Odds: "Expelled" trumps Ono and Godard drops out.

2008-06-02 20:00:02

Yoko Ono has lost her bid to have use of John Lennon's "Imagine" removed from the problematic Ben Stein anti-Darwinist doc "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," reports the AP: U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ruled that if the case went to court, the filmmakers would probably win under the fair use doctrine. "That doctrine provides that the fair use of a copyrighted work for the purposes of criticism and commentary is not an infringement of copyright," Stein wrote in his decision in Manhattan federal court. On Stein's side, the claims were that Ono and co. were trying to censor the film; on Ono's, that they'd used her husband's song for free without permission. While just about everything about "Expelled," particularly the way the film's been handled in terms of gloatingly antagonistic publicity, has struck me as ugly and repellent, this does seem an impressively firm ruling on the side of doc...

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