Re: Rights in real characters

In an excellent contribution to the thread on Clinto and "Contact", Craig Summerhill <craig[_at_]cni.org> wrote:
>
> I've seen the movie twice, and stayed for the credits once. I did not
> see anything in the credits that specifically named Clinton by name. I
> can't swear that it wasn't there, but I really doubt it.

I think any end title credit would have identified only the source of the footage, not the President himself.

> If I hadn't already seen the main footage of Clinton on C-SPAN (it was
> taken from his press announcement regarding the bacteria found on the
> Mars rock), I would have been hard pressed to tell whether it was clever
> editing by Zemeckis or a cameo appearance by Mr. President.

An excellent point, which makes our hypothetical "false light" action by the President much more supportable.

Bob Cumbow
<cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> Received on Mon Aug 11 1997 - 16:41:16 GMT