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IMDb Ignores New Law Banning It From Publishing Actors' Ages Online, Cites Free Speech Violations (betanews.com) 218

Back in September, the state of California passed a new law that banned sites that offer paid subscriptions, and allow people to post resumes, from publishing individuals' ages. It's a law that has the potential to affect many sites, but it is the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) that hit the headlines. From a report: IMDb was told to remove actors' ages from the site by 1 January, 2017, but the site has failed to take any action. A full week into 2017, IMDb has not only chosen to ignore the new law, but has also filed a lawsuit in a bid to stop California from implementing Assembly Bill No. 1687. The reason? IMDb believes that the law is a violation of the First Amendment and it says the state has "chosen instead to chill free speech and to undermine access to factual information of public interest" rather than trying to tackle age-discrimination in a more meaningful way.
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IMDb Ignores New Law Banning It From Publishing Actors' Ages Online, Cites Free Speech Violations

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:04PM (#53633945)

    If they can forcefully display the silly localized movie titles when I set it to be English, I'm sure they will manage filtering the age field for California.

    • by mitgib ( 1156957 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:10PM (#53634013) Homepage Journal
      No need, 1st Amendment overrules California's silly law. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2)
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:24PM (#53634169) Homepage Journal

        Maybe not. Anti-discrimination laws are allowed by the constitution. Those laws can prohibit certain speech. That's well established and tested in court.

        So the issue here is if publishing actor's ages against their wishes is possibly discriminatory. Some actors argue that knowing their age leads to discrimination when being cast. There is certainly a lot of evidence that this is true. If you accept that, you then have to ask if IMDB is involved in employment. I don't know enough about the industry to answer that.

        The other angle here is transchronoism. I expect I'll be modded as a troll for even mentioning it, but the law appears to have been lobbied for by transchrono groups. Basically they want to decouple a person's physical age from how they live, somewhat like how transgender people differentiate between the physical state of their bodies and the gender they live as. This mostly involves rejecting stereotypes and social norms associated with age, and not assuming that because someone is 20 they are inexperienced or that because they are 70 they are conservative and want you to get off their lawn.

        Considering how bad age discrimination is in the tech sector, it would make sense for people in that sector to support transchronoism. Just because you are 55 doesn't mean you can't write a mobile app in Go.

        • by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:32PM (#53634265) Homepage

          Publishing basic facts like: "Mark Hamill was born 25 September 1951 in Oakland, California, USA" shouldn't fall under anti-discrimination laws. In fact, while looking up Mark's birthday for this comment, I noticed that IMDB doesn't actually post the actor's age. Sure, you can subtract 1951 from 2016 to get his age, but IMDB only gives you his date of birth. This is a fact, not a judgement call.

          Now, if IMDB was regularly posting incorrect birth dates, there might be some issue, but posting the date that celebrities were born isn't discrimination.

          • by memojuez ( 910304 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:47PM (#53634413)
            Do the California Legislatures realize that his information is also on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]?

            Born Mark Richard Hamill
            September 25, 1951 (age 65)
            Oakland, California, United States

            • Do the California Legislatures realize that his information is also on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]?

              Born Mark Richard Hamill September 25, 1951 (age 65) Oakland, California, United States

              Probably. The law doesn't single out imdb. Wikipedia is in violation if imdb is. Hopefully a federal court will put an end to this nonsense.

              • by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @01:27PM (#53634807)

                Wikipedia wouldn't be in violation if TFS is correct. Namely, Wikipedia doesn't have a paid subscription and doesn't allow users to post their resume.

                • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @01:35PM (#53634907) Homepage Journal

                  Wikipedia doesn't offer paid accounts. This is a targeted law intended to get that info removed from IMDB. It not only fails first amendment scrutiny, but also arguably fails equal protection scrutiny, as there's no rational reason why a company should be banned from publishing publicly available information merely because it also happens to offer paid accounts for people working in the industry; the law can't make meaningful progress towards a legitimate legislative goal as written, and appears to exist solely to screw over a single company.

          • by jeremyp ( 130771 )

            I would argue two things:

            1. Hollywood actively has to discriminate based on age. If the part is "young farm boy stumbles on secret plans and gets involved in a desperate fight to overthrow the galactic empire", Mark Hamil, aged 65 is never going to be credible in the role. Similarly, are you going to cast a white man to play Othello? Lawrence Olivier and Orson Wells have both played that part on screen, but there is a reason why you never see those films anymore.

            2. If you can't get a job solely because your

            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by RoccamOccam ( 953524 )

              2. If you can't get a job solely because your age is written on your resumé, then age discrimination is clearly still a problem.

              Since you care enough to go to the trouble to write the word with an accent, I'd like to point out that correct spelling is résumé, which I was not aware of until recently. For years, I also thought that it was spelled resumé.

              • There are no accented vowels or consonants on my keyboard...

                Where does one draw the line? For example [pronuncian.com]:

                Rendezvous (meaning to meet up) is a single word in English, but is two words in French.

                Ever seen it split into two words? Hyphenated, btw...I certainly haven't. Which one do you think is "right" for English-speakers to use?

                The point is that "resume" was adopted from another language and is now a word in the English language. Unaccented on either "e".

                Next we will be dropping the "h" in "huge"..

                • I certainly agree. However, if you are putting in the accent, then it goes over both the first and second "e", not just the last. I used to think that it only went over the last "e" (because of the American pronunciation).

                  I only point it out because it is the kind of thing that someone might notice on a job application.

          • by xgerrit ( 2879313 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @03:28PM (#53635861)

            Publishing basic facts like: "Mark Hamill was born 25 September 1951 in Oakland, California, USA" shouldn't fall under anti-discrimination laws. In fact, while looking up Mark's birthday for this comment, I noticed that IMDB doesn't actually post the actor's age. Sure, you can subtract 1951 from 2016 to get his age, but IMDB only gives you his date of birth. This is a fact, not a judgement call.

            The problem that many people outside the industry are not aware of, is that IMDB doesn't post facts: they post anything that people submit. So actors routinely submit fake (older) ages for the competition, and IMDB's policy is to leave the "fact" up until it's proven false. This requires the victim to send IMDB a copy of their driver's license or other proof, at which point IMDB updates their page to their actual age. So basically actors are being forced into revealing personal information they don't want to reveal, and IMDB is playing a fairly large part. This is what I believe the original lawsuit that was the inspiration for this law was about.

        • by ichthus ( 72442 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:34PM (#53634279) Homepage
          They're not discriminating, though. Some users of their service might choose to discriminate based on the age data, but IMDB is in the clear here. Citing the first amendment is valid, too. In this case, it's freedom of the press.
          • by gfxguy ( 98788 )
            Not only that, but Hollywood doesn't even discriminate based on age, they discriminate based on how old someone appears to be, so knowing or publishing the dates has zero effect.
            • That may not be entirely true, if those responsible for casting want to find someone they might immediately reject people of a certain age for certain parts without looking to see what age "they appear to be".

            • Hollywood doesn't even discriminate against the dead. See dead actors/actresses being inserted into ads/movies/etc. without their consent. Most recently in Rogue One.

          • I agree with you, and agree it is potential film directors who are discriminating based on age, if they do so after reading IMDB, not IMDB. For example, Walmart is not to blame if someone buys a knife/rifle from there and then kills their neighbor.

            However, to play devil's advocate, I think what California is trying to suggest is that IMDB is facilitating the discrimination, and is therefore complicit in it. I don't agree with that stance, but I don't think it is an open and shut case, California might fi

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            That doesn't usually matter. For example employment agencies are often banned from supplying information on race because it is used to discriminate. Often the discrimination is subconscious and unintentional, so the best way to eliminate it is to strip the name, age, gender and other identifying information from the CV when first presented.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Laws that limit freedom of expression are tyrannical in nature, and eventually no speech is free. Anti-Discrimination free speech laws are completely out of control "Dynamic" is prohibited in job postings, because ... it is ... code for "no black people". No, I am not making that shit up. Talk about racist bullshit, black people can't by dynamic?? WHAT???

          The greatest threat to our liberties are people crying "There ought to be a law" and make it so.

          • by kelemvor4 ( 1980226 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @01:03PM (#53634589)

            Laws that limit freedom of expression are tyrannical in nature, and eventually no speech is free. Anti-Discrimination free speech laws are completely out of control "Dynamic" is prohibited in job postings, because ... it is ... code for "no black people". No, I am not making that shit up. Talk about racist bullshit, black people can't by dynamic?? WHAT???

            The greatest threat to our liberties are people crying "There ought to be a law" and make it so.

            Well Hollywood better put a goddamn end to the practice. I, for one, am sick and tired of Hollywood using actual children to portray children in movies and television. They should be using only actors above the age of 18.

        • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:38PM (#53634307)

          Racism and sexism are also a problem, which can be fought with a law forcing actors' pictures to be removed, and also their names.

        • People that think that facts should be suppressed to make people feel better are bad people that ruin the world around them.

          You should feel bad for having such stupid thoughts.
        • ...Some actors argue that knowing their age leads to discrimination when being cast. There is certainly a lot of evidence that this is true...

          There is certainly a lot of evidence to say that age discrimination in Hollywood is false too, as evidenced by the amount of older actors and actresses.

          Sure, you can compare it to the tech sector, as the parallel logic implies that if you're damn good at what you do, age will not become a factor. Good actors and actresses continue to be given roles. Mediocre or bad ones do not.

          I also find it ironic as hell that we're attempting to use age discrimination among the group of humans who make it utterly fuckin

        • Only in California (Score:4, Interesting)

          by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:58PM (#53634535) Homepage Journal

          Basically they want to decouple a person's physical age from how they live, somewhat like how transgender people differentiate between the physical state of their bodies and the gender they live as.

          Oh, wow, yet another way for people to deny basic facts about themselves...

          Should we not stop humoring such delusions [wikipedia.org]? Whether the sufferers need active treatment may be subject to debate, but they certainly should not be further enabled [wikipedia.org]...

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            You make the same mistake people make about things like gender and race. It's not a simple stat which is irrefutable and easy to determine.

            Some people don't know their birth date. Some people calculate age differently, for example Chinese babies are 1 year old at birth because zero is conception (even though it's only 9 months). Some people just won't tell you the truth, and you won't find out... How old was Gabor?

            Besides, why is it even important? Why not just respect people's wishes?

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by mi ( 197448 )

              It's not a simple stat which is irrefutable and easy to determine.

              Yes, it is.

              Some people don't know their birth date.

              Some people calculate age differently

              Sure. But this has nothing to do with the topic. The accuracy of IMDB's data is not in question, is it?

              Besides, why is it even important? Why not just respect people's wishes?

              You can only respect "people's wishes" to a point. When a grown man wishes to use a women's bathroom claiming to be a female, or enroll in elementary school claiming to be 20 years yo [thedailybeast.com]

        • by SumDog ( 466607 )

          > Maybe not. Anti-discrimination laws are allowed by the constitution.

          Do you have examples? I don't feel like this is true. In Germany this happens quite often. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League often goes after people in America, but those are mostly civil suits. In Europe, even suggesting Israel is an apartheid state can land you in jail, but in America (and Australia) that's protected.

        • Anti-discrimination laws are allowed by the constitution. Those laws can prohibit certain speech.

          Can you give me a viable example of speech prohibited by anti-discrimination laws?

          I can say all day long and even print is...that "I hate old, fat, disabled, lesbian n-i-g-gers". I could even print I really don't want to hire them.

          HOWEVER..if I actually DO discriminate based on gender, race, etc....then sure I can be slapped by a lawsuit.

          But I do not believe that expression your beliefs, no matter how call

          • About the only type speech that can be prohibited in the US, is that which actually incites violence against a real group of folks or individuals. Or incites other dangerous behavior (yelling fire in a movie theater)....

            Bad example:

            https://www.theatlantic.com/na... [theatlantic.com]

            • by khallow ( 566160 )
              Notice that the linked story doesn't actually provide a reason the example is supposed to be bad. It was a misused example in a court case that was overturned decades ago. That doesn't make it a bad example any more than attacking someone with a hammer makes hammers bad tools.
              • It's not actually prohibited speech in the US, I think that makes it a bad example of prohibited speech in the US.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            You can't advertise a job as "no blacks". That is a limit on your freedom of speech, no?

          • I can give a very direct example of prohibited discriminatory speech, even if no actual discrimination in the proposed underlying commercial transaction has yet happened: housing law. You may not post apartment rental listings that state that certain races, sexes, national origins are not allowed.

            The federal Fair Housing Acts apply to all aspects of the landlord-tenant relationship. A landlord may not: advertise or make any statement that indicates a limitation or preference based on race, religion, or any other protected category... https://www.nolo.com/legal-enc... [nolo.com]

        • The other angle here is transchronoism. I expect I'll be modded as a troll for even mentioning it, but the law appears to have been lobbied for by transchrono groups. Basically they want to decouple a person's physical age from how they live, somewhat like how transgender people differentiate between the physical state of their bodies and the gender they live as. This mostly involves rejecting stereotypes and social norms associated with age, and not assuming that because someone is 20 they are inexperienced or that because they are 70 they are conservative and want you to get off their lawn.

          Considering how bad age discrimination is in the tech sector, it would make sense for people in that sector to support transchronoism. Just because you are 55 doesn't mean you can't write a mobile app in Go.

          To save others the googling, yes apparently this is a real thing.

          I guess half of women over 29 are transchrono :-P

        • Anti-discrimination laws are allowed by the constitution. Those laws can prohibit certain speech. That's well established and tested in court.

          Can you supply some of these laws and court cases? I'm not trolling nor is it a rhetorical question. Free speech has been on my mind lately, and I see a lot of people state (without evidence) that the US (or states, or something) has a few, narrow restrictive laws regarding racism and discrimination, in regard to what can be said/printed. But nobody is interested or able to provide examples. Thanks in advance.

        • by DRJlaw ( 946416 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @02:23PM (#53635303)

          Maybe not. Anti-discrimination laws are allowed by the constitution. Those laws can prohibit certain speech. That's well established and tested in court.

          You are absolutely correct that the law can prohibit certain speech. Yet there are only three categories of speech that can be prohibited. 1. Obscenity 2. Fighting words and 3. Threats or incitement to violence. Let's see if this fits within any of them:

          1. Reporting age is not obscene. Miller v. California (1973) requires that:
          *The average person, applying "contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
          *The work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, "sexual conduct or excretory functions" specifically defined by applicable state law; and
          *Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

          The average person does not believe that discussions of age are prurient. Nor does reporting age involve sexual conduct or an excretory function. Finally, reporting age is of serious "scientific" value -- we do everything from condition certain privileges and benefits based upon age to discuss accomplishment with respect to age. Even if you dispute the latter point, it's an "and" test, so you would have to satisfy the other factors as well.

          2. Reporting age is not fighting words. Cohen v. California (1971) and Snyder v. Phelps (2011) limit that doctrine.

          *Cohen held that wearing a jacket that said "fuck the draft" was outside the doctrine because it was not a "personally abusive epithet";
          *Snyder held that the Westboro Babptist Church's funeral protests were outside the doctrine because the speech was was not personal but instead public; and
          *Most courts also require physical proximity between the speaker and the target -- and there's no such proximity here.

          You're not going to get a jury to unanimously hold that reporting someone's numerical age is a personally abusive epithet. Reporting an age is also speech that is public rather than personal -- it is not made at or to the person, but the public at large. Finally, there's no proximity between IMDB and the person that could permit an immediate breach of the peace, i.e., a physical altercation.

          3. Finally, reporting on age does not constitute a threat, whether personal or general. Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) requires that:
          * the speaker intend to incite a violation of the law; and
          * that the violation is both imminent and likely.

          You're not going to get a jury to unanimously hold that reporting someone's numerical age is intended to create age discrimination. Also, there's no imminent, i.e., immediate, connection between reporting the age and any individual incident of age discrimination, nor is any such discrimination likely as opposed to merely being "possible."

          So the issue here is if publishing actor's ages against their wishes is possibly discriminatory.

          No it's not. The issue here is whether the reporting fits within any exception to the first amendment. It does not.

          You could have figured this out without much familiarity with the law. Publishing information itself is not "possibly discriminatory" -- it neither conditions nor denies a privilege or benefit based upon the person's age. You're arguing that someone else might use that information to discriminate -- but that's an entirely different and separate kettle of fish.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            If those are the only reasons, how come there are anti-discrimination laws and they were ruled constitutional?

        • >Just because you are 55 doesn't mean you can't write a mobile app in Go.

          Don't worry. I never will.

        • Age discrimination is not as protected against as sex, race, religion, etc. There are some age discrimination protections, but obviously, we can't drive or vote based on age discrimination.

        • Anti-discrimination laws are allowed by the constitution. Those laws can prohibit certain speech. That's well established and tested in court.

          Is it? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I'm not aware of any laws that have been tested by the courts disallowing discriminatory speech among members of the public.

          In contrast, I am aware of laws regulating the collection of information that can be used in a discriminatory fashion (e.g. asking a woman whether she's pregnant during her job interview), as well as laws regulating discriminatory speech by government employees (i.e. federal employees can be fired over what they say in public), I can't think of a

        • Questions: How is the publishing of a fact in any way, shape, or form "discriminatory?" I could understand an argument that such a fact could be *used to discriminate* by one so inclined to use it as such. But I simply do not understand how this law is not a complete, literal, unquestionable violation of free speech? Or, have we gotten to a point of political correctness that we must protect the alternate realities that facts discriminate against?

      • That's not what the supremacy clause does. It means that a US federal law cannot be countermanded by the states. But the 1st amendment is not a law in that respect (after all, a private company can xyz). It's the 14th Amendment that applies the Bill of Rights to the states.
      • by swb ( 14022 )

        Between the constitution only applying to the Federal government and the 10th Amendment, I'm sure someone will give you a debate about whether the supremacy clause actually applies here.

        Maybe we can organize a formal debate and get some Deep South states' rights folks to argue on behalf of the State of California, and then get some Prop 64 Marijuana Legalization folks to argue the Supremacy Clause/Federal Authority side to argue on behalf of IMDB, just to make it interesting. We can call it the "Having You

      • Debatable, because the First Amendment has the words "Congress shall make no law". So, it can be argued that the first amendment does not apply to the states. It restricts the power of US Congress. I know about the SCOTUS, but the Constitution is what it is. The SCOTUS is not infallible and is not immune to misinterpretation or abusing its power. We should not confuse the legitimacy of these rulings and them having defacto impact. I agree with the first amendment and I think the states ought to be bound by

    • by Calydor ( 739835 )

      Better yet, set the age field when displayed in California to a random value between 0 and 2, with the argument that they're all acting like babies with this law.

      • Just because two parties have a dispute does not automatically mean they are both acting like babies. I think IMDB's non-action on this issue is justifiable because they are in the right both legally and morally.
        • by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Please permit me to clarify. I meant that the reasoning for the law, that famous actors would be discriminated against if famous producers know how old they are by reading IMDB (and not from knowing them for the past 40 years or so) is childish.

  • Quite Right (Score:4, Insightful)

    by segedunum ( 883035 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:06PM (#53633965)
    Fuck off. California is batshit crazy.
    • California: Oh boy, here I go banning shit again!
    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      They haven't put Feinstein in a nursing home yet. So I'm going to concur.

  • Stupid laws (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @12:11PM (#53634023)

    IMDb believes that the law is a violation of the First Amendment and it says the state has "chosen instead to chill free speech and to undermine access to factual information of public interest" rather than trying to tackle age-discrimination in a more meaningful way.

    While I don't actually care about the information in question, there is nothing private or sensitive about the age of actors or other public figures. They are public figures who have chosen a public life. If they don't like the consequences of that then they should chose another profession. There certainly is no compelling state interest worthy of such a law nor special group in need of protection. It's not as if their ages are some big secret to anyone who cares to find out. IMBd is probably right and there probably would win any first amendment related lawsuit should they chose to fight one.

    • there is nothing private or sensitive about the age of actors or other public figures

      If you think this is bad, just wait until they start going after the sites that give out the ages of politicians. I expect there to be quite a bit more backlash.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      That sounds a lot like arguments against all other workers' rights. It's their choice, they can get another job if they don't like it. In most places they have rights anyway.

    • IMDb believes that the law is a violation of the First Amendment and it says the state has "chosen instead to chill free speech and to undermine access to factual information of public interest" rather than trying to tackle age-discrimination in a more meaningful way.

      While I don't actually care about the information in question, there is nothing private or sensitive about the age of actors or other public figures. They are public figures who have chosen a public life. If they don't like the consequences of that then they should chose another profession. There certainly is no compelling state interest worthy of such a law nor special group in need of protection. It's not as if their ages are some big secret to anyone who cares to find out. IMBd is probably right and there probably would win any first amendment related lawsuit should they chose to fight one.

      They should toss in their availability as well, not just their age. So that we know who to fantasize over. Pull data from Ashley Madison if needed

  • ...if just once, money/power didn't win out on this one.

  • I'm not that into following actors and actresses, and not much of a movie goer. That said, every time I have looked someone up they have a Wiki page which displays their birth date. Often with accompanying stories of childhood, family, and other personal notes. If the information is already available, why is it only IMDb that can't display it or calculate today-birth date = current age?

    Going a bit further, acting already discriminates on all kinds of issues. Casting requires it. How popular would Buffy

    • You've probably only looked up famous actors on Wikipedia. If I recall, this all kicked off because an Asian American bit-part actress, who looked younger than she really was, felt that having her age on IMDB prevented her from playing teenagers and college students because she'd be overlooked when Hollywood found out she was in her early 30s.

      She was a no-name, so much so, that even after getting California to pass this bill, I doubt many people could still recall her name. Yeah, Wikipedia has the ages fo

      • by s.petry ( 762400 )

        Did the actress herself have a page that displayed the data, and/or was a Wikipage available for her? Legitimately asking, I don't know. Even C/D/E/F list celebrities tend to have as much information as possible, because that is how they get jobs. Their resume is name recognition, not technical projects and tenures at various establishments.

        If IMDb is simply sourcing other data, sucks to be her. You want to be in showbiz, there is a price for fame (and the quest for such).

  • This is absolutely a violation of the first amendment. It is an example of the totalitarian nature of progressivism where in the name of "fairness" they will implement totalitarian regulations that take away all free speech. This is just the tip of the iceberg, they want to ban anything they deem to be "offensive", in violation of free speech rights. The only issue with ages is that there is a right for privacy but since these are actors this information is publicly available anyway, and otherwise as long a

  • They had 30-year-olds playing high school students on Beverly Hills, 90210, and cast Anne Heche as a love interest to Harrison Ford when she was 29 and he was 56. I don't think any of them have a clue about age.

    • Men, by and large, fantasize about younger women. Women prefer men their age and over. It's naturally if Hollywood is going to try and appeal to people they will pick stars the public will croon over.

      There is a good reason why Hollywood often shows mature men partnered with pretty 20-somethings. If you look at the most famous actors and actresses themselves, you see a lot of older men really married to younger women, and vice-versa. They're at the top of the desirability factor for many partners and so

  • This law was obviously a personal favor for some rich influential actor or actress. Stupid yes, but pretty harmless. Now when this starts happening in the White House with the new batshit crazy people who will be hanging out there, I don't expect then to have any such compunctions about their laws being harmless.

    • by fnj ( 64210 )

      Let's face it. It wasn't an actor, it was an actress. Old guys get acting jobs, and good ones. There are lots of 70+ year old actors, and a fair number of 90+. But there aren't many women much over 50 with acting jobs, and even over 30-40 they get relegated to side characters.

      • by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Are they really working? I don't think there are many men over 60-ish who get major parts in movies barring Connery, Stallone & Arnie. Even Connery doesn't get major roles now.
        • Ask Anthony Hopkins, if you can get a call through to him in between gigs. Or Patrick Stewart. Or Ian McKellen. Or Bruce Willis. Or Pierce Brosnan. Or Denzel Washington. Or Michael Keaton. Or Liam Neeson. Or Kevin Costner. Or Richard Gere. And on and on.

          You need to change channels once or twice along the way.
      • I think this is changing though. You see a lot of leading roles for older women now then you did 20 years ago. It will probably never catch up the number of roles for older men, but they are getting more roles.

  • From the sounds of it, this law isn't targeting specifically IMDB and to me the intent of the law makes sense - prevent employment discrimination based on age. In Canada for example its illegal for a potential employer to ask your age or marital status.
  • Yes we have freedom of speech in America, but this freedom (like all good freedoms) comes with an implicit set of responsibilities to ensure that the freedom is used correctly. Unregulated freedom of speech is too dangerous to grant to ever whistle blower and movie database. Power needs to be divided with checks and balances. For example: the massive power that a movie producer has by indulging his ageist biases during casting is perfectly checked by forcing that producer to perform a separate google sea
  • by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Monday January 09, 2017 @06:39PM (#53637357) Homepage Journal

    ... how old is Barbara Streisand?

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