Netflix
In letters obtained by BI, lawyers representing Williams have argued that Netflix forfeited any legal protections by sharing Pressler’s notes with different members of the production team for “Inventing Anna.”
“Netflix has asserted the privilege over an incredibly broad range of documents, including draft scripts, production schedules circulated to the whole cast and crew, and many other documents written by someone other than Ms. Pressler,” Williams’s lawyer Alexander Rufus-Isaacs told BI in an email. “Our position is that by sharing this information so widely, Netflix has waived the reporter’s privilege.”
Pressler declined to comment. A lawyer for Netflix referred questions to a company spokesperson, who didn’t respond to requests for comment. (Some of Netflix’s lawyers in the case, at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, also represent Business Insider in unrelated First Amendment disputes.) Representatives for New York magazine’s parent company, Vox Media, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
In court filings, Netflix’s lawyers say there are plenty of precedents for applying New York’s reporter shield law to adaptive works since the original purpose of the reporting was for a magazine article.
Pressler also wrote in her declaration that “Inventing Anna” would “use my newsgathering to further publicize these matters of public concern — and take these questions of who is a victim, who is a con, and who should be celebrated to a different audience.”
“It does not matter that these newsgathering materials were later used to create a dramatized series — Ms. Pressler and Netflix have an unqualified right under New York law to maintain the protection of these confidential sources’ identities — which were originally procured as part of Ms. Pressler’s writing process,” lawyers for Netflix wrote in a filing.