IMDb Sues California To Overturn Law Forcing Them To Remove Actors' Ages (theguardian.com) 68
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is suing California over a law forcing the website to remove the ages of actors on request, saying it is unconstitutional. California passed a law in September ruling that "a commercial online entertainment employment service provider" would be required to remove details of the age of any of its subscribers within five days, on the request of the subscriber. The law was intended to fight age discrimination in the film industry and had been campaigned for by actors' groups. The president of the union Sag-Aftra wrote in August that actors "face blatant age discrimination every day as websites routinely used for casting talent force birth dates and ages on casting decision-makers without their even realizing it." However, IMDb's suit (pdf) claims that the law "does not advance, much less achieve" the goal of reducing age discrimination, and that it violates both the first amendments and commerce clause of the U.S. constitution. IMDb also claims it separately violates federal law "because it imposes liability on IMDb based on factual content that is lawfully posted by its users." The website criticizes the state of California for passing the law, saying it has "chosen to chill free speech and undermine public access to factual information." IMDb says it is being unfairly targeted and that the law does not deal with the main cause of age discrimination. The case claims the law is both too broad -- as it includes all film professionals, rather than just those who could expect to be the target of age discrimination such as actors -- and too narrow, as it fails to impose the same restrictions on the "myriad other sources of the same information," such as Wikipedia, Google or specialist websites that list the birthdays of famous people. IMDb also says that subscribers to its paid professional service, IMDb Pro, have been able to edit or remove biographical details about themselves on the site since 2010.
Age, relationships.... (Score:4, Funny)
/sarc
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Here's a free tip for you:
Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez are currently single.
They are planning to get married.
Within two years of their wedding day, they will be single again.
Re: Age, relationships.... (Score:3)
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We are talking about Hollywood here. A woman's marital status is typically not a barrier to entry :-)
Why are you limiting it just to women?
Can't go by the pictures that's for sure (Score:2)
Check out the profile head shot for any aging actor. They've got a studio portrait left over from about 40 years ago. Actors are the most shallow, appearance-obsessed people you will ever meet.
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The same applies to real estate agents, they tend to have decades-old "glamour shot" photos on their business cards and websites. Having worked in that industry for awhile it was laughable seeing many of these people in person each day vs. how they represented themselves in their advertising. Most of them were at least 10 years older and 20 pounds heavier, if you'd only seen their business card you wouldn't even recognize them in person.
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I prefer the term "used house salesman".
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Nah, doesn't really work since they sell actual land, and people can tear down the house and build a new one* if they want.
*In most areas barring various landmark laws and HOAs
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Check out the profile head shot for any aging actor. They've got a studio portrait left over from about 40 years ago. Actors are the most shallow, appearance-obsessed people you will ever meet.
Never met any models?
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Had one as a roommate for a while. The agency he worked for had him on a contract with a certain well known men's clothing brand. He had to wear only certain brand clothes provided for him when in public, had personal fitness trainer, used only hair products provided by a professional that he saw every week, saw a dermatologist for skin care product although he didn't really need to, and attended charity benefits and other events on behalf of the client in addition to actual modeling.
Best wing man ever he a
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Had one as a roommate for a while. The agency he worked for had him on a contract with a certain well known men's clothing brand. He had to wear only certain brand clothes provided for him when in public, had personal fitness trainer, used only hair products provided by a professional that he saw every week, saw a dermatologist for skin care product although he didn't really need to, and attended charity benefits and other events on behalf of the client in addition to actual modeling.
Best wing man ever he attracted women but wasn't interested.
I'm guessing he was gay?
Re:Can't go by the pictures that's for sure (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd be appearance-obsessed if your job depended on it.
So, old is good (Score:2)
Typical stupidity from the California legislature (Score:5, Insightful)
As a resident of California, who lives a short drive from Hollyweird, this law is no surprise. The second stupidest legislature in the US sucks Hollywood's dick at all times, in all ways.
If they want to make age discrimination in Hollywood illegal, they should pass a law making age discrimination in Hollywood illegal. And if that's what they wanted, that's what they'd do. This has nothing to do with actresses not getting roles when they're too old to pretend to be teenagers any more, and everything to do with pretending to care what the celebs want, while actually protecting the studios from public scorn for the age discrimination.
As noted, dates of birth are readily available to anyone who wants to know anyway. And producers and directors already know how old an actress is before they even consider casting them (if they care), and a professional makeup artist can make a 90 year old grandmother look like a teenager anyway with their magic bucket of spackle and trowel.
This law isn't intended to keep the industry from being able to discriminate based on age, it's intended to keep the public from realizing how widespread that discrimination is. This is to mask the age of actresses from the public, not the industry.
Re:Typical stupidity from the California legislatu (Score:5, Insightful)
Having worked at one time for a company that sold telephone directories and online advertising I can see this from the IMDB perspective. When I worked at the ad company we would have free listings for businesses as a service to the people that bought the directories and as an incentive for paid advertising from the businesses. If a business called in with a correction to factual information, such as we had the wrong phone number listed, or we misspelled the business name, then we'd fix it for free. We did this for free because it added value to our products.
If a business wanted their address removed then we wouldn't do that for free because that is something people can figure out on their own from another source and not listing it devalues the product for people paying for the directory. If they want information removed then we'd only do so at a price to make up for the loss in value of our product. It also creates a disincentive for trivial changes to a business listing, changing a listing takes a person time to perform which costs money. Just having someone answer the phone or look at an e-mail costs the ad company money, if they want access to the people that will answer the phone quickly and cater to their whimsy on how their listings look then they should pay for it.
I don't see the problem with IMDB requiring a paid subscription to their service to remove the age from a person listed. A person's age is factual information, available from other sources, and changing an entry in their database takes time and money which IMDB should be compensated for to provide that service.
IMDB is a business and list the names, ages, roles performed, etc. at no cost to them. The information they list for free is factual information, available elsewhere, and by making the listing they are in effect giving these people free advertising for their work in the hope to entice them to pay for more services. IMDB will not give false information on behalf of these people, that is not only unethical but also many times illegal. What they can do though is make additions to a listing, or hide certain factual information, but only if someone pays for it because that is where the real costs come in.
I believe IMDB is in the right here.
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If IMDB loses this because it has the "scent of extortion" then I expect IMDB to respond within the law but also in a way to retaliate against those that want their ages hidden. For example, IMDB can merely respond to any request of removing the age by removing the entire biography page. IMDB is not obligated to provide these people with free advertising, just give them a choice, a complete bio which includes their age, no bio, or pay for a customized bio page. Or even make it simpler, no bio page or pay
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I don't see the problem with IMDB requiring a paid subscription to their service to remove the age from a person listed.
Address information is less likely to be prejudicial than the age of an actor, hence requiring payment to remove an actor's age, while possibly legal on free speech grounds, still has the scent of extortion.
This has nothing to do with extortion - an actor can't control their bio without a subscription. It's as simple as that. It's not pay to remove age information, it's pay to control all your information. Another key here is that IMDB doesn't do anything other than give you control of your info, likely after confirming it's really you via the payment system.
Re:You forgot the plastic surgeons (Score:4, Insightful)
You underestimate the talent of a make-up artist. I've live in California for a long, long time, but what really drove it home for me was when John McCain was running for president and his wife was on the tonight show. She was, at that time, in her 50s, an aging beauty queen who had take good care of herself, and that's exactly what she looked like Very attractive, but clearly in her 50s. Look at a press release photo of her (with Hollywood makeup), and it's clear that if she were an actress, she could easily play a teenager. Valerie Bertinelli, made up for the cameras, looks exactly the same today (at age 55) as she did at 18, other than her butt being a little bigger (and that's the fashion these days, and purely a choice). I'm not kidding when I say they could make a 90 year old grandmother look like a teenager. Plastic surgery is only useful off camera.
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She was, at that time, in her 50s, an aging junior rodeo queen
FTFY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That first picture on the Wikipedia article looks terrible, it must be poor lighting or something, because the pictures in the rest of the article look pretty good, even the more recent ones.
Re:Typical stupidity from the California legislatu (Score:5, Insightful)
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The only way to quasi-enforce anti-age-discrimination laws is to force studios to green light scripts with older lead characters.
Such scripts are being greenlighted more these days. Helen Mirren has no problem getting work.
It is not age discrimination to pass over a 28-year-old, in favor of a 21-year-old, for the part of a 17-year-old.
Outside of big budget studio productions, in general, movies with female leads that are not pretending to be teenagers or in their 20s do not do as well at the box office. Especially the popcorn movies for the younger crowds, who just want wank material to begin with. The only way to even reduce age discrimination in Hollywood is to convince audiences to see movies starring older actresses.
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That's not discriminating against young people, that's discriminating against people who can't act for shit. There are just as many old people who can't act who don't get move roles, either.
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The concept embodied by this law might be creeping into society generally. I monitor fire department scanners and they no longer say the patient is "46 years old", instead they say "46 years OF AGE" as if the very word "old" itself is a Bad Thing. I've actually heard the dispatcher correct herself as she was about to say "age" as if she would get reprimanded by saying it.
Is this really a thing?
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"As a resident of California, who lives a short drive from Hollyweird, this law is no surprise. The second stupidest legislature in the US sucks Hollywood's dick at all times, in all ways."
What's odious about this law is that it only applies to the entertainment industry. Shouldn't it apply to all employees?
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SFW.
Just go to Wikipedia and look it up there. It's not a commercial entertainment website.
Will they also sue Internet Archive? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Member Almost Home?
Wrong reason (Score:2)
IMDb is a Delaware Company (Score:2)
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Public's right to know (Score:2)
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Unless you pay to remove it. No conflict of interest there!!
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This is a privacy versus free speech issue, not a privacy versus public's right to know.
It's not about right to know, but right to publish.
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Age is a medical condition. (Score:1)
Re: Really? (Score:2)
how far to go? (Score:3)
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I demand that they go further and ban discrimination based on looks. And weight. Or rank odor.
And talent! Dull clumsy oafs have rights too, you know
does removing ages apply to porn stars as well (Score:2)
Gotta hide those underage stars...
So only the Hollywood elite can proxy their age? (Score:1)
Meanwhile somewhere between Valhalla and band-camp.. the rest of us must wrestle with the human condition. We cannot choose our age as we are defined by our family tree and its calendar-based definitions or our genome. If anonimizing our age was mainstream.. and defined by law then again by law... how would any company/country/entity decide to "green out" their top-end staff? I can see both sides of this argument.. but if Hollywood is trying to use law-based attributes for a person.. then how do the rest