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Paris and Paramount get the Dunce Award
By: Jarrod SarafinDate: Saturday, May 12, 2007
Sure, there are more stories in this article but the two biggest stories of the week in the whole “goof-up” department go to Paris Hilton who thinks a myspace petition or a Governor pardon will get her out of serving 45 days in a jail…that’s not even a jail.
The other prime story goes to a Studio having the nerve to try and take down yet another popular Movie News website even if they have no legal “right” to do so.
So yes, both Paris and Paramount are both enjoying their much deserved time in the Celebrity Dog House this week complete with barstools and Dunce Caps.
George Michael pleads guilty to DUI and Drug charges
The singer is doing the exact opposite of the Paris mess which we’ll cover below and saying he was guilty of not being in the proper state behind the wheel and having a stash of weed in his ride when he was found in his vehicle on Oct. 1st of last year.
On the first day of his trial in London, the former Wham! singer pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while unfit through drugs, blaming a combination of "tiredness and prescribed drugs" for the events that led to his arrest last October.
I did something very stupid," he told the court Tuesday, saying he was "very ashamed" of his behavior.
"I'm not used to defending myself in a position where I am ashamed of something."
"I am perfectly aware that I did something very wrong and got into my car when I was unfit to drive," Michael told the court Tuesday. "I was not in my normal physical state and I'm perfectly prepared to accept the correct punishment for that and I would have accepted it a long time ago."
As far as taking it all the way to a court trial before saying he was guilty, Michael had this to say…
"If I had known the day after the charge was brought the legal option of accepting a punishment without taking responsibility for something I felt I was not guilty to, I could have saved everyone here a lot of time and trouble.”
Sentencing will occur on May 30. He faces up to six months in jail and a 10,000 fine.
Since he’s saving more head ache for the court and owning up to it, I bet he gets probation.
Busta Rhymes says “No” to a One Year in Jail
Busta has amassed four busts in 10 months, including an arrest early Thursday morning on suspicion of driving under the influence after NYPD officers, citing his too tinted windows, pulled him over and detected the smell of alcohol in the car. Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor Smith, registered a 0.147 blood-alcohol level, nearly twice the state's legal limit of 0.08.
Therapper rejected a plea deal Tuesday that would have sent him to jail for one year for assault and then allow him to avoid incarceration for the other blips he's created on the police's radar over the past year.
Defense attorney Scott Leemon filed a motion rejecting the prosecution's attempt to combine Rhymes' two misdemeanor assault charges into one, noting that his client has a "valid defense" in both cases and wants them tried separately. The lawyer has previously called Rhymes' myriad run-ins with the law "payback" for not cooperating with the police's investigation into the 2006 shooting death of his former bodyguard, Israel Ramirez.
If Rhymes had agreed to plead guilty to the assaults, which stem from arrests in both January and August of 2006, in addition to the year behind bars he would have had to participate in an anti-drunken driving program and pay a $1,500 fine.
Rhymes had a plea deal that would have kept out of jail and on probation back in February but he ended up getting pulled over a few days after the deal was on the table so obviously the judge rescinded the offer.
Now, he’s facing jail time it seems from the Prosecutors of New York.
Tom Sizemore busted again for drugs and violence while on Probation
Damn, these stars are racking up the patience of LA and various other District Attorneys. Tom Sizemore is already on probation for drug problems and here is busted again for it. This time, he’s likely to get mandatory jail time.
Sizemore, still on probation for a drug conviction, was collared along with another actor after allegedly threatening to beat up a hotel clerk. While shooting an independent feature, Sizemore and actor buddy Jason Salcedo got into an argument with hotel staff as they attempted to check in to the Four Points Sheraton Hotel around 7:30 a.m., according to Bakersfield Police Detective Greg Terry.
Salcedo allegedly challenged the front desk clerk to a fight when his reservation wasn't found. A staffer called police, who found the actors holed up outside in their car with a stash of illegal drugs and smoking pipes, Terry said. Sizemore "displayed symptoms of being under the influence," Terry said.
Sizemore and Salcedo were rung up on charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of narcotic paraphernalia and being under the influence of a controlled substance and remain in Kern County Jail on $14,000 bond.
The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office hasn’t commented but Sizemore's arrest will likely result in a probation-violation charge that could mean mandatory jail time.
In October 2004, the 45-year-old Saving Private Ryan actor was convicted of methamphetamine possession. His probation on that charge was revoked after he was busted for faking a drug test (via the infamous Whizzinator) and failing to submit to court-mandated drug tests.
After probation was reinstated, Sizemore wound up serving jail time for a violation after testing positive for drugs in January 2006. In court, Sizemore once again tearfully swore he'd submit to weekly drug tests and clean up his act following a mandatory 90-day stint in a residential rehab facility. At that time, his probation was extended for another three years. (The actor chronicled much of his recent misadventures for his VH1 reality show, Shooting Sizemore, which premiered in March.)
On top of everything, he's still free on bail and awaiting his appeal of his 2003 domestic violence conviction for roughing up former girlfriend Heidi Fleiss.
Sizemore is currently working on Stiletto, a thriller about a female assassin that also stars Tom Berenger, Michael Biehn and Heroes' Stana Katic.
Tom Sizemore and Busta Rhymes seem to be in a race to see whom can face the most jailtime it seems.
The Paris Hilton Saga Continues: Asks Governor Arnold for a Pardon
This woman is silly. Okay, where to start.
As you all know, Hilton was sentenced to 45 days in jail after repeatedly doing traffic violations over the last year. While on probation, she seemed to not taking things serious enough and kept on violating the law. As such, at her latest court appearance, the judge handed her a 45 day stay at the Century Detention Center (where actresses Darryl Hannah and Michelle Rodriguez have also stayed before.)
So what happens when she is sentenced? Why, her family gets outraged in court and they call the judge, the case, and the proceedings a mockery and “injustice”. She then fires her long time publicist whom she blames for never “telling her that her license is suspended”…Nevermind that a law officer pulled her and a friend over and told her point blank she couldn’t drive.
It goes further though. This week, Paris has been starting a grassroots campaign (petition style) on her myspace page for a pardon from Governor Arnold.
"My friend Joshua started this petition, please help and sihn it," the spellcheck-challenged Hilton wrote on her MySpace blog. "i LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!"
Sigh….it’s spelled “sign”, Paris.
The petition, looking to appeal to "all fans and supporters and all that are outraged by injustice," describes Hilton as someone who "provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to [most of] our otherwise mundane lives."
LMAO What planet is this lady from? She insults us while asking for us to sign this “Help me” sheet.
In exchange for her global good deeds, the petition contends, she should not be locked up.
"Please allow her to return to her career and life," the petition reads. "Everyone makes mistakes. She didn't hurt or kill anyone, and she has learned her lesson...She is distraught and understandably afraid."
Seriously, she shouldn’t be. The Century Detention Center is not the true “jail” experience. She’ll likely be in her own cell and or in a cell with other traffic violaters at most..2-5 other minor traffic violation rounded people. She’ll be the center of attention still and have plenty of stories to tell. Why she’s worried about the Century Detention Center is beyond me…
The petition refers to the heiress' DUI bust last September as a "mortal error." She eventually pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of alcohol-induced reckless driving and had her license suspended; a February traffic stop resulted in the probation violation charge that earned her 45 days in the clink.
"If the late Former President Gerald Ford could find it in his heart to pardon the late Former President Richard Nixon after his mistake(s), we undeniably support Paris Hilton being pardoned for her honest mistake as well, and we hope and expect The Governor will understand and grant this unusual but important request in good faith to Ms. Paris Whitney Hilton."
Haha, yeah…Because her traffic violations are the same as Richard Nixon and Watergate. Sheesh.
As it is, Schwarzenegger's office has yet to receive the petition, though is aware of it, and will wait until Hilton has exhausted the proper legal recourse before deciding whether to step in on her justice-seeking behalf.
"We'll treat this as we would any other case of this nature, but it would be premature for the government to get involved until the individual has exhausted his or her judicial remedies," the governor's spokesperson, Aaron McLear, told the Associated Press.
In the event Schwarzenegger refuses to terminate the sentence, the Hilton faithful have already started covering their bases, with a separate contingent of fans setting up shop at FreeParis.org, where, in addition to buying slogan-emblazoned paraphernalia under the pretense of supporting Hilton's pardon bid, the sympathetic masses can also sign yet another online petition directed at both Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer, who issued the sentence, and the City/County of Los Angeles.
While fighting with online myspace petitions and governor pardons, Paris admits to not being above the law but still doesn’t believe she deserves jail time.
“No one is above the law. I surely am not," she said in a statement issued through her attorney. "I do not expect to be treated better than anyone else who violated probation. However, my hope is that I will not be treated worse."
"I absolutely realize how serious driving under the influence is. I could not live with myself if anyone was injured or killed while I was driving while impaired," she said. "I am ready to face the consequences of violating probation."
I have to say, putting Schwarzenegger in this situation in the first place is effing ridiculous. He doesn’t deserve to be put in this position. He has two sects of groups wanting something from him that doesn’t really require his attention and whatever he does, he’s going to piss off one side or the other.
I almost wish he would go old school Arnold and say “Hey Wussy Girl, you do da crime, you do da time!”
Warner Bros comes down hard on Canada
The studio is fed up with piracy and bootlegging out of Canada due to their lax standards on anti-piracy laws.
According to studio estimates, in the last 18 months, 70 percent of bootlegged Warner Bros. movies were shot in Canadian theaters.
The new policy covers sneak peeks for average moviegoers, but does not affect advanced screenings for journalists. The films will still open as scheduled in Canadian theaters.
Warner Bros. decided on the new "strategy" because Canadian law permits a person to videotape a movie in a theater for home use and only criminalizes such action if the recording is proven to have been used for commercial gain.
"It's less of a ban than a strategy to reduce our risk and it will be in effect for all Warner Bros. and Warner Independent films until such time as the risk is reevaluated," a studio spokesman told E! Online. "It's a business move actually."
"What the policy will do is cut down on the risks when you have open screenings," said the studio rep. "This tends to be big business for a lot of people and anybody doing this professionally knows that all they have to say is 'I'm going to take it home and watch it.
"We've put in a lot of time to guard against camcordering, but without a law, the most we can do is ask someone to leave."
Warner Bros. and other studios have, along with the Motion Picture Association of America, been lobbying Canadian officials for the several years to ban camcorders in theaters.
Without such action, the studios claim, their films are quickly disseminated online and can be duped for sale on the black market around the world.
The distributors now employ technology that enables them to trace the countries (and sometimes the theaters) where such bootlegs originated via a special digital watermark imprinted on the reel itself.
According to the MPAA, Canada now ranks as a problem country because roughly one in five pirated movies are recorded there. Because of the country's lax recording laws and state-of-the-art movie houses, the illegal dupes often feature pristine sound and high-quality images.
Senators Diane Feinstein (Democrat, California) and John Cornyn (Republican, Texas) have even written to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging his government to act more aggressively against film pirates.
The MPAA usually get their way with a lot of things and I’m sure they playing hardball with Canada will amount to them getting their ways.
Paramount tries to take action against IESB Website
This kinda ticks me off.
Last week, Robert Sanchez over at IESB put up a video coverage of Iron Man walking down the street and had a gold mine of photos. Paramount’s legal department contacted IESB’s hosting company and claimed “copyright” infringement and had the website taken down for a day.
Not one word was sent from Paramount to Robert over at IESB prior to this. They just went straight for his host and tried taking the site down.
Nevermind that this wasn’t copyright infringement in any shape or manner. The scene in question of Iron Man was shot on a public street in a very public section of a good sized city. There was nothing against the law in what Robert put up on his site and yet that didn’t stop the legal department from trying to strangle a respectable movie news website.
Here’s what IESB.net had to say about the incident:
To answer everyone’s questions, yes, it is true, Paramount Pictures sent a letter to our hosting company demanding that our site be shut down immediately claiming copyright infringement from our spy video and images of the Iron Man set that are posted here.
We were not notified in any way, or asked to take it down, we were literally in the middle of posting a story and all of a sudden our server was gone. We called our hosting company, they transferred us to legal and we were forwarded the letter that was sent from Paramount on Friday that demanded the shut down, note, this is a letter we were never sent and weren't given any warning about.
Here's the kicker, the video and pictures that were in question, were IN NO WAY property of Paramount Pictures. Both were shot from a parking lot of a 24 Hour Fitness Center across the street from the Iron Man shoot that was taking place on a PUBLIC STREET in Long Beach CA. There was no violation of copyright whatsoever.
After hours on the phone yesterday with Paramount reps (who had no clue about it) they completely apologized and said this should have never happened, it was the idiots in the Paramount legal department who did this without checking with anyone else. But, it was too late when they finally got a retraction together, the legal dept. at our hosting company was already closed and had gone home for the day and wouldn't receive any of Paramount's requests until the morning.
So we just had to wait, and wait some more. We lost traffic, we lost respect for the studio, we lost out financially and most importantly it was just really a blow to our reputation.
Without even asking, the online community posted and supported us through the entire ordeal. Everyone's sentiments and support are very much appreciated.
We need to say thanks to our online colleagues, LatinoReview, TheMovieBlog, Ropeofsilicon, Collider, FilmStalker, Ain’t It Cool News, Obsessedwithfilm, Firstshowing, Film.com, Cinema Blend, Cinematical and the many others who posted or sent in kind words of support. Thanks guys!
Robert Sanchez and Stephanie Sanchez and the entire IESB team
I’m not sure what Paramount’s “legal team” were thinking with this kind of tactic. It’s happened before where a studio was threatening an online news site and it will happen again but I would consider it important that the legal team for studio actually know about the law of copyright infringement before they call another sites hosting partner and demand that site get taken down.
Furthermore I agree with the rant given by Kellvin Chavez over at Latino Review. Here’s what he had to say about it:
Paramount Studios is at it again. As you may remember, some time ago Paramount Studios had The Movie Blog shut down over a picture that they had up of the cast of The "Transformers." It was just a simple picture of the cast off camera standaing around posing for a picture. There was nothing wrong with it. Eventually Paramount apologized to The Movie Blog the incident (which was very decent of them) and explained it was an accident. Everything was cool.
I had the same problem with them in regards with a set picture (CLICK HERE FOR THAT) for WAR OF THE WORLDS.
But earlier tonight, my buddy Robert Sanchez over at IESB contacted me to let me know that Paramount is at it again. If I understand it right (and it is possible I don't understand it right), Paramount used their mighty legal department to have IESB shut down and pulled off the net over the Iron Man pictures and a set video. Funny thing though is that Paramount told me not to link to a set video that was online, remember I had the same stupid problem about posting the Indiana Jones story that Shia was in the film.
Here's the funny part... the pictures in question are IN NO WAY ILLEGAL. They were taken legally and posted legally. Paramount's legal department is using fear and bullying tactics to push sites like IESB around so they can be "in control".
Hey Paramount! When will you guys realize that we in the online community are YOUR ALLIES!!! We want to get people talking about movies... YOUR stupid movies. Sometimes that will be good... sometimes it will be bad... but we will get them talking. We're on your side! Just because you can't manipulate and control us like you do with Print and TV media, doesn't mean you should try to bully us into submission. It won't work. Learn to work with us... and working WITH us doesn't mean you're in charge. DEAL WITH IT.
I hope you're pleased with yourselves pulling IESB down... I hope you relish this little chest thumping session of yours. Because this is going to bite you in the ass BIG TIME. I hope for your sakes this was all some big mistake... a mistake you'll correct sooner rather than later. Feel free to let me know if I've got any of this wrong.
I had the same problem with them in regards with a set picture (CLICK HERE FOR THAT) for WAR OF THE WORLDS.
But earlier tonight, my buddy Robert Sanchez over at IESB contacted me to let me know that Paramount is at it again. If I understand it right (and it is possible I don't understand it right), Paramount used their mighty legal department to have IESB shut down and pulled off the net over the Iron Man pictures and a set video. Funny thing though is that Paramount told me not to link to a set video that was online, remember I had the same stupid problem about posting the Indiana Jones story that Shia was in the film.
Here's the funny part... the pictures in question are IN NO WAY ILLEGAL. They were taken legally and posted legally. Paramount's legal department is using fear and bullying tactics to push sites like IESB around so they can be "in control".
Hey Paramount! When will you guys realize that we in the online community are YOUR ALLIES!!! We want to get people talking about movies... YOUR stupid movies. Sometimes that will be good... sometimes it will be bad... but we will get them talking. We're on your side! Just because you can't manipulate and control us like you do with Print and TV media, doesn't mean you should try to bully us into submission. It won't work. Learn to work with us... and working WITH us doesn't mean you're in charge. DEAL WITH IT.
I hope you're pleased with yourselves pulling IESB down... I hope you relish this little chest thumping session of yours. Because this is going to bite you in the ass BIG TIME. I hope for your sakes this was all some big mistake... a mistake you'll correct sooner rather than later. Feel free to let me know if I've got any of this wrong.
……
He pretty much sums up the situation perfectly. Studios, I understand you going after the bootleggers and illegal sellers as well as merchandise stealers but trying to tear down online movie news sites is not exactly the correct way to go about your business. We are indeed “helping” you and your future products by helping to keep people who “may” want to go watch your movies informed about your product. Excitement for your various films (even the crappy ones) get started by publicity…yes, publicity. We provide your studios with free publicity outside of having to pay for that annoyingly expensive 30 second spot in some show that only 11 million people may watch.
What’s more, we provide you this service for free. We don’t charge you for it. The people who love to discuss movie news and what’s happening in Hollywood are at sites like IESB, Mania, AICN, CHUD, JOBLO, Comingsoon, etc.
Sure, you can ignore nearly all of us and just give your news to a website you feel like you have “control” over. That’s your problems to work out, Studio Execs. We will still be around helping to promote some of your movies. Perhaps, just perhaps, you can find a way to resolve those ego centric issues of yours and come down here and feel free to give all your readers and possible future customers (and I do mean ALL) a closer look at your upcoming movies. You know, reward all of us websites whom actually go out of our ways to help promote your products. I believe that to be the better policy then going behind our backs and telling our hosting partners to shut down our sites.
That’s just me though.
You continue to act in whatever way you feel you must.
I wonder if IESB.com has precedence to sue Paramount over their server shut down. That was revenue lost over an item that was not illegal. Perhaps shoving it back up their own rectums might assist in the discontinuation of bullying web sites.
I believe that Warner Bros. has a point in what they are talking about, but these studios as of yet still have not given us ANY relevant data to corroborate their sentiments that illegal bootlegging actually causes movies to fail at the box office. They are correct in attempting to keep a hold of their property, but they have spent a lot of money to trying to correct a problem that may not even exist. Until they give actual information that reports this hurts their business I will continue to not give a shit about their plight.
A.