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IMDb Sues California To Overturn Law Forcing Them To Remove Actors' Ages (theguardian.com)
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.
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.
Those ages will still be available on the Wayback Machine page caches, in perpetuity. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
You'd be appearance-obsessed if your job depended on it.
The only way to quasi-enforce anti-age-discrimination laws is to force studios to green light scripts with older lead characters. 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.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
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.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
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.