The Times - UK (2021-11-10)

the times | Wednesday November 10 2021 31

Wo r l d

Netflix is facing a torrent of lawsuits
from the subjects of some of its most
popular documentaries.
There are the parents depicted in
Operation Varsity Blues, a dramatised
documentary about the 2019 American
college admissions bribery scandal,
who say the show amounts to the “ulti-
mate destruction of their reputations”.
There is a Wisconsin police sergeant
who says the 2015 true-crime docu-
mentary Making a Murderer, one of
Netflix’s first runaway successes, insin-
uated that he planted evidence.
Then there is the chess grandmaster
Nona Gaprindashvili, who claims Net-
flix was sexist in its portrayal of her in

The Rogers name, associated with one
of Canada’s biggest business empires, is
a fixture of the Toronto skyline. A third
of Canadian adults subscribe to its
mobile network.
It is little wonder, then, that a blister-
ing family feud, provoked by a “pocket
dial” phone call that revealed an
attempted coup, has gripped the nation
and drawn comparisons to the TV
drama Succession.
Since the death in 2008 of Ted
Rogers, founder of the £18 billion tele-
coms and entertainment empire, ques-
tions about who should succeed him
have dogged the company. Rogers
Communications is publicly listed but
voting control on its board remains
with the family. Now it is close to a

Netflix hit by stream of libel lawsuits

United States
Charlie Mitchell

the chess drama The Queen’s Gambit,

the former Manhattan prosecutor Lin-

da Fairstein, who thinks it portrayed

her as racist in When They See Us, a

drama about a 1989 miscarriage of jus-

tice, and the Harvard law professor

Alan Dershowitz, who is chasing Net-

flix for $80 million for his inclusion in

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich.

In all, The Hollywood Reporter says

Netflix is facing more defamation com-

plaints than any leading media outlet. It

has not yet lost a case.

Legal issues began mounting after

2015 when, following the success of

Making a Murderer, the streaming giant

threw its weight behind true crime.

However, the cases raise questions

about whether it can be held responsi-

ble for potentially defamatory docu-

mentaries or films that it “distrib-

utes” rather than makes.

Even Netflix Originals,

which are exclusive to

the platform, usually

involve other pro-

duction companies.

All the shows it has

been sued for fall in-

to that category.

Its lawyers have

drawn comparisons

between Netflix and

cinemas, YouTube and

bookshops, which do not

historically end up in court

over the content they exhibit or sell

because of the “actual malice” stan-

dard, established by the Supreme Court

in 1964, which makes defamation suits

brought by public figures dependent

on knowledge of falsity or reck-

less disregard for the truth.

“A distributor, such as

Netflix, cannot be said

to have disseminated a

work of non-fiction

created by someone

else... with actual

malice unless the

work itself relates in-

formation that is on its

face inherently improb-

able or there were obvi-

ous or [blatant] reasons to

doubt the reliability of the cre-

ator,” its lawyer, Lee Levine, said at a

2019 hearing in its Making a Murderer

libel lawsuit. The judge, however, asked

why Netflix, in that case, had accepted

awards for writing and editing the show.

This suggests that Netflix will strug-

gle to present itself as a distributor the

more it looks like a studio. The plat-

form, which has more than 210 million

subscribers, won 44 Emmys this year.

Netflix has a trump card: section 230

of the US Communications Decency

Act, which provides immunity for in-

ternet platforms with respect to third-

party content. Yet it appears to have po-

sitioned itself rather as part of the film

and TV industry, having left the Inter-

net Association, one of Big Tech’s main

lobbying groups, to join the Motion Pic-

ture Association.

Anya Taylor-Joy in The Queen’s Gambit

as Nona Gaprindashvili, who accuses

Netflix of sexism in its portrayal of her

makes.

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Real-life Succession feud engulfs dynasty

£15 billion takeover of Shaw Media, a

big rival.

The feud began last month when

Rogers’s 52-year-old son Edward, the

board chairman, secretly tried to oust

Joe Natale, the chief executive, and re-

place him with Tony Staffieri, the

former chief financial officer. It fell

apart when Staffieri inadvertently

phoned Natale while discussing the plot.

Loretta Rogers, Edward’s 82-year-

old mother, and his sisters Martha Rog-

ers and Melinda Rogers-Hixon, came

out for Natale and, as directors, ousted

Edward. He responded by swapping

five directors with candidates who re-

elected him, and sued his relatives.

“I see Ed has appointed himself the

chairman. LOL. This should be taken as

seriously as if he appointed himself the

king of England,” Martha, 47, tweeted.

For a time separate groups of directors

declared themselves custodians of the

company, which employs 24,000.

Martha denounced Edward and his

allies, aided by the PR company Navi-

gator, as the “old boys club Trump ca-

bal”, referring to a widely circulated

photograph of her brother with the

former US president. “Ed, wanna talk?

Ready to come out from Navigator’s

skirt? You’ve spent a lifetime behind

mom’s,” she tweeted.

Last week a judge in British Colum-

bia ruled that Edward’s faction could

legally replace directors without share-

holder approval. Rogers Communica-

tions has said that it will not appeal.

While the battle for supremacy has

parallels with Succession, the HBO

show about ultra-rich siblings fighting

for control of their father’s media

empire, Martha compared it to the

rather more bloody Game of Thrones.

Canada
Charlie Mitchell Ottawa

The “castle law”, which gives residents

in many US states the right to use dead-

ly force to protect their property, is

being put to the test in Colorado after a

tenant killed a homeless man in the

basement of his apartment block.

Patrick Rau was cleared of second-

degree murder after his lawyers argued

that he feared attack and that the base-

ment was part of his residence.

State prosecutors appealed to the

Colorado Supreme Court, arguing that

the basement was an area that Rau was

not entitled to defend with deadly force.

Castle laws vary in strength across the

US either as “stand-your-ground” legis-

lation or case law defences to murder

Man’s death tests US right

to shoot home intruders

charges. “To include the common areas

of an apartment building leads to an

absurd result in which the entire build-

ing... serves as the dwelling of each

resident,” Doyle Baker, senior deputy

district attorney, wrote in a legal brief.

Timothy Bussey, Rau’s lawyer,

argued in a counter-filing that the base-

ment was a “secured, integral part” of

the home and the only place in the

building where the residents could

adjust their thermostats.

Rau killed Donald Russell, 37, in Janu-

ary 2017. He found him asleep in the

basement after his wife noticed that the

door was ajar. When he was told to get

out, Russell shouted incoherently and

threw things. Rau shot him after giving

him a countdown from five to leave.

David Charter Washington

MARCUS RODRIGUES/MROD MAUI/YOUTUBE

W

hat

could be

more

hair-

raising

than surfing a Hawaiian

wave the height of a

five-storey building?

Doing so, perhaps,

without a vital piece of

equipment: a board

(Charlie Mitchell writes).

Yet that is precisely

what the Brazilian

bodysurfer Kalani

Lattanzi, 27, did.

He took on Peahi,

an outer reef on

Maui known as

“Jaws”, the island’s

most notorious

surf spot, with

only a pair of

fins, a handheld

float and a pair

of swimming

trunks.

The big wave break

has left some of the

world’s most

accomplished surfers

licking their wounds.

Lattanzi swam out last

week, on the first day of

the Jaws season. It was

“beautiful”, he said,

describing it as the best

surf of his life. “Kalani

goes into the ocean

where fish are afraid,”

one fan told the

BeachGrit website.

In 2015 Lattanzi took

on the world’s largest

swell in Nazaré,

Portugal, which can

tower to 100ft.

While most surfers

were towed by jet skis,

Lattanzi, who was born

in Hawaii and later

moved to Niterói, near

Rio de Janeiro, swam

instead. “The sun was

rising and I saw what

appeared to be someone

in the water swimming,”

the surfer Ross Clarke-

Jones said in Kalani —

Gift from Heaven, a film

about the bodysurfer. “Is

that a seal, or is that a

dolphin, or is it a shark?

F***, that’s a man.”

Nic Von Rupp, a

surfer, said about

Lattanzi’s feat in Nazaré:

“It’s up there with the

top five most extreme

things a human has ever

done, I think.”

Surfing a

monster

(no board

required)

Kalani Lattanzi

took on “Jaws”

with just a pair

of fins and a

handheld float