple fooling around and getting on with their lives at home. Lennon is seen smoking marijuana, joking with Ono, composing songs, including Mind Games, and talking about putting LSD in President Nixon’s tea during a visit to the White House.
In one scene, Lennon blow-dries Ono’s hair as Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman plays in the background.
The film was made in three days in February 1970, “just weeks before the Beatles split up,” says the Telegraph.
“World Wide Video, a group of Beatles collectors, claims it bought the original tapes and the copyright from Cox in 2000,” it states.
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pro-intelligent design – Yoko Ono ‘Intelligent Design’ row, April 24, 2008
Guardian – Ono in battle over film of Lennon at home, April 24, 2008
Telegraph – Yoko Ono in court battle over John Lennon film, April 24, 2008
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April 24th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Cool picture. Care to share the link?
April 24th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Can’t help you. Sorry.
I have a very small collection of old Beatles stuff and I scanned the pic from a 1982 Japanese book, ‘John Lennon – a family album’. All kinds of really neat shots of Lennon en famille.
Cheers!
April 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am
http://www.amazon.com/John-Lennon-Family-Album/dp/0877018049
April 24th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Nope. That’s not it. By sheer coincidence, the one you cite uses the same pic but my book is a much more substantial publication, and it’s in Japanese.
Cheers!
April 26th, 2008 at 5:25 am
THE TRIPOD IS THE OWNER?
This is another instance where copyright law doesn’ fit and may even be unconstitutional.
A central question here is who owns the copyright to the Lennon-Ono film.
My friend, a copyright scholars lawyer tells me the original owner of the Lennon-Ono video was whoever was behind the camera, the one who shot the film. He says that it doesn’t matter who owns the camera of who has the physical video tape. He claims that tha copyright law says the owner of a copyright is the creator and jusrisprudence back him.
So, here is the catch. If Lennon and Ono appear on the video, they could not own the film because they were not behind the camera. No one can be in two places at the same time.
But if the camera was held by a tripod, the tripod may be the logical copyrights claimant because being under he camera is the closest thing to being behind the camera. Now, what the tripod did with the copyrights, in writing, mind you, is something the judge must carefully analize. My lawyer copyright scholar friend says the tripod must be located and deposed. The tripod must be asked if he signed a work-for-hire contract for Lennon or Ono or if he retain the copyrights.
Or perhaps if the camera was shooting by itself and the camera is the owner of the copyrights and it is the camera that must be deposed.
Either way the tripod or the camera are the only one who could, and not Ono, sue for copyright infringement if their copyrights were infringed.
Then there is the constitutional issue, says my friend, because the judge may have to declare the copyrights of all machine made works such a photgraphs, videos, movies, sound recordings as being unconstitutional because when the constituion was written no one considered the the possibility of works of arts being made by devices such as cameras or sound recorders. Why, not even science fiction existed at the time.
To simplify this, my lawyer copyright scholar friend explains, that when the constitution was written there were no video cameras, so videos cannot be cnstitutional and if videos cannot be constitutional, video copyrights cannot be constitutional.
All of this reminds me of the tourist photograph paradox I was involved in while visiting Paris. While in Paris I asked a French girl, a passerby to snap some shots of the wife and me in front of the Eiffel Tower, with my camera. Back at home, when my lawyer copyright scholar friend saw the pictures he wa scandalized. It turns out, my lawyer copyright scholar frined told me, I could not make copies of the photographs because I needed a written authorization to copy the photographs from the unkown passerby, the French girl. Ok, so I broke the copyright law and as a serious criminal I could be jailed by the FBI.
Back to the Lennon-Ono video, it’s a tough call for the judge. He may need to declare that only works made by the mind and hands are copyrightable. Not a bad idea even if it breaks the heart of “artists” that have devices that create their heretofore copyrightable art.
RV