catfish

Will a Lawsuit Prove That Catfish Was Staged?

Since the documentary Catfish debuted at Sundance in January, questions have been raised about the film’s veracity. Though co-directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost have maintained that Catfish is a non-staged work of complete nonfiction, a new lawsuit contesting the fair use of a song by the singer Amy Kuney in the film is calling the true nature of the project in question. (Spoilers ahead!) In Catfish, Kuney’s music was used by a middle-aged Michigan woman — who invents an entire network of imaginary people on Facebook (including a daughter, who she falsely claimed wrote the track) — in order to befriend Schulman’s brother Nev. Catfish producers claimed the song is covered under fair use, since the movie is a documentary. But Kuney’s label, Threshold Records, is hoping to collect license fees by getting them to admit that some scenes were staged. If Kuney and Threshold are correct, it would be sort of ironic if it were the same song that helped unravel the hoax in the film as well as the film itself.

New Lawsuit Seeks to Expose Truth Behind ‘Catfish’ [HR]

Will a Lawsuit Prove That Catfish Was Staged?