Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Can my theatre reviews cause me legal problems?

This is topic Can my theatre reviews cause me legal problems? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 06-12-2002, 03:44 PM:

For the past 4 years, I have been posting presentation quality reviews on my WWW site. Today, I noticed that I got hits from both the uscourts.gov and alacourts.org domains. I've been getting occasional hits from uscourts.gov for at least two years now, and I've gotten hits from alacourts.org (Alabama Courts) occasionally as well. Unless people who work at those places sit around and surf the web and find my site interesting, I have to wonder if someone is monitoring the site contents for legal reasons.

Both the Huntsville Times and Decatur Daily newspapers have run stories about my site this past winter, one of which ruffled some feathers at Carmike in Decatur.

I've heard recently that reviewers are afraid to print negative reviews of restaurants in newspapers any more since they can get sued. I'm wondering if my presentation quality reviews could get me in any kind of legal trouble. A coworker told me yesterday that if a reviewer gets sued, the burden of proof is on them rather than the entity suing and it would be difficult to prove that any particular presentation from a time ago had specific problems (unless the specified auditorium still had the problem).

If a theatre company or other entity had a problem with anything I'd written or included on my site, do you think it would be likely that I'd hear something from them before any legal action would be taken? I remember getting a bit alarmed by such hits back in 2000 when I noticed them for the first time, but nothing ever happened. Still, occasionally, it worries me and I figure asking on the forum here wouldn't be a bad idea.

I certainly don't want any legal hassles over the site that I run strictly as a hobby. Check out the "Presentation Quality Reviews" section if you're not familiar with it, and check out the lists of presentations for each theatre as well. Could there be a legal problem with publically displaying that data? I don't think any other part of the site could be a problem legally.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-12-2002, 03:47 PM:

You do realize that it is quite possible that there is someone at those domains who likes your site, right? There are all sorts of domains that come to this site that I wouldn't ever have thought would be interested in this content, but it happens. Most everyone likes movies and so big deal if someone at an Alabama court wants to find the best place to see a movie, or check out what a local has to say about a certain movie before going to see it.

First I would think any respecting company and attorney would *at minimum* send you an email addressing their concerns. Second, you might want to put some sort of disclaimer that represents your reviews as opinion.

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 06-12-2002, 03:52 PM:

I've never received any email from anyone expressing any legal concerns. I figure that if the December Decatur Daily article about the Carmike 8 didn't cause any legal wrath, then nothing likely will. But today, seeing those uscourts and alacourt hits so close to each other startled me a bit.

I have the following disclaimer on the presentation quality review section above the table:

quote:

Please note: There is no such thing as a perfect theatre that has no projection problems. People make mistakes and equipment breaks down, even in the best of theatres. It is very unreasonable to expect every showing to be perfect. This rating system gives an idea of what to expect at each theatre, on the average, based on my personal experiences. Your experiences may vary. Mathematically, the more visits for a particular theatre, the higher the confidence that my samples reflect the actual presentation quality, on the average, at that location.

This makes it clear that my data are simply samples over time, and if a different set of samples had been taken, the results may have been different. (Of course, mathematically, the more samples taken the more often, the more likely that the samples reflect the actual set being sampled.) I don't say that the data is opinion (because I attempt to be extremely objective and consistent in the way I rate the presentations). Do you think including the word "opinion" may be important?

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-12-2002, 04:01 PM:

The words "my personal experiences" or "my personal findings" is probably a better choice.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-12-2002, 04:23 PM:

I'm willing to bet that someone who works for the court system just happens to like movies. Do you log the HTTP_REFERRER variable? If so, you can see if the visitor arrived at your site from a link from another site, which might be helpful, too.

No respectable lawyer would send official or semi-official communications via email, since there is no way to authenticate the sender or confirm receipt. Registered mail via USPS would be the only legitimate means for official legal communication.

I'd be interested to hear a lawyer's opinion on this, but I would be very surprised and distrubed if someone could get in legal trouble for reporting true information which is considered to be "public knowledge" (i.e. not classified, proprietary, etc.).

If Carmike et al. don't like bad reviews of their presentation quality, then it would be far easier and cheaper to improve it than to shoot (sue) the messenger.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 06-12-2002, 05:44 PM:

Evans:

Having covered first amendments rights in the classroom for over 30 years I would offer the following: As long as you are making a personal observation or opinion based on fact(s) known to you from first hand experience, no problem. FREE SPEECH.

The fact that someone disagrees and feels it is slanderous or libelous is beside the point. To prove libel or slander, the following guidelines apply:
A. the statement is untrue.
B. the purpose of the statement was done deliberately and with malicious intent.(in most cases, but not all)
C. the person slandered or libeled suffered some financial harm as a result of the statement.

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 06-12-2002, 07:01 PM:

Scott shot:
"No respectable lawyer would send official or semi-official communications via email, since there is no way to authenticate the sender or confirm receipt. Registered mail via USPS would be the only legitimate means for official legal communication."

Sort of. Having recently spent some money on an Alabama lawyer who had to serve notice for me, I can say with some assurance that notice can be sent registered mail and refused (unopened) by the recipient, and yet that person is legally served. A common misconception is that you can just refuse registered mail and incur no penalty. It doesn't work that way. Process serving can be a slightly different issue.

Evans scribe:
"I don't say that the data is opinion (because I attempt to be extremely objective and consistent in the way I rate the presentations). Do you think including the word "opinion" may be important?"

Surely you realize that no person can be completely objective and/or consistent? Brad is right about the phrase "personal experience" being safer. That said, you cover most of the bases in your disclaimers. That fact that you REQUEST corrections, don't engage in slander on the website or off, and obviously have enough standing in the community to do the work you do, would likely make any corporate attorney a fool in front of the court if they were to attempt to pressure you. That said, you should have an attorney immediately available. People can and do sue for nonsense reasons.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-12-2002, 08:47 PM:

BTW, moving to Yak.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-12-2002, 08:51 PM:

Are there really ANY respectable lawyers out there????? I would definately have a disclaimer if I were you.
Mark @ GTS

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-12-2002, 09:22 PM:

I would say that you are in the clear (morally speaking, at least) because of two things: First, you say that this is your opinion, at least in a minimal way. Second, you DO say good things about theatres. Refresh my memory, will you?... Have you said any good things about the theatre in question?

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 06-12-2002, 09:47 PM:

I think I will put something in the disclaimer using the words "my personal observations".

quote:
Have you said any good things about the theatre in question?

Not much lately. That may change, though, since my last 3 visits have been much better than during the past year at Carmike 8 in Decatur.

Sorry, Brad, if I started this thread in the wrong place. I started it in ground level because I thought the conversation might swing toward members' previous legal experiences involving theatre management and/or legal issues dealing with the press.

One thing that sparked this is something I've not yet mentioned. Yesterday, during lunch, I was talking with a coworker and the subject of reviews came up. My coworker, in addition to the restaurant reviewers being afraid to write bad reviews because of the threat of lawsuits, also mentioned that some software user agreements do not allow reviews to be published (the exact details of this I have not checked into -- so I don't know if it's true or not -- but I wouldn't doubt it). If that can be legally enforced, then I see that the right to express opinions concerning products/services one has bought may be in serious jeopardy. It seems to be an extension of the idea of including with a licensing agreement like Microsoft's where you can't use Microsoft's WWW authoring product to create WWW pages that say anything negative about Microsoft.

Someday, all restaurants and theatres may have an agreement you must agree to before entering saying that you will not write a negative review in a public forum or magazine or newspaper.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-13-2002, 10:43 AM:

In my fantasty world, it goes something like this:

Some big, bad theatre chain thinks Evans is "picking on" them. They see his picture on Film-Tech and refuse to sell tickets to him when he goes to his local multiplex... and then they sue him for having an honest web site. Evans bites back with a class action lawsuit claiming that the theatre is selling a "defective" product to thousands of customers by not adhering to readily-understood industry (SMPTE) standards. Film advocates like Steven Spielberg file "friend of the court" papers. The ACLU realizes they can get some publicity, so they come along to defend Evans' free speech rights.

The big theatre chain decides they don't want to become the poster-child for bad presentations... they don't want a legal precendant which says they want the right to sell bad presentations. They settle out of court and pay off the lawyers. Evans still walks away with a couple of million in cash... and he moves to some high-class neighborhood, becomes an unbearable snob and never speaks to us again. To cover these costs, the big theatre chain closes all its theatres in the Huntsville area. Within six weeks, Wal-Mart has already replaced each one with a Super Center/RV Park.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-13-2002, 10:50 AM:

quote:
You can't use Microsoft's WWW authoring product to create WWW pages that say anything negative about Microsoft.

Well yes you can, just not directly. The fact that you have a web page created with Microsoft Frontpage will speak volumes. Your web site will be non-compliant, have a lot of bloated code, won't work properly, and will generally look bad. All you have to do is put a "This page created with Microsoft Frontpage" logo on the page and people will understand that they are better off typing the code with their nose.

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 06-13-2002, 12:29 PM:

John is correct. To sue you and win, the plantiff would have to demonstrate your statements are untrue (which they would be hard pressed to do) *and* they would have to prove that you knew the statements were false and published them to hurt the company *OR* if you did not necessarily know the information was wrong but you did not bother to check its authenticity before publishing.

Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 06-13-2002, 01:37 PM:

Evans, I personally like reading the reviews that you post. I feel we have the same type of taste in films and share a sort of weird sense of humor. I doubt that any distribution company would harass you in any way, manner, shape or form. Your critic's are your opinion and you certainly have the right to voice your opinion. Please, do not let your heart be troubled. Please continue your reviews.