Film Theory: Is J Jonah STEALING From Spiderman?

[Music] mr. YouTube algorithm sir I have more theories for you let me take a look at those graphs crap double crap there's about Westworld there's nothing good place nobody wants this high-minded crap what good guy started bad bad guys dirty good but I think the viewers would really enjoy seeing you know what the viewers enjoyed they enjoy what I tell them to enjoy that's why I'm here and why you're here so give me some superhero theories but there aren't any new movies coming out I don't care go take up some old gems make something up about no Japanese show being candid to the MCU I want there is about spider-man [Music] hello Internet welcome to film theory the show that totally called the MC use reimagining of the Daily Bugle long before its surprise appearance at the end of far from home it's no exaggeration to say that I've spent countless hours thinking about spider-man's complex boss but recently when he gave me a bit of a challenge Reddit user years ago they tried it's not they tried it they tried T anyway this reddit user posted the theory that J jonah Jameson was illegally selling Peter Parker's photos to quote from that theory on reddit it's clear from the spider-man 1 that Peter is the only one that would be able to take the cinematic high-quality photos he supplies to the Daily Bugle however let's look here at the many publications showcasing these sorts of photos in spider-man 3 where'd these publications get the right to publish these photos as far as we know Peter doesn't sell his photos to anyone except the Daily Bugle part of the reason he's so poor all the time with JJ consistently low-balling him therefore it makes sense that these other publications couldn't have gotten the photos from anyone except the Daily Bugle ie Jay jonah Jameson TL DR J Jonah was selling Peters photos for money evidenced by other publications having spider-man photos he didn't give up Peter to the Green Goblin because of Peters monetary value to him not because he is a refined valley dude I don't know what refined valley dude means think it just means he's a stand-up guy the point is this post was as good as flashing the theory symbol in the sky and I have seen the call so today we're putting Jade Jonah on trial to see if he's just an innocent newsy or a dirty rotten media scoundrel now as much as I'd love to write this about the MCU Jameson he's barely shown up yet and unlike in most every other spider-man iteration it seems like Peter and Jameson won't be working together in the MCU there also wasn't a J John Jameson in the amazing spider-man series which honestly is probably why it was so awful and you okay maybe it wasn't the only reason it was so awful that means that the last time Spidey and J Jonah shared some serious screen time together it was back in Sam Raimi's extremely influential superhero trilogy I know those movies came out a long time ago like a long time ago like a chunk of this audience wasn't even born when the first one came out think about that one so I'm just gonna go ahead and refresh your memory about all the important details for today's theory after Peter Parker starts his vigilante work as spider-man local tabloid editor j jonah Jameson puts out a cash reward for pictures of our vigilante Peter being short on cash decides that he can cheat the system a bit by taking pictures of himself and then selling those to Jameson throughout their time together Jameson makes it abundantly clear that he's only out for exactly one thing I don't parties for some reason a psycho spider-man will pose for you the Raimi verse J Jonah very specifically Commission's pictures of spider-man from Peter except the one time Jameson decided to use Peter for MJ's engagement party anyway when spider-man goes missing Jameson shows a moment of regret for his actions before spider-man steals his own suit from Jameson's wall spider-man was a hero I just couldn't see it it was baked by the third movie jameson is dangling the promise of a staff position in front of peter and eddie brock to entice them to get a picture of spider-man committing a crime so throughout this trilogy Peter never really becomes a full-time employee of the Daily Bugle this makes it a very different relationship than say the relationship between comic book Peter Parker and comic book J jonah jameson where peter is a staff photographer who has even won himself a pulitzer prize for a shot that wasn't even um spiderman weird little factoid for you there the reddit theory alleges that Jameson is distributing peter parker's photos to other newspapers but the comment section actually takes it one step further saying that this is no longer just shady business it is outright illegal for J Jonah to be doing this as user and rayna chrome says quote he's been ripping Peter off for years by claiming in his bugle property from fan mailings and anonymous sources and reselling the photo rights without credit or royalties to Peter why would he admit that to anyone he could get sued let's talk about that exactly we've established that Peter is a freelancer working on Commission and that he takes pictures of Spidey in the movies we can see three major papers and one major magazine none of which are the Daily Bugle with excellent quality front page spider-man pictures a large part of the plot of spider-man 3 is about how rival photographer Eddie Brock is incapable of getting an actual photo of Spidey which is part of a long string of evidence that the wall crawler is just very hard to get on camera it seems pretty darn clear then that these photos in the other newspapers came from Peter by way of the bugle what's more we know that Peter is struggling financially and is desperately trying to get that staff position at the bugle so it seems like he's not selling those photos directly to these other outlets the bugle is his only buyer which means the only way that those other papers are getting high-res photos of the webhead is through Jay jonah selling peter's pics so you know what reddit user years ago they tried I think you're right I think Jonah is absolutely selling Peters images to these other publications the thing is it's also totally within his rights to do so peter is a freelancer but what does that mean from a legal standpoint now here's the point where I say the standard legal disclaimer that I am NOT a lawyer this is not advice if you or another super-powered vigilante is having issues with intellectual property law please contact she-hulk who is a real fictional lawyer now you might think that if you create something then the rights automatically go to you but that's not always the case for freelancers most work on things by commission we see this word all over Twitter especially for artists designers photographers sometimes even programmers but what does working on Commission mean well in short it means that you're buying the product that they're making let's say a Potter makes a coffee mug on commission it means that they made it for you same goes with photos of spider-man commissioned by the Daily Bugle Jameson is very clearly commissioning Peters work initially he puts out an open call for freelancers to get any pictures of spider-man on the page cash money for a picture of spider-man when Peter brings Jameson pictures of other things J Jonah turns him down you're fired there's really no argument about the nature of that agreement but here's where things get tricky unlike a normal transaction where you buy something and then you just own it and if you choose to resell it at like a garage sale or whatever it's not that big of a deal when it comes to commissioned artwork or photography the rights of ownership may or may not pass over to you if I go on Twitter and ask user spider Dan 420 to make art of chibi spider-man for me do I own that picture now or does he it seems like a really minor question to ask but it's really important because the answer determines who can actually make copies of that chibi spider-man and sell it to other big eyed spider fans like myself I mean I'm the one who came up with the idea for a chibi spider-man and then I paid someone to create that image for me so can i reproduce that image and sell it is it mine to own or is it still spider Dan's artwork and here's where contracts come in specifically work-for-hire agreements now these are documents that explicitly state which rights pass from the freelancer to the commissioner and which ones don't and what we don't know the specific terms of Peter Parker's agreement with J jonah Jameson we do know that most newspapers in the real world are paying for full rights to the photos that they use they need those photos to be used in print dull holographic chess boards when it comes to that from now until the heat death of the universe because lord knows they pan no intern to update their geo cities page twenty years from now for someone as cutthroat as JJ complete ownership of all rights across all platforms in perpetuity is something that he would absolutely demand from his Commission photographs and let's be hundred percent honest it's something that someone as naive as Peter Parker would absolutely agree to no questions asked that means there's not even an argument that Peter owns any of the rights to his photos once they're sold in the Daily Bugle J Jonah commissioned him fair and square and from that point forward he owns them outright sure he got him for a bargain they were an absolute steal but that was Peters own fault for being a bad negotiator and with them properly commissioned by Jay Jonah there now his to do with whatever he wants sorry comment section jay jonah jameson is a hundred percent within his rights he is innocent and true to the original theory posted on reddit selling the photos to bigger publications is probably a great source of income for the bugle photo stock companies like Getty Images work entirely on licensing images to news outlets when you license an image you get to use it for a certain amount of time or under a specific set of circumstances for instance only in one specific printed newspaper or in one part of the world or online rights only non-commercial in the case of the Daily Bugle if they were licensing photos to other newspapers in the real world they could also enforce standards like crediting The Daily Bugle under those photos linking to the Daily Bugle on websites with the image and of course charging licensing fees which brings us to the question that goes back to the initial theory how much money could Jay Jonah actually be making off of Peters photographs honestly the sky's the limit this photo of me taking for free at an event that I did for charity a photo that I've heavily doctored to make sure that it falls under fair use so I don't actually have to pay for it is valued at $500 same with this picture of me and other youtubers ringing the Nasdaq Bell from a few years ago five hundred dollars and I wouldn't blame you if you were like wow matpat way to milk it for cash except all of that is money I will never see it's weird they do this a lot at red-carpet things they take photos of you and then they just sell the rights for huge amounts money and you're just like okay yes I don't get any of that you're just profiting off of my likeness it's very very strange anyway that five hundred dollars isn't even for all the rights to use that image all the time now in Spider Man we're talking about the only good photos in the world of a superhero who is making front-page headlines I'd say that's worth a bit more than me handing out Thanksgiving dinner to the needy Jay Jonah could literally name his price for these photos so we have to agree with the reddit theory Jonah doesn't want to give up Peters identity to the Green Goblin due to journalistic ethics sure he is an upstanding guy to a certain extent especially when you read the comics but it also doesn't hurt that he just so happens to be protecting not only a nice kid but also what is certainly his biggest cash cow so if Jade Jonah wasn't cheating Peter out of his photo royalties why is there so much time left in this video well I had to find something that Jay Jonah did wrong and well there is this Spider Man wasn't attacking the city he was trying to save it that's slander I resent that imprint it's libel Jay jonah jameson may not have sold photos illegally but he certainly used them illegally let me introduce you to a much more nefarious crime in the newspaper business libel Jay Jonah has unquestionably libeled spider-man and should be in line to lose his job his media credentials heck any cash he has stuffed away in his mattress because he has got a whole heck of a lot of lawsuits coming his way New York libel laws use for qualifications for a defamation case defamation just by the way is a kind of umbrella term for both slander and libel which are basically the same crime just done in different mediums anyway qualification number one has to involve a false statement anything a print that's true is just a free pass you're totally in the clear but we know from watching the movie that Spiderman really was saving the city and not attacking it like Jay Jonah claims the ski is labelling spider-man's good name qualification number two fault must amount to actual malice now this means that Jameson had to have had some reason to think that the story wasn't true but didn't care and published it anyway Peter who even if he wasn't spider-man is the photographer of the scene and thus an eyewitness directly tells Jameson that the story isn't true yet Jamison absolutely doesn't care and publishes anyway this one is pretty cut-and-dry qualification number two big checkmark they're liable qualification number three it must cause special damages or defamation per se special damages usually refers to the financial fallout from slander it costs someone their job or it cost someone their business since spider-man is not a profit generating enterprise that's not important but what is important is the defamation part defamation per se statements are things that impugns a person's character in other words makes them appear morally corrupt the accusations that Jay Jonah leveled at spider-man both impugn his character and accuse him of committing morally corrupt crimes so so far we have ourselves a good case for three out of the four pretty rock-solid court case we have cooking up here rights I'm sure this fourth qualification couldn't possibly debunk the case that we're building rights oh wait number four defamatory statements must be published to a third party without privilege or authorization that's actually a little bit murky here because Peter Parker explicitly sells his photos to Jameson if it happened only the one time you might make the argument that Peter didn't know what to expect but the Raimi trilogy takes place over years as Peter graduates high school in the first one and is done with college by the third Peter works for Jameson throughout most of these movies Peter definitely protests about the way J jonah treats spider-man but his continued work for the bugle at least indicates that he's not that man about it and things get more complicated when you consider the fact that spider-man's identity is hidden in the comics spider-man actually does sujay jonah Jameson for libel but he drops the case when Peter Parker is added as a co-defendant for the pictures he took if the courts were indeed unaware of Spidey secret identity then he could claim that they were unauthorized though he would be lying to the court and thus guilty of perjury if the courts do know that Peter Parker and spider-man are one of the same then all of a sudden Peter authorized the use of those photos for the libelous story and thus is okay with the libel being published and therefore exonerates J Jonah from yet another crime as if all of that weren't enough there is last obstacle for our intrepid hero to overcome statute of limitations see there's no criminal libel law in New York so spider-man's only recourse would be going through the civilian courts now what does that mean well a lot of things but for our purposes it means that he has a limited time in which to file his suit against Jay jonah Jameson the laws around slander and libel are also ridiculously outdated in some places including the state of Virginia where they seem to be aimed exclusively at criminalizing yo mama jokes seriously quote from that law any person who shall falsely write and publish of and concerning any female of chaste character any words derogatory of such females character for virtue and chastity or imputed to such female acts not virtuous and chaste shall be guilty of libel what is going on over in Virginia there's a whole law specifically dedicated to not shaming the ladies in public writing anyway New York's criminal libel law is non-existent but for its civil libel law the statute of limitations is one year before spider-man - it's easy to argue that Jameson was committing libel all the time recklessly publishing stories that he knew to be false turn the whole city against him the fact I'm very proud of after spider-man retires however Jameson buys spider-man suit only to have it stolen from him by spider-man himself at that point Jameson has all the evidence he needs to conclusively say that spider-man is in fact a criminal Jameson bought the suit fair and square spider-man stole it back that wasn't within his legal rights he committed a crime by the time spider in three wraps up Peter has graduated from the college he was attending in spider-man 2 so any libelous publications were long in the past Jade Jonah may be heavily biased against spider-man but he's a victim of one of Spidey's admittedly few crimes he has proof that spider-man is a menace and actually does have good reason to believe in spider-man by his own hand kills the only real chance he has against Jay Jonah before it even gets off the ground so what's the lesson here friends vote for starters superheroes need to brush up on their legal systems a little bit better to make sure they're not complicit with their villains and maybe they could have like other summer jobs that don't contribute to their own negative publicity come on Peter I thought you were supposed to be the smart one pretty dumb move there webhead you could always be a lifeguard if you're looking for a job stop running on the pool Decorah web slinging it to the diving board but hey that's just a theory a film theory and cut [Music]

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 1,766,872

Rating: 4.9482956 out of 5

Keywords: spiderman, marvel, spiderman j jonah jameson, spiderman j jonah, j jonah extended scene, far from home j jonah, spiderman far from home j jonah, spiderman avengers, spiderman far from home, spiderman endgame, spiderman infinity war, spiderman toby mcguire, spiderman tom holland, spiderman sony, sam raimi, sam raimi spiderman, spiderman sam raimi, the film theorists, film theory, matpat, film theory spiderman, spiderman ps5 trailer

Id: 8fv3qYg0NuA

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020

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