The eagerly anticipated wide release of the controversial intelligent design film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” may experience its own demise by natural selection — a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Besieged by poor reviews and even worse public relations miscues by its own producers, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is now grappling with an expensive and embarrassing threat of lawsuit.
The Expelled film producers issued a rambling press release this morning defending their use of an animated clip of biological cellular activity in the film that is remarkably similar to copyrighted work by the computer animation firm, XVIVO.
The National Center for Science Education, which hosts the Expelled Exposed Web site, posted a copy of XVIVO’s letter threatening a lawsuit unless the work is removed from the film before its national release on April 18 and copies of the clip are returned to the firm.
Science blogger P.Z. Myers, who is featured in the film and was summarily kicked out of a sneak preview screening last month, posted examples of the disputed animation at this site, Pharyngula:
The version that appears in the film:
XVIVO’s copyrighted animation:
Miraculous conception or copyright infringement? You be the judge.
Read all of Colorado Confidential’s coverage on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed here.
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