MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th September, 2022) The US-based streaming service Netflix has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Georgian-Soviet chess master Nona Gaprindashvili, who said she was defamed in an episode of The Queen's Gambit miniseries by distorting the fact she had played the chess tournaments with 59 male competitors by 1968, the Variety media outlet reported.
In September, 2021, Gaprindashvili filed a $5-million defamation lawsuit against Netflix over "grossly sexist and belittling" descriptions of hers in the show's last episode, which portrayed her as a female champion who had "never faced men."
The conditions of the settlement have not been disclosed, the report said.
Netflix relied on a 2018 ruling in the California Court of Appeal using a First Amendment right, which provides for interpretation of history and says that real-life subjects do not have veto power over the way they are depicted, according to the report.
US District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that "the fact that the Series was a fictional work does not insulate Netflix from liability for defamation if all the elements of defamation are otherwise present," it added.
Gaprindashvili is the first woman, who was awarded the FIDE (International Chess Federation) title of Grandmaster in 1978 after her performance in the 1977 Lone Pine International Tournament in California. She was the fifth women's world chess champion from 1962-1978.
