Interesting Links for 24-12-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Britain's winter of discontent is the inevitable result of austerity

(tags:austerity UK NHS infrastructure Doom )

2. In the long term, if we want to keep the global temperature down, then our electricity generation has to be entirely generated from renewables

(tags:renewables globalwarming )

3. Stardust is inspired by The Voyage of The Dawn Treader

(tags:narnia neilgaiman )

4. Fans Can Now Sue Movie Studios For Deceptive Trailers

(tags:trailers law fraud viaMyBrotherHugh )

5. Both versions of "Riddles in the Dark" (the Gollum chapter of The Hobbit, changed when Lord of The Rings came out)

(tags:lotr TheHobbit Tolkien )

6. Finally, a believable explanation of why Elon Musk bought Twitter!

(tags:ElonMusk Twitter comic funny )

7. Elon Musk orders removal of Twitter suicide prevention feature

(tags:Twitter suicide OhForFucksSake ElonMusk )

8. Brexit means no British manufacturer able to build ministerial cars

(tags:UK cars manufacturing Europe Doom )

9. The 10 best films of 2022

(tags:movies reviews )

Comments

[calimac]

4) I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it's pretty well established that not everything in the trailer has to be in the movie, though I can think of a few cases where it would have been much to the movie's improvement if it had been.

On the other hand, if you rent and watch a movie because your favorite actress is in the trailer, and it turns out that she's not in the movie itself at all, you're entirely entitled to feel pretty pissed off.

On the third hand, what have you lost? The price of the rental and the time you spent watching the movie. This suit should have been remanded to small claims court, if not dismissed on the grounds of de minimis non curat lex.

[hairyears]

...de minimis non curat lex.

No.

Or rather: yes, if it's just this one consumer, renting this one copy of the movie, just this once.

And it isn't. It's advertising and millions of potential consumers get to see the misleading advert.

Tens of thousands of people rent or purchase the DVD on the basis of a profitable falsehood.

And if the studio and the distributors get away with it, just this once, then they'll do it again, as often as they can make a dishonest buck out of it.

You and I will never be able to trust the advertising and the 'All Star Cast!' with a Big Name on the posters and the cover of the DVD.

It's not a trifling matter when it's false advertising.

And yes, we will all hear eloquent and persuasive legal arguments that it is, together with belittling and dismissive media coverage that will nudge our views towards de minimis non curat lex when this argument is worse than merely wrong.

[calimac]

Then it should have been a class action suit. Without that, it is indeed just this one consumer, renting this one copy of the movie, just this once.