“This lawsuit is about Piracy, Greed, and Revenge” states Line 1 of the complaint filed yesterday in the North Carolina district court where documentary filmmaker Rick Allen is still seeking justice for the reckless, intentional, and frankly mean-spirited manner in which state officials infringed his copyright rights, deprived him of his lawful property interest in his motion picture and photographic work, and even passed a whole law directly targeting Allen’s intellectual property.
I have written extensively about Allen v. Cooper and the subject of state sovereign immunity (11th Amendment), which bars Allen and others (see posts here and here), from remedies to copyright infringement by states and state entities. I have often written about the subject of state immunity academically, but after a quick read of the amended complaint, which is linked below, I am reminded of the extraordinary human cost of infringing copyright rights. There will be more to write and say about this story, but for now, I urge anyone who is interested to read the complaint for themselves . . .
