Hollywood Docket: CBS and ESPN Accused of Bad Intentions

By Eriq Gardner

TV Land is as strange as the lawsuits it engenders. Here's a couple of new ones:

• An actress stand-in on CBS' hit "CSI" is suing the network, claiming it retaliated against her for complaining of sexual harassment on the set. In the complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Shanelle Renee Howard says that after three years of stand-in work on the show, producers cut her workload back more than 90 percent after she gave testimony to others pursuing a separate sexual harassment claim.

• A former boxer now serving prison time has filed a pro se lawsuit against ESPN Classic after the station rebroadcast his fight against Joe Frazier. The boxing match represented Frazier's last fight, but Floyd "Jumbo" Cummings says it violated his rights of publicity. He's seeking $50 million in damages and in what might be called either rambling or poetic, his self-penned complaint says:

"ESPN Classic, well knowing the said premises, but contriving and wrongfully and maliciously intending to injure and aggrieve me and to bring me into public notoriety and to destroy the comfort of my life and peace and tranquility of mind, and to thrust upon me, unsought, unwarranted and undesired publicity and notoriety, utterly obnoxious to me, and annihilate and destroy.."

Reality TV Litigation Proliferating Like, Well, Reality TV

By Matthew Belloni

Our latest THR column delves into the increasingly litigious world of reality television. If you've noticed an uptick lately of cases involving the unscripted TV world and its power players, you're not alone. We're especially interested in the copyright cases involving reality formats because there isn't a lot of law governing how much the shows like ABC's new hit "Wipeout" can borrow from established shows like Japan's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge."   

David Duchovny Passes Up British Libel Law to Sue British Tabloid in LA

By Eriq Gardner

David Duchovny is seeking $1 million in damages against a British newspaper that reported he cheated on his wife, Téa Leoni, with a tennis instructor.

The "Californication" star says Britain's Daily Mail "knew that the story was false," and has a signed sworn declaration from the supposed mistress.

Interestingly, Duchovny is suing for libel in Los Angeles Superior Court instead of the U.K. Here's the complaint. Since the defendant is based in Britain, which has infamously loose defamation laws, we're wondering why Duchovny didn't pursue the action there.

Some theories: Duchovny's lawyers at Dreier might believe they can prove the paper's "intentional and reckless conduct," or maybe they figure it's more of a hassle for the Daily Mail to fight the case here. Or maybe we should stop speculating because we don't really know.

'Hot Chicks' Don't Really Dig Simon & Schuster

By Eriq Gardner

Hard to believe that a major book publisher would put the photographs of three women in a book titled "Hot Chicks With Douchebags" without making sure to get permission.

But allegedly, Simon & Schuster never got consent from Yvette Gorzelany, Joanna Obiedzinski, and Paulina Pakos before publication. Now the three women are suing in New Jersey Superior Court claiming infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and defamation in a new lawsuit.

The women were photographed at a New Jersey club and the photographs were sold to the publisher. The complaint doesn't include details about the photographer, the purchase, and what attempts if any Simon & Schuster made to satisfy any obligation for consent.

John McTiernan Finally Finds Luck In the Hiring Dept.

By Eriq Gardner

John McTiernan once directed "Die Hard." Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave the director an opportunity to live up to that title.

The appeals court could have accepted McTiernan's guilty plea and sent him to federal prison for four months as penalty for lying to federal investigators about hiring private eye Anthony Pellicano to wiretap "Rollerball" producer Chuck Roven. Instead, the court agreed with McTiernan's new lawyers that the director may have gotten bad legal advice from his old lawyers.

McTiernan pleaded guilty after the government revealed tape recording of discussions made by McTiernan and Pellicano, which contradicted his previous statements. Could McTiernan escape prosecution by motioning for the suppression of this evidence? According to McTiernan's new lawyer, S. Todd Neal, the answer was yes. The Ninth Circuit agrees that such a motion should have been made.

Here's the decision that sends the case back to the U.S. District Court in order to conduct a full evidentiary hearing to consider whether he can withdraw his guilty plea.

Judge Rules 'We Are Marshall' Didn't Violate Anything But Sports Movie Cliches

By Eriq Gardner

A federal judge has ruled that Warner Bros. Pictures and Thunder Road Prods didn't violate any copyright when producing the film "We are Marshall."

The plaintiffs in the case were two documentary filmmakers, Deborah Novak and John Witek, who collaborated on the 2000 documentary "Ashes to Glory," which told the story of the Marshall football team after a 1970 plane crash killed most of its members. In the lawsuit, they argued that the defendants became interested in developing a film based on the Marshall story and contacted the two about optioning the rights to "Ashes of Glory." The parties failed to reach an agreement on the financial terms and conditions and the defendants went ahead with the project.

In his ruling, California district judge Gary Feess calls the events surrounding the Marshall football team "matters of public record which cannot be copyrighted" and dismisses a breach-of-contract claim on grounds the plaintiffs "clearly understood that they had no agreement" to breach.

The full decision after the jump:

 

O.J. Simpson Case Fallout Ensnares Dr. Phil

By Eriq Gardner

According to the AP, "The memorabilia dealer who led O.J. Simpson to a hotel room where an infamous robbery occurred filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the "Dr. Phil" show claiming his remarks in an interview were spliced to change their meaning."

Thomas Riccio is suing "Dr. Phil" McGraw for defamation, fraud, emotional distress and being portrayed in a false light. He claims the show edited his interview to make it appear that he was confessing to doing things he did not do, and that Dr. Phil said Riccio "set O.J. Simpson up and told people to bring guns into the room."

Microsoft Figures Out A Better Way To Censor Television

By Eriq Gardner

The US Patent & Trademark Office has just approved a patent application by Microsoft on "automatic censorship of audio data for broadcast."

Translation? No longer might standards lawyers need to sit in a dark room, hovering over the bleep button when U2 singer Bono delivers an award with chutzpah at the Golden Globes ceremony. Now, those cussing-canceling bleeps could happen in real-time.

Supposedly, the technology will work on broadcast television, Internet streams and in gaming platforms. Now the question is whether Congress will require broadcasters to use the technology similar to the way they once mandated that television manufacturers include the infamous V-chip. And if politicians don't exert pressure, will broadcasters face the liability wrath of a nation of church ladies?

PiracyWatch: MPAA Still Feuding with EFF

By Eriq Gardner

Would the MPAA and the Electronic Frontier Foundation just kiss and make up?

The studio lobbying group has sent another detailed letter to the digital-rights advocates, telling them "It's not 2001 anymore. We've moved on. So should you."

The letter is in response to attacks from the EFF, prompted by the MPAA's litigation with RealNetworks over a new technology that lets consumers copy DVDs to their hardrives. The EFF recently posted an article titled "Why Hollywood Hates RealDVD."

"It has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with controlling innovation," wrote the EFF's Fred von Lohmann.

In response, the MPAA points out the success of Hulu and Apple's iTunes, among "more than 275 legal Web sites worldwide that provide high quality, digital content to consumers," saying the industry has been working to enable business models that give consumers what they want. The complete letter is below the jump.

Robin Williams Wants $6 Million for 'Dicks' Pay-or-Play

By Eriq Gardner

Robin Williams has become the latest actor to sue after signing a "pay-or-play" contract to make a film and getting nothing when the production company shelves the project.

Williams has filed a lawsuit against Frank and Beans Prods. and Gold Circle Films, claiming $6 million in damages after the companies put the detective comedy "A Couple of Dicks" in turnaround. Williams claims he made both an oral agreement and has a written contract, though the latter was never signed by the actor.

Williams' lawsuit seems to indicate a growing problem over "pay-or-play" contracts that obligate a production studio to pay regardless of whether the film is actually made. Previously, John Cusack, Diane Lane, and Jerry Lewis have filed similar lawsuits. Some lawyers have been warning about this potential "minefield" for more than ten years.