Expelled Plagiarizing Harvard?

_{Patrick

April 10, 2008

Expelled, Legal}

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Premise Media has just been slapped with a “cease and desist” letter from XVIVO, the group at Harvard that produced the video clips from which the still images at the top of this thread were taken. They are alleging copyright infringement (not to mention blatant plagiarism). The full text of the letter from XVIVO’s lawyers can be read at:

ERV: Expelled Epelled for Plagiarism
ERV: About That Cell Video in Expelled

The letter makes it clear that if the offending video clips are not removed from the film and all promotional materials by the opening date, immediate legal action will be taken to stop the release of the film.

Thanks to Allen MacNeill for bringing this accusation to our attention.

This accusation first became public when PZ Myers claimed that the Expelled movie used the Harvard “Inner Life of the Cell” animation. We’re currently investigating this claim and hopefully we’ll have more information in the next couple hours. But when asked about this, Jonathan Wells had this to say:

Expelled does NOT use the Harvard animation. The producers paid a professional to create a new animation that is more accurate than the Harvard one (based on current knowledge of cellular processes). Any similarities between the Expelled animation and the Harvard one are due to the fact that both animations depict many of the same processes.

Comments

I believe reproductions of the effiel tower at night are copyright. Sure, you can take a picture from the street but if you want to publish it in a magazine you owe them $$$!
This would probably be no hoopla at all if the producers--arguing all the hard work that went into "the original masterpiece" would take money for it. The movie probably could have used the original and properly credited Harvard and/or XVIVO and have done. The lawsuit doesn't mention financial damages. It says remove or we'll stop the movie. Your point demonstrates the common resolution to copyright issues. Pay and/or credit the right people. This is not an average case. By nature it is more like a rock group not wanting their music used by an organization they oppose. Of course, the difference with this is that the depiction is in someway supposed to be a sort of scientific document, representing positive facts, and science isn't supposed to have ideological biases. There is a frontier where such a film could become "artistic" and less "scientific" and where it is "scientific" and less "artistic". Again, this differs from the Beatles and Nike. They were in an "artistic" realm where a majority of the rationale and motivation for their product is selected by them. That's the problem with this authoritarian action. If it succeeds it's likely going to be by stretching precedents that have strong counters to being applied in this case. I would like XVIVO try to explain how they were damaged. Outside of the fiat of a Jones-like judge, I don't see how they could carry it off. Expelled is not marketing itself to diminish XVIVO's market share. It is not absorbing their markets. I doubt if it's in the interest of the film, had they used the original, to give them a bad name. My understanding is that there is a lot of interviewing that XVIVO did not conduct, so as to say that the work profits from derivative nature is a stretch for most reasonable conversations. I doubt they'd sell even one ticket because "Hey, they've got this neat 3D animation of a cell. I think ID is crap, but I've got to see that 10 (I'm guessing) minute snippet of film!!" The critics are right. They're not afraid of Expelled making money off of their year of toil. They're afraid of what might be inferred from a reasonable simulation of fantastic natural processes. This isn't about rights, it's about control. I have little to say to the sophists who want to stand behind whatever laws work as the best bludgeon.jjcassidy_{April 10, 2008
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Let me try this post again, as it is burried more than 20 posts deep already. Gentlemen, how do you get a new thread started on this site. I found the following article on livescience: “Shock: First Animal on Earth Was Surprisingly Complex” http://www.livescience.com/ani.....nimal.html This needs a dialog!bFast_{April 10, 2008
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Well, if this goes to court, maybe this time we’ll get a solidly conservative judge appointed by President Bush, rather than some ACLU loving liberal. Jones (cough cough) was picked by Dubya. (Granted he didn't give it as much consideration as he would for a SCOTUS pick)tribune7_{April 10, 2008
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The Expelled producers are not fools, but they clearly may be a bit careless, since the first version(s) of the movie actually had the original XVIVO movie, uncredited and unauthorized. This version of the animation was created/introduced later, when it became obvious that the first was violating XVIVO's intellectual property. As for the Harvard/XVIVO copyright issue, as I explained before, it is not the pretty pictures (i.e. the movie) that are the object of the infringement, but the XVIVO-proprietary methods of creating molecular models of proteins and cellular processes and rendering them graphically. And again, the point is entirely mute if the Expelled graphic professional(s) used original methods, instead of just using XVIVO's product as a starting point. This should become obvious at discovery, if the case gets there. Now, assuming that the Expelled animation methods were indeed completely original, I don't know what additional implications would stem from Dr. Dembski's revelation above that the final Expelled animation may have been purposefully fashioned to closely resemble XVIVO's. That may open another legal can of worms, depending on what the court may decide their goal was. I suspect that faking a violation of copyright for the specific purpose of instigating a lawsuit from the copyright holder may not be viewed kindly by a judge, but I am not a lawyer, so what do I know.Andrea_{April 10, 2008
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Were you this offended when Judge Jones was caught plagiarizing some 90% of his science “opinion” straight from an ACLU brief? LOLOLOL!!!! EXCELLENT POINT!! Davetribune7_{April 10, 2008
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Knockoff books demosntrate that one has discovered a winning formula. I guess it depends on your definition of winning. Clearly, Denyse, you aren't motivated by money, since you seem cool if people don't buy your book.poachy_{April 10, 2008
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Allan 51 and Andrea 54: Change every third word? The process you describe is an excellent way of turning "book" into "gunk." Why worry about such a Category suicide mission? Should The Spiritual Brain be a key book in its category, I fully expect cheapie riffs and quick knockoffs in future years. And no, I don't care. Knockoff books demonstrate that one has discovered a winning formula. Copyright violation occurs when, for example, someone translates the book into Klingon and sells it without acquiring translation rights. Or photocopies three chapters for the entire Psychology 101 freshman enrolment, again without paying permissions fees. I was a permissions editor for some years, in my misspent youth, and a part of my job was determining what we could do that did not violate copyright or trademark laws. I will be very surprised if the Expelled team does not have someone minding that desk. Incidentally, Andrea (?) changed the subject re the Wright brothers. Of course they could sue for patent infringement. But Andrea seemed to think that originators are entitled to expect that every subsequent entrant into a field do as much work as they did. It does not work that way. The ease with which subsequent entrants can compete without violating copyright is none of the originator's business.O'Leary_{April 10, 2008
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William:
I can just see all the game companies suing each other because they modeled a bridge, a building and deers “just like the other guys did”. There’s no intellectual property available in a 3-D depiction of a real-world object unless it’s a direct copy.
I belive the issue is more subtle here. It's more like if you asked people to draw a picture of an atom. People with a lay eductation draw a dot and a circle round it with a dot on it. An atom. As more is learnt, the picture becomes more complex. So the question is not why did they depict that "bridge" in that particlar way when there were innumarable other ways to depict it and still represent the process (just as there are many different bridges that all look different but still are bridges, many ways to depict an atom). It's an interesting question to be sure.RichardFry_{April 10, 2008
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I think most people here are in agreement that they simply did not watch the Harvard video and then copy it wholesale without any understanding of the science and bio-physics involved in what they were depicting. I wonder if this latest development will get picked up by Fox news etc any time soon? Jason
Actually Copyright law is only going to cover the original production. If someone went and reproduced it themselves then Copyright Law isn’t going to apply. It isn’t a copy
I believe reproductions of the effiel tower at night are copyright. Sure, you can take a picture from the street but if you want to publish it in a magazine you owe them $$$!RichardFry_{April 10, 2008
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#63 W. Dembski: "Before you think the producers of EXPELLED are idiots, you might think that they are chess players who have seen several moves ahead." Good point Bill. But let us look at this thread. What should we think of people such as andrea and jack krebs, who immediately come here to blame some (hypotetical) copyright crimes? Gentlemen, this seems just an escalation in the subjects to be expelled ...kairos_{April 10, 2008
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I wrote before that I thought this was an example of people with marketing degrees baiting people with science degrees into making big PR blunders. Is it a unpardonable sin to play tricks on the less intelligent and then laugh at them? I sure hope not!poachy_{April 10, 2008
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I can just see all the game companies suing each other because they modeled a bridge, a building and deers "just like the other guys did". There's no intellectual property available in a 3-D depiction of a real-world object unless it's a direct copy. If I see a great picture of the empire state building, and then find a location to mimick the shot, is my photo plagiarism? Please. They have no case, and no matter what happens, it's positive publicity for the movie. Can you imagine? "The Truth They Tried To Keep You From Seeing". These guys are sinking their own boat faster than we can put holes in it.William J. Murray_{April 10, 2008
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"The fact that it is a new animation is not the issue - no one is claiming that Expelled actually uses the XVIVO animation. The issue is whether, and to what extent, the presentation in Expelled was copied from the XVIVO product." Actually Copyright law is only going to cover the original production. If someone went and reproduced it themselves then Copyright Law isn't going to apply. It isn't a copy. Unless there is a patent on the process used to create the film, I suspect it will get nowhere. It isn't like the Expelled producers are passing off the animation as if it was the XVIVO animation. This is little more than a legal attempt to censor an idea some people don't like.Jason Rennie_{April 10, 2008
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Professor Bill, This is the first I've heard from you on the subject. I wrote before that I thought this was an example of people with marketing degrees baiting people with science degrees into making big PR blunders. So far PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins were made into assclowns either by design or by accident. As usual, I'm agnostic but leaning heavily towards design.DaveScot_{April 10, 2008
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Peter Irons is not an intellectual property attorney. I have previously described Peter Irons on this blog as a militant atheist who doesn't have a high school level understanding of biology. Peter Irons responded by sending an email to O'Leary accusing me of anti-semitism and asking that my post be removed. The whole exchange was then posted at Pharyngula. So basically I take it that Peter Irons' modus oprendi is that whenever he has no good argument he makes some unrelated accusation to distract from the real issue. Anti-Semite! Copyright Infringer! The real issue is the complexity of life at the molecular level, the Peter Irons' red herring is copyright infringement.Jehu_{April 10, 2008
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Mr scorova
Given the spelling error Troutmac found it is possible the NCSE was had.
TroutMac also found a spelling error in a expelled clip, Dr Dempski. Who's been had now? :)RichardFry_{April 10, 2008
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To clarify my last comment, when I spoke of errors I'm not aware that any significant error has been "copied" but simply that when depicting such processes there will be a large amount of artistic licence when deciding what to show and how to show it. It's like that scene in "working girl" where how the idea is thought up is just as important as what it is, if you can't say what inspired you to do it that way.... Well, that's how it happened in the movie. Maybe they hired it out at the NCSE video night? :)RichardFry_{April 10, 2008
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It'll be interesting to see if this does get to court. No doubt the NCSE's tatic is to naively hope that there is no background research supporting the science depicted in the video that can be used in court to defeat the idea that it's simple a shot for shot reworking of the original, errors and all. Has anybody done or seen anywhere a shot for shot or split screen comparison?RichardFry_{April 10, 2008
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Were you this offended when Judge Jones was caught plagiarizing some 90% of his science “opinion” straight from an ACLU brief? Well, if this goes to court, maybe this time we'll get a solidly conservative judge appointed by President Bush, rather than some ACLU loving liberal.poachy_{April 10, 2008
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Not a comparable situation, Dave; off topic; and I've never said I was offended about anything (except ftk calling me a fascist.) I never even said that I think they did copy. I don't think any of us know enough, based on the short clips in question, to know.Jack Krebs_{April 10, 2008
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Just for the sake of completeness we need to know XVIVO has indeed filed the letter the NCSE is publishing as "in the name" of XVIVO and Peter Irons. Given the spelling error Troutmac found it is possible the NCSE was had. Given Josh Rosenau works there, that wouldn't surprise me. But it would be good to check. Given Harvard owns the copyright and not XVIVO, this is possibly a hoax to make the NCSE look like idiots. I'm not asserting that the NCSE are idiots, however. Someone once confided to me they thought Eugenie Scott was as smart as Satan, if so, then the letter could be legit, but I'm not so sure.scordova_{April 10, 2008
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The end of the one I just watched says "©2007 Rober Lue and Alain Viel, Harvard University"William Wallace_{April 10, 2008
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DaveScot wrote: "Anyone else find it amusing that the second paragraph which was meant to start out with a lawyerly…" Yes, I spotted that right away and posted my own snide comment in the earlier thread. Such an error really made me question whether this whole thing wasn't just a prank. Like one of those e-mails you get from Nigeria. Too funny. Although I must admit it's no more embarrassing than the fact that in one of those clips posted on the other thread, Dr. Dembski's name is spelled wrong. I sure hope they fixed that in the final edit. If I see that error when I go to the theater in a couple of weeks, well, that's just embarrassing.TRoutMac_{April 10, 2008
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Jack Krebs Were you this offended when Judge Jones was caught plagiarizing some 90% of his science "opinion" straight from an ACLU brief? People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.DaveScot_{April 10, 2008
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This is also creating awareness for the original video. Very clever.wnelson_{April 10, 2008
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The big version, at the very end: Copyright 2006 The President and Fellows of Harvard College http://aimediaserver4.com/studiodaily/harvard/harvard.swf There seem to be a growing number of entities claiming to be the copyright holder. Anyhow, that was the first time I watched the "big version". It was breathtaking and unlike dumb bunnies who write for the New York Times not only did I know what I was watching was science I knew that in real life all that we saw depicted happens a million times faster.DaveScot_{April 10, 2008
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Like I said... Graceout_{April 10, 2008
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Oops! This thread is moving so quickly that I didn't see Dr. Dembski's post before mine went up. Sorry! (So sue me... :-) )Lutepisc_{April 10, 2008
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For instance, have you ever thought who stood to gain the most from the Machine Video featured at UD a week ago? . . . Sure. Richard Dawkins. Before 90 percent of the country thought of him as the Family Feud guy with rest thinking he was an obnoxious English guy from Oxford. Now, everyone knows him as Dawk the Dick.tribune7_{April 10, 2008
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Davescot: XVIVO has no standing. Peter Irons must not be much of a legal scholar as easily as you outflanked him.poachy_{April 10, 2008
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