Friday, June 5, 2009

Before the judge came in, Payen had to leave when his baggy pants fell down.

OK, the update to the post before this one is a little bit of a lie. I will leave it up long enough for you to make me feel good by participating, but I couldn't resist making sure you knew about these two items of jurisprudence.

First, in NY, there are those guys who were arrested because they were planning to blow up some Synagogues. One of their fathers is making things all better by explaining that it's really all the fault of those Jews! Yup, that explains everything.

Second, and believe it or not, this really may have an effect on your viewing entertainment, a French judge has ruled that participants in a reality series were actually employees and entitled to overtime, holiday pay and rules for fair termination. Trust me. If this makes its way to America, you won't be seeing a whole lot more of these cheap-assed shows because they won't be all that cheap anymore.

5 comments:

Steve Buchheit said...

Blame the victim seems the cause du jour lately. And part of it may be working on that "mentally unfit to stand trial" thing. Then again, they're just plain nutbags, and not in a nice way.

Chris said...

If that French ruling means an end to reality television, I will rejoice. No more Rock of Love: Herpes Bus!

vince said...

Stupidity, an equal opportunity visitor.

As for the reality show participants being ruled as employees, good grief, this is the French. Their labor laws border on insane. And good grief - those booted off the island get compensation for unfair dismissal and wrongful termination of their contracts? See my first paragraph.

Some dude stuck in the Midwest said...

For some reason I think that American corporate lawyers would account for things like overtime pay and vacations. There's got to be a clause there somewhere. Otherwise we would't hear the end of the lawsuits against networks.

"Sign in blood. I give over my body and soul to the [network name here] so they can make me famous."

Nathan said...

Konstantin,

I guarantee you there's no provision for anything like vacation/holiday/overtime pay. In fact, I'm quite sure that the contract for an American gameshow participant (including reality series) goes out of its way to claim that there isn't an employee/employer relationship and that the 'player' is in it merely for the possibility of a win.

I doubt its ever been contested in an American court and it would be interesting to see how it would hold up. Those agreements are based on the same agreements contestants would sign to be on the original format of game show...and while teams of lawyers have certainly adjusted them to fit new circumstances, I'm not sure how they'd be viewed by a court.

Don't forget, once upon a time, the major studios were able to document and prove how absolutely no movie ever made had actually made a profit, so they didn't have to pay any point participants.