Legal As She Is Spoke

By LASIS Staff 

Last November, LASIS wrote about the lawsuit brought by the Faulkner estate against Sony Pictures Classics alleging copyright infringement because of a sentence or two in Woody Allen’s romcom “Midnight in Paris.” As then NYLS Professor said to our reporter, “The intellectual property rights asserted in this case are, in fact (brain) dead.”

Chief Judge Michael P. Mills of United States District Court in Mississippi apparently felt similarly, and earlier this week, dismissed the case.

So as to be sure to make a wise decision, Judge Mills saw  “Midnight in Paris” and read (Faulkner’s) “Requiem for a Nun.” He is, he writes, “thankful that the parties did not ask the court to compare ‘The Sound and the Fury’ with ‘Sharknado.’”

Nice pop culture savvy, Judge Mills.  And in tossing the case out of court, good legal savvy, too.