Fact or Fiction: Legal Issues in Docudramas | Video Replay

This panel, a segment from the 2025 EASL Annual Meeting, will explore the complex legal landscape of prepublication review and clearance challenges for docudramas, where truth meets dramatic license. Speakers will review litigation based on programs such as When They See Us (about the Central Park Five) and Baby Reindeer and dissect key challenges in rights clearance, defamation risks, copyright fair use, and life rights acquisition for dramatic adaptations of true stories, as well as evolving standards for depicting living persons, the intersection of artistic freedom with privacy rights, and strategies for minimizing legal exposure while maintaining creative vision. The panel will also consider the ethical challenges for attorneys reviewing program scripts and character portrayals that vary from actual transcripts, testimony, witness statements and articles regarding a related legal action or trial.

Speakers:

Melissa Georges, Chair, Content Review & Clearance Group, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein + Selz, New York, NY

Prof. Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Filmmakers Legal Clinic, Cardozo School of Law, New York, NY

Jean-Paul Jassy, Partner, Jassy Vick Carolan LLP, Los Angeles, CA

Moderator:

Robert L. Seigel, Esq., EASL Motion Pictures Committee Co-Chair, Law Office of Robert L. Seigel, New York, NY