Sony Pictures Classic has asked that the lawsuit against it for using a Faulkner quote in ‘Midnight in Paris’ be dismissed (dismissed, moved):
“Plaintiff’s purported copyright infringement claim does not survive a motion to dismiss because: (a) the use of a nine-word quotation from a full-length novel is a de minimis use and is not actionable under the Copyright Act; and (b) the Film’s use is a fair use expressly allowed by Section 107 of the Copyright Act.”
In the same motion, Sony Pictures Classics’ lawyers ask that the case be reassigned to a New York court. Not only would that be more convenient for its witnesses, as the filing says, but one has to think a New York court might not be as charitable to the Faulkner group than a Mississippi court.
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Brennan’s was on the auction block (saved, thank goodness) and is $4.1MM in debt. Good grief, that’s a fine breakfast but wow…
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The Southeastern Quilt Museum has a home in Carrollton, Georgia, and on exhibit now is ‘Not Your Grandmother’s Quilts’.
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Disappointed! NPR reports the Brontosaurus never existed, it was a hoax from a paleontologist from the 1800s.
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Jake Adam York, poet extraordinaire, missed. Left us much too soon. He grew up in Gadsden, son of a steel worker and a history teacher. Funeral service was at Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter (if he went to their day school, we were classmates). Joe York who many of us know as filmmaker is his brother. Jake’s wife, Sarah, asks that donations be made in his memory to the Southern Poverty Law Center. His beautiful poem, Grace, here.
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Very nice: The Civic, New Orleans’ oldest theatre, set to reopen soon. Yes a thousand times just to the sign.
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Artist Minnie Adkins has contributed art to a new children’s book, Sonny the Monkey.
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Been planning on featuring the Indiegogo campaign for What the Sleepy Animals Do at the Audubon Zoo this week, and just a couple or three days after beginning, already met its goal! Yay! So in love with these images.
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MSY is getting newer/better food options, among those being a Dooky Chase, Ye Olde College Inn, Zatarain’s, and a couple of Copeland’s concepts — and they’re all to be open by mid-January.
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The FLW home in Phoenix that was under threat of demolition will be saved thanks to a new owner. From USA Today:
Experts say the house is one of Wright’s most personal works, which included his input on every aspect, from its design and completion, down to the home’s furnishings and interior finishes.
Wright built the home for his son David, who died in 1997, and David’s wife, Gladys, who lived there until her death in 2008.
The 60-year-old house is a complete circle around a central courtyard with a broad, curved ramp leading up to the living quarters, built entirely on raised concrete piers.
Many experts consider the house, with its spiral form, a precursor to Wright’s design of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, one of his most famous works.
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What do you say when the American Spectator publishes a piece on Dean Faulkner Wells’ book, Every Day by the Sun: A Memoir of the Faulkners of Mississippi (read it last year, pretty good) and the American Spectator writer mentions:
A recent visit to Oxford, home to the University of Mississippi, fulfilled expectations of a gentile courthouse town full of ghostly, Faulknerian memories.
A gentile courthouse town? That autocorrect does the strangest things.
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The Decatur Daily reports:
State Sen. Arthur Orr said he will sponsor a bill next year that will give Gov. Robert Bentley the authority to pardon eight of the nine Scottsboro Boys defendants.
In a separate move, state representatives John Robinson, a Democrat, and Wayne Johnson, a Republican, both of Jackson County, said they plan to ask lawmakers to pass a resolution declaring the defendants innocent.
The Legislature goes into session in February.
“It’s just time to make this right and remove this stain from the state,” Orr, R-Decatur, said about the Depression-era convictions that sent several of the defendants to death row.
All of the defendants are dead. The state constitution does not permit the governor or Board of Pardons to grant posthumous pardons because of certain legal requirements for the person seeking the pardon.
“My bill will amend the constitution,” Orr said.
Bentley was not available for comment, but press secretary Jennifer Ardis said the governor’s opinion has not changed since August when the Morgan County Republican Party passed a resolution asking for the pardons.
At the time, the governor said he supported pardoning the Scottsboro Boys and would do so if he had the authority.
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Scott, Zelda, and Scottie’s Christmas in Paris, 1925. We had a wonderful Chanukah, and hope if you celebrate Christmas that it is a wonderful, happy day for you and your family!