Discussion: 'The Apprentice' Producer: I Don't Have Legal Ability To Release Tapes

Umm,. there would also be the liability of the huge payout for breach of contract. All people who appear on those tapes could sue and they would have an easy case to win. And if he breaches his contract with MGM, they can tell him to take a hike, and other companies won’t touch him. I would also note that certain breaches of contract can be criminal, and without seeing the contract terms you have no way of stating for sure there is no criminal liability.

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‘Apprentice’ Producer: I Don’t Have Legal Ability To Release Tapes

A volunteered gleeful and public turd of a response-- which clearly expresses where his moral position lies.

jw1

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Mark Burnett does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from The Apprentice.

There’s nothing preventing them from being leaked. You’re welcome.

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What a coward. A patriot would risk some legal liability and release the tapes.

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I’m not so sure, though. Remember, we’re not talking about paparazzi with telephoto lenses from across the street. These tapes are recording what happens between “cut!” and “action!” when everyone concerned is still sitting in front of TV cameras and microphones and a hundred witnesses. More to the point, it’s happening at their place of work, where they’d have a very diminished expectation of privacy in the first place. Pretty much by definition, if you’re one of the “Apprentices” you’re a public figure, and even if some backstage worker shows up on camera between takes it’s not really harming them in any actionable way to broadcast a tape of Trump saying words while they’re fixing his makeup or something.

Anyway, if there’s anything that comes out, it will probably be through unauthorized leaks, in which case all that is moot.

Russia didn’t ask permission, where are the hackers when you need them?

Question for the internet lawyers.

Let’s say there is, in fact, some specified penalty (say $5M) for violating the NDA or otherwise leaking.

And let’s say I’m a former production assistant with a few seasons’ worth of Apprentice outtakes cluttering up my hard drive, including one of The Donald speaking in Russian whenever someone holds up a queen of diamonds. My net worth is a few hundred thousand, meaning I’d be a smoking hole in the ground financially after the lawyers were done with me.

I’m assuming that some arbitrarily wealthy person (e.g., Mark Cuban) could swoop in AFTER the fact to make me whole. But here’s my question–could he do it BEFOREHAND? That is, could some billionaire or group of banded-together thousandaires publicly declare their intention to bail out anyone who got sued?

Or would that just expose them to liability as well?

Unfortunately, they’re all working for Trump.

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I don’t know this, but being a lawyer for 20 years and seeing how 1. The entertainment business sets things up, 2. Trump does NDA’s (non disclosure agreements) and what not; and 3. How corporate lawyers work; my guess is it’s a circle jerk of contracts and corporations so they don’t have to do a thing and everyone can say they weren’t responsible for it and they’re not even allowed to release the info by contract and they’re not the ones that are threatening legal action. It’s the other guy in the circle.

I’m dizzy after reading that! The pivot man must not be able to walk in a line for weeks!

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He’s got his hands up in a boxing stance. Yeah, I remember when I wanted to rule the world, I was in junior high. No. Wait. Fourth grade.
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Where was this about NDA’s? Haven’t seen that yet.

Let’s remember that Burnett has some projects in production right now, and most of them are reality-based shows. Once he releases stuff Trump said, nobody is ever going to trust him again, and his ability to do what he’s been very successful at doing would be compromised.

It was in the link to the Huffpo article.

Anyone reading this piece should go to the LA Times site and read their “Company Town” feature:

It tells a rather different story in much greater detail. Very illuminating about what is really going down.

A few things to think about here.

Numerous victims came forward against Cosby after he had become a has-been, and had been discredited by the initial exposure, way back in 2005. By 2014-2015 much of Cosby’s wealth had dissipated. Cosby had no power to hurt his accusers any longer. It was 9 years between that first case, which he settled, and the storm of accusers emerging.

With Trump you have a man with considerable money, and extremely aggressive about persecuting anyone who gets in his way, suing people at the drop of a hat. Trump actually threatens in public to hurt people (or have people hurt) physically whom he dislikes. And you have tens of millions of rabid Trump “brown shirts”, eager to persecute anyone who gets in his way in social media (at the very least), and with an established pattern of violence. It is a very different decision to come forward with accusations in the heat of this current political campaign.

Someone coming out against Cosby did not face the certain storm of threatening emails, tweets, Internet postings, the real possibility that stalkers would go after them, the risk that a multi-million dollar lawsuit and a team of lawyers would be dropped on them, I could go on…