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Actress Sues IMDb For Revealing Her Age
Alain Williams writes "An actress has sued Amazon.com for more than $1m (£639,000) after her age was posted on its Internet Movie Database. She says revealing her age on the site will lose her acting opportunities. From the article: 'The lawsuit states: "If one is perceived to be 'over-the-hill,' i.e., approaching 40, it is nearly impossible for an up-and-coming actress, such as the plaintiff, to get work as she is thought to have less of an 'upside,' therefore, casting directors, producers, directors, agents-manager, etc. do not give her the same opportunities, regardless of her appearance or talent."' So is her career dependent on lies?"
Approaching 40 .. from what side?
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
All careers in Hollywood are based on lies. Having myself attempted to break into commercial voice acting, it was often a question as to whether you (as a voice actor) should include your mugshot. The specialty of the woman who taught my classes was the "teenage girl" part. Why not use an actual teenage girl? Because she was a much better actor in her 40's and 50's, yet can still sound like a teenager. Is it a lie for her to audition for teenager parts? Would she have gotten the audition (just the chance to tryout for the part) if she included a picture of herself as a 40-year-old?
Keep in mind that Bart Simpson wouldn't have the voice he does if Nancy Cartwright hadn't come in to audition for Lisa's part. Does that make Bart's voice a lie?
From a certain point of view... ;)
I wanted to be angry about this. I even had a post written up about how the judge had better eviscerate this woman and her lawyer for such a stupid lawsuit. Then I went against all Slashdot policies and read the article. It is not quite what we think.
She is definitely mad about her age being disclosed, and that is probably the basis for the damage amount -- but her actual claims are about how they got her age. She is claiming that they got her birthdate from a subscription to IMDBPro and is claiming breach of contract and invasion of privacy.
I am not commenting on the merits of that claim, by the way, but it is certainly different than "somebody disclosed a fact about me, sue them!" Much as it pains me, perhaps the calls for evisceration have to be put temporarily on hold. Meh. I guess I have to find a patent story and call for evisceration there instead.
The BBC article is light on the details to the point of distorting the issue. There's a better write-up at Paid Content, which also has a link to the complaint. It's not just about ageism; the Jane Doe alleges that IMDb pulled her birthdate from her credit-card information and then published it, ignoring takedown requests.
No statement is true, not even this one.
"Up-and-coming actress" is Hollywood-speak for "waitress."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I read this article yesterday and if I understand correctly, the problem isn't that her age was revealed, but that the personal information she used when signing up for the site was used to get that information. If true, this seems to be a complete misuse of her personal information. I think ultimately, Amazon will have to provide evidence that they obtained this information from another source or convince the judge that it was within their rights according to the site's user agreement to use the information in this manner.
Wow, trolling in the summary?
The article barely touches on the real problem here - she paid for an "IMDb Pro" account and Amazon used that info to pull an "above the line" credit report on her. These "above the line" reports contain: name, mother's maiden name, date of birth, sex, address, prior addresses, telephone number, and the Social Security Number and have no legal protection. That's where they got her age from.
So she basically paid Amazon and they used the billing information for purposes other than which she intended. That's the kind of shit that makes me never want to pay for anything on the net - and only use cash in real life too.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.