Universal tries to claim it's illegal to email their employees
Filed under: Universal, Celebrities and Controversy, Tech Stuff, Scripts, The Weinstein Co., Politics
A blogger named Gerard Jones has posted the email addresses of thousands of
agents, producers and executives on a site called
EveryoneWhosAnyone.com, breaking
down the iron curtain between practicing Hollywoodites and the rabble
that aspire to knock them off their respective blocks. Screenwriters and other budding creatives have apparently been flooding the agents and execs on the list with email inquiries. Now Universal
(predictably, if baselessly) is crying "spam attack", and is trying to get Jones' domain host to force
him to
remove the information."The site encourages would-be screenwriters to inundate our executives with unsolicited submissions, spam, phone calls," read a letter sent from Universal's legal department to Dotster. "Since this material was posted by your customer (Gerard Jones), the amount of spam email our executives have received has skyrocketed, with scores of people sending us ideas for screenplays." Jones has apparently already recieved cease and desist requests from Creative Artists Agency and The Weinstein Company. He's thus far refused to take any of the contact information down; instead, he's posted snippets of correspondance with various agencies under their phone numbers. His full exchange with Universal's counsel is posted here, and it's great. ""If your Gestapo tactics succeed in getting my website shut down," Jones warns, "GE and its subsidiaries will be the laughing stock of generations of freedom loving Americans. "Imagination at work." Ha! Good luck." He then slags Universal's counsel off as "some corporate chick lawyer" and accuses her of living in "a solipsistic tree fort".
But how many emails are these people really getting? With an Alexa traffic rank of 149,849, Jones' experiment in transparency hasn't exactly cracked the top level of the culture. That said, it may not matter in the end: as attorney and free-speech expert Martin Garbus told Variety, "I think he's protected; email addresses are in the public domain. If anyone took him to court, he'd probably win."









Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
12-01-2005 @ 12:34PM
Elrond Hobbert said...
Well it's gone now. This guy's kind of pointless anyway. That's what everyone needs is more spam. Hope Uni has him rubbed out, King Kong style.
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12-01-2005 @ 1:23PM
Scott said...
I think the most important apect of this article is, "...read a letter sent from Universal's legal department to Dotster. "[...]with scores of people sending us ideas for screenplays." How in the world is having "scores of people" with ideas fo screenplays a bad thing? People should have the right to the means to create a screenplay if they wish. I'm not saying Universal is the only way. I'm saying this emphasis on Universal demostrates the (perceived, if not valid) elitism of the entertainment industry/market.
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12-01-2005 @ 1:58PM
karina said...
There was an error in the html for the link above. The site is still up, and the link is fixed.
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12-01-2005 @ 2:02PM
thewebguy said...
i would be pretty pissed if someone posted my email publicly, not for the people that would see it though, for the spambots.
anyway, if they think they can sue him into taking them down, they are high.
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12-01-2005 @ 2:09PM
j$ said...
that's awesome! you know if the execs could find a way to send emails out to the world about their latest blockbuster they would, how is this any different?
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12-01-2005 @ 2:19PM
Josh said...
That site is definitely still up. I don't see where they get off calling the emails "spam". Isn't spam a term used for emails that are sent out en masse as advertisements? These seem to be legitimate emails that they are complaining about. What a bunch of complainers. They just need to update their email filters to figure out what they actually want to see.
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12-01-2005 @ 3:07PM
Dollar Bill said...
The entertainment industry should be happy to get suggestions mailed to them with the crap they've been producing lately. I believe a novice like myself could come up with better ideas than those so called tv exec. All I need is a couple beers and a fat dobbie.
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12-01-2005 @ 3:07PM
Erik Davis said...
I don't feel bad for the agents, I feel bad for the assistants who are most likely given the job of filtering through the email to see what matters and what doesn't.
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12-01-2005 @ 3:29PM
Spacecataz said...
"I'm saying this emphasis on Universal demostrates the (perceived, if not valid) elitism of the entertainment industry/market."
It's a CYA tactic. They also don't read script sent to them in the mail either. If they did go through them and made a movie (or were making a movie) that was similar, they could be taken to court over the situation. Better to just not read them at all then to open yourself up for a bunch of people claiming that their idea was ripped off.
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12-01-2005 @ 3:45PM
Tim said...
The comments about the exec's being willing to spam the general public ring a little hollow.
Would have been better if the addresses had at least been protected by a spam trap or some obfuscation (you know using x AT REMOVE NO SPAM xyz.com etc.)
Seems like someone trying to get even to me.
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12-01-2005 @ 3:46PM
Targ8ter said...
I dunno... I'd class "u can read my best screen-play evar 4 free" emails as spam, just like all the "buy all major prescription drugs 4 free" spam.
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12-01-2005 @ 5:31PM
Gerard Jones said...
I haven't heard anything further from the chick at NBC Universal. She said she'd withdraw the complaint then reneged. I got rid of the clickable email addresses, but left the formula up. That wasn't good enough for her so the next time I update the site I'll make the addresses clickable again and include the addresses of her bosses at GE. I also got rid of the clickable addresses at The Weinstein Company but the formula's the same and they have a really nice person working there. Thanks. G.
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12-01-2005 @ 5:49PM
miscblogger said...
I totally agree. Email addresses should be public domain. They are just like phone numbers.
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12-01-2005 @ 6:06PM
Greg Hamilton said...
Hmmm - I'd be pretty upset too if I was receiving potentially thousands of *unsolicited* manuscripts.
Chances are, someday the studios will produce entertainment that someone will claim is a ripoff of their idea, and perhaps have some sort of email trail to back it up.
That might be a bit of a problem....
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12-03-2005 @ 6:14PM
Sam said...
Gerad Jones, you F**King ROCK. The Hollywood Studios needed to be knocked on their collective butts for a change. The crap they have been spitting out lately, they should be thankful that fresh unknown writers now know how to get in touch with them. To the Studios RELAX!! Big deal your information got out. Yeah it sucks but so does just about every movie they're showing at the theatres for 7 bucks. Get over yourselves!
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12-04-2005 @ 7:07PM
Gerard Jones said...
Here's a complaint I just filed with the California State Bar Association:
Judy Johnson
State Bar of California
Office of the Chief Trial Counsel
1149 S. Hill Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015
[REDACTED]
Subject: Complaint against Carolyn Anne Hampton, Bar Number 155886, Vice President - Litigation Counsel, NBC Universal, 100 Universal City Plaza, LRW-6, Universal City, CA 91608, tel. 818-777-6287, fax 818-866-2166, carolyn.hampton@nbcuni.com
Dear Ms. Johnson:
In October, 2005 Ms. Carolyn Hampton filed a complaint containing false information with both Dotster and Charter Communications in an attempt to shut down my website, http://everyonewhosanyone.com, and to deprive me of my ability to send legitimate e-mail.
Without consulting me and based solely on Ms. Hampton's false claims, Charter Communications cut off my e-mail service.
In November, 2005 Ms. Hampton said "If you remove the Universal e-mail addresses from your site, then we will withdraw our complaint with Dotster." Although there was nothing whatsoever "wrong" with the content of my website, I removed the Universal e-mail addresses because my site represents three years and thousands of hours of work other than the content about which the false complaint was made. Contrary to her written contract, Ms. Hampton did not withdraw her complaint and instead renewed it again in December, 2005. I believe that conduct (and other conduct you may discover during the course of your investigation) to be in violation of several provisions of the Rules of Professional Conduct and the California State Bar Act.
Further documentation of the matter may be seen by clicking the following links:
http://everyonewhosanyone.com/tt/tgpc1.html
http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2005/10/everyone-whos-anyone-under-threat.html
Thank you for your anticipated prompt discipline of Ms. Hampton in whatever way or ways you may find to be most fit.
Sincerely,
Gerard Jones
http://www.everyonewhosanyone.com
Ed. Note: We removed a number of email addresses from the bottom of this comment. We support Gerard Jones right to post email addresses on the web - it's just not our thing.
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12-05-2005 @ 8:51AM
Gerard Jones said...
Hey, your thing is fine with me. If anyone can tell me what "solicited" advertising is I'd be curious to hear. I don't recall ever having solicited any myself, but maybe I live in a bad part of town. Thanks. G.
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12-08-2005 @ 10:28AM
Ivan said...
1 person sending 1,000,000 people a message is spam.
1,000,000 people sending 1 person a message is speech.
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12-10-2005 @ 11:06PM
Z said...
Gerard,
I have a hard time understanding what your goal is. At first it appears that you desire to bring your book to the attention of the ET people. But what you have done is turn those same people in to your enemies, by posting their emails on your site. At this point, it is fare to say you will never get a chance to work or deal with anyone in this business. People always fail to see the logic behind a system, when they are on the outside. How would you feel, if you were the President of Universal (who has a million different responsibilities) receiving emails from people you’ve never heard of. Or if someone wrote a book similar to yours and tried to sue you tomorrow, claiming you stole the idea from him because he once sent you an email with the idea. I assume you have a lot of free time on your hand. Why don’t you use your time productively by write something better, instead of creating enemies? This is what it comes down to; you are 63 years old, what have you accomplished in your 63 years. Posting peoples emails (which is just like posting someone’s phone number) is not a contribution. How would you feel if the studios, posted your phone number, email and address, getting 20,000 emails and calls a day. At 63, you’re not a child anymore, maybe you should think before you act.
Z
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12-11-2005 @ 3:35PM
Ben Hocking said...
From Ivan:
1 person sending 1,000,000 people a message is spam.
1,000,000 people sending 1 person a message is speech.
Actually, IMO, spam is a million people sending a billion people a message. A billion people is composed by adding 1 person a billion times. I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but not the specifics. A million people sending 1 person a message is cacophony and will be unlikely to get any message across. "Scores of people" sending a message, however, will.
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