Disabled Vet Sues Michael Moore

Disabled Iraq Vet Suing Over 'Fahrenheit 9/11'

A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, is asking for damages because of "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation," according to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week.

Damon, 33, claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview Damon did with NBC's "Nightly News."

While I sympathize with Damon's thoughts and feelings on this one, he is unfortunately under the assumption that the footage recorded by NBC News belongs to him. Under most precedents regarding news footage, it is the news producer that owns the IP rights to footage recorded as NEWS. Since at the time Damon was acting publicly and placing himself in the "public eye" during the interview. Therefore, he has no legal standing to bring suit against Moore or NBC News.

He should, therefore seek to negotiate the matter with Moore, asking for the footage to be removed from the film and some form of compensation for the misrepresentation. Since Moore expects everyone else to be "reasonable" and work it out with the people and causes for whom he advocates, maybe its time that the shoe was on the other foot. Let's see if ultra-liberal Moore can be as reasonable as he expects everyone else to be.