"Timothy Sepi, owner of Whyte Monkey Productions and a former employee of "Joe Exotic," filed an infringement claim against Netflix for using approximately one minute of footage he shot of Joe Exotic's husband's funeral. While the district court originally ruled in favor of Netflix on fair use grounds, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision."
"Why It Matters ● Contextual Justification: The belief that using a clip to explain a subject's history (e.g., an actor's "modest beginnings") is a protected fair use. The 10th Circuit's decision appears to deviate from years of jurisprudence that protected the use of third party content as a biographical anchor. Notable precedents at risk include: ● Time, Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates: Sketches from the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination."
Unresolved legal questions at the end of 2025 include fair use boundaries, the legality of training AI on copyrighted material, and the application of the Rogers Test in trademark law. The 10th Circuit reversed a district court and held that a one-minute funeral clip used in Tiger King was not fair use because the clip was used to comment on Joe Exotic rather than to critique the footage itself. That ruling threatens documentary best practices such as using biographical anchors and historical markers. Established precedents at risk include Time, Inc. v. Bernard Geis Associates and Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, creating significant legal uncertainty for documentary creators.
Read at The IP Law Blog
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