Britney's $2.7 million legal bill, among other absurdities

By Eriq Gardner

Here's a roundup of some goofy stories circulating in the world of entertainment law.

• A man claims he spent $30,000 at a charity auction put on by the Lili Claire Foundation to win a meeting with Angelina Jolie. They swiped his Amex card, but according to a new lawsuit against the Lili Claire Foundation, the guy never got his date.  
• "Saved By The Bell" star Dustin Diamond is now being chased in court by the energy company that has provided utility service to his Wisconsin home. Previously, Diamond saved himself from foreclosure on that home by selling t-shirts emblazoned, "I paid $15 to save Screech's house."
• Britney Spears' tab to her lawyers has been tallied in new legal filings in L.A. Superior Court. Let's hope the $2.7 million she's paid to her lawyers is tax deductable.
  
• Wyclef Jean is being sued by the 1990s rap group Blazhay Blazhay for ripping off their song "Danger" in his own song, "Welcome To The East." Of course, "Danger" was based on Jeru the Damaja’s “Come Clean” and Gwen McCrae’s “Rockin’ Chair,” so who really knows the line between rightful and wrongful sampling in the world of hip hop.

Fox News hamms make excellent judicial stew

By Eriq Gardner

In Aesop's famous fable "The Fox and the Grapes," the fox feigns disdain at grapes that are unreachably high on a vine. "The grapes are sour anyway!" says the Fox.

In the latter day version, morning hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade of "Fox & Friends" take turns feigning disdain at the superintendent of a high school who research showed had reprimanded some students for tossing a slab of leftover Easter ham onto a table surrounded by Somali Muslim youngsters. Doocy and Kilmeade made merciless fun of the superintendent, Leon Levesque. They ridiculed him for labeling the incident a "hate crime" and attributed quotes to Levesque from a locally published article.

Many of the quotes turned out to be phony, and Fox never reached Levesque for comment.

Last we left the case of the Fox Hams, a district court had tossed Levesque's subsequent defamation lawsuit against Fox like a brick of spam at a Monty Python concert for failure to show actual malice. But not before the judge stamped Fox's gullibility into the public record once and for all.

We naturally assumed that would be the end of this case. But never underestimate the feelings of a bruised school official. Levesque appealed the case and on Friday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals got its own chance to turn grapes into wine with a cutting opinion that attacks Fox News' journalistic integrity. The opinion opens: "Rare is there an opportunity to interrupt today's twenty-four-hour news cycle, fueled by cable television's incessant need for content...This appeal offers such a moment..."

Of course, the latest opinion doesn't change the District Court's conclusion that defamation can't be shown without any proof of actual malice. But the First Circuit gets its chance to affirm Fox' negligent gullibility and adds insensitivity, tastelessness, and lack of professionalism to the sins of this Fox.

Unfortunately for plaintiff Levesque, shoddy journalism isn't enough to propel a defamation lawsuit forward in this day and age. He's certainly welcome to test out the U.S. Supreme Court for a third look at this matter. We can't imagine what Justice Antonin Scalia might say on the topic.

An Allman Brothers 'revival' will test record labels

By Eriq Gardner

Musicians are still angling to get a bigger chunk of record company revenues from sales on iTunes and other third-party digital distributors.

A few weeks ago, buzz centered on a case brought by producers on Eminem's earlier work against Universal Music Group. The lawsuit was thought to be the big test of this issue, but when a federal Los Angeles jury ruled that UMG didn't owe any extra money from the online sales, the topic went thud and an "upending of the music industry" never materialized.

Meanwhile, Brian Caplan of Caplan & Ross has been working hard to reinvigorate a class action lawsuit brought by the Allman Brothers Band against Sony BMG that alleges the record distributor should be paying half of net licensing and leasing income received from digital download stores. 

The 2006 lawsuit was previously dismissed over a failure to state a claim, but District Judge George Daniels has decided to give the plaintiffs another chance. 

Here's the judge's order.

Caplan says the suit brought by Eminem producers failed because of contract language that treated downloads as "general royalty generating activity," but that in the Allman Brothers suit, there is no such contractual stumbling block, he says. Caplan also sent us the original summary judgment decision in the Eminem suit, which is largely moot now, but seems to offer hope that digital downloads have the characteristics of a license.

That's important because the Allman Brothers lawsuit may offer a real test over whether online sales constitute either "distribution" or "licensing" arrangements. If the latter, they'd require higher royalty payments, and companies like Sony BMG could be on the hook for a heck of a lot of money to its artists. 

How does Borat hope to get away with 'Bruno'?

By Eriq Gardner

After Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" opened to huge box office in 2007, producers were hit with a flood of lawsuits from the unsuspecting dupes who appeared in the film without full knowledge of what was really going on.

Fox, which released the film and spearheaded the defense of the suits, took a particularly aggressive stance and ended up squashing allegations they had violated rights of publicity and fraudulently induced people. In at least one case, Fox even got a judge to make the plaintiffs pay the studio's legal fees for their trouble.

Now the publicity machine is ramping up for Cohen's much anticipated follow-up, "Bruno," in which he plays a gay Austrian journalist who interviews Americans and generally makes them uncomfortable.

Given the popularity of the first film, how was Cohen able to keep the charade going for a second go-round? 

According to The Smoking Gun, Cohen raised the stakes on the project by having lawyers create shell dummy corporations and websites to help fool people into thinking the "documentary" was a legitimate enterprise.

This make us wonder: Claims of fraud are much more likely to succeed when plaintiffs can show they signed release forms under false pretenses. Is claiming affiliation with a sham company going to get producers in trouble this time?

Flash back to the "Borat" lawsuits. In the case brought by an etiquette trainer and a driver's education teacher who both claimed to have signed an inapplicable waiver, the judge ruled that the waiver was sufficient because it included language that disclaimed any representations being made, and thus, foreclosed the possibility that anybody could sue for misrepresentation. 

"Bruno" producers and the studio--this time Universal--have probably done the same thing, especially given how much litigation the first film prompted. The question is whether this will let them get away with all sorts of false affiliations.

Ex-'American Idol' staffers find employment conditions a little pitchy

By Matthew Belloni

Another shot was fired today in the Great Reality Labor Struggle of the '00s. A bunch of former employees of "American Idol" producer FremantleMedia North America filed a class-action lawsuit claiming violations of the California labor code. According to the filing, they've been overworked without overtime, had their time cards falsified and denied meals and rest periods.

Here's the complaint.

Sound familar? It's almost the same lawsuit filed against ABC, Fox, CBS and a some production entities in 2005 alleging unlawful employment practices on shows like "The Bachelor," "Trading Spouces" and "Are You Hot?" That case was settled for $4 million in January.

The WGA, which helped coordinate the 2005 case, isn't claiming any credit for today's filing. But the guild has recently upped its efforts to organize the story-shapers behind some of the biggest hits on TV, and these cases have been seen by many in the labor law community as a hardball tactic in that crusade.

Will it work? Who knows. Time was the studios operated on a different plane when it came to labor laws. Get a job slinging office supplies at Staples and you knew the government was going to prevent illegal employment practices. But the same job in Hollywood opened you up to endless hours and abusive conditions without much recourse. 

But times have changed, at least at the studios and major production companies. At the polite urging of the guilds, New York and California law have taken off the kid gloves and now watch Hollywood with a close and skeptical eye. It helps that the studios are now part of giant media conglomerates with far more stringent codes of conduct designed to prevent just the kind of lawsuit filed today.

But the nascent unscripted world is still something of a wild west. We've heard stories of 20 hour workdays, dangerous workplaces and, in the words of one lawyer hired to advise a reality shoot, "scary violations."  The studios got their act together, though. It's probably just a matter of time before the reality genre--and its labor practices--grow up a little.

Perez Hilton escapes another lawsuit

By Eriq Gardner

Litigation over so-called "hot news" is steaming up these days.

A month ago, a New York judge allowed to continue a lawsuit brought by the Associated Press against All Headline News, dismissing an argument by the defendant that news organizations couldn't copyright "hot news," otherwise known as breaking news. 

Now, in a twist of circumstances, the same district court in New York has rejected a blogger's claimed copyright ownership over "hot news."

The defendant in the case is none other than celeb blogger Perez Hilton, who has gotten into many legal feuds, including one with a website called PerezRevenge.com. The operator of the site accused Hilton (real name: Mario Lavandeira) of lifting information and Hilton fired back with a lawsuit claiming his nemesis conducted a reverse domain name hijacking.

Now the original Perez is emerging victorious.

A New York court says that Hilton didn't infringe copyright because republishing facts doesn't constitute copyright theft — never mind what the court recently said in the AP suit — and that Hilton's "distinctive sarcastic and ironic tone constitutes a significantly different expression of the underlying facts." 

Hilton previously escaped another "hot news" claim brought by a celebrity photo agency. His snark seems to be almost lawsuit-proof. 

That might be good news for other websites like Huffington Post that have been accused of cutting-and-pasting a bit too much of other news sources. In a story in Time magazine, Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, predicts, ""Someone is going to sue the Huffington Post...It's not just about the volume of the content that it appropriates, it's about the value."

With newspapers scraping for survival, decisions in cases like ones involving the Associated Press or Perez Hilton could begin to shape the future of the news media.

Universal's cry of sexism doesn't sway Brits

By Eriq Gardner

 

It looks like the British government is taking a harder stand on violence in entertainment.

The Advertising Standards Authority, which regulates ads in the UK, has killed a TV spot for the DVD release of Universal's "Wanted." The ad featured Angelina Jolie toting a gun and firing a bullet towards the viewer.

After the ASA ruled that the advertisement was unsuitable for children of all ages, including older ones, Universal took the matter to arbitration with an interesting argument: could it be that the ASA was being a bit sexist?

Universal noted that ads for many other action films with strong male leads had been permitted without complaint, and that some might not like the idea that "Wanted" features a butt-kicking woman strong lead role.

Today, the ASA issued its adjudication, upholding its ruling that the ad condones violence. The ASA seems to have shrugged off the alleged sexism.

We wonder if Universal might have been taken more seriously if the advertisement's voice-over didn't state, "Angelina is blazingly sexy."

Discovery: Not your usual patent troll

By Eriq Gardner

We weren't surprised to see the press release announcing that Amazon has been served with a patent lawsuit over its popular e-book Kindle device. 

Anyone who followed the saga over the Blackberry, including a major lawsuit that resulted in a $612.5 million settlement and cries for the need of patent reform, could see the writing on the Kindle that such a technical accomplishment would foreshadow the legal turn.

But whoever guessed that the plaintiff would be Discovery Communications, producers of "Trading Spaces," "Orangutan Island," and owner of many of the world's most popular non-fiction cable stations, should e-mail us immediately with tips on filling out our NCAA Tournament bracket.

To repeat, this lawsuit hasn't been filed by the typical patent troll; rather it's one of the largest media companies in the world, with entertainment brands in 170 countries. The firm is also being represented by the Morrison & Foerster firm, which has a strong reputation for patent work in technology.

In the press release, Discovery general counsel Joseph LaSala, Jr. issued this statement: "The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems. We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation. Legal action is not something Discovery takes lightly.

We've begun to to look at the actual complaint. Frankly, it looks a little strange to us. A few pages with the bare basics about the allegations followed by nearly 100 pages of exhibits, including diagrams, technological specs, and the copy-and-paste patent application for an Electronic Book Security and Copyright Protection System.

We'd really love a table of contents for this complaint, or at least, a better digital version that tells us what we're looking at. Pretty please? Maybe something that will display on our Kindle?

Judge blesses 'Family Guy' ridicule

By Eriq Gardner

Judges aren't famous for their senses of humor, but "fair use" analysis sometimes requires an assessment of satire. 

U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts evidently can appreciate a joke. She has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Music Publisher Bourne Co. against Fox Broadcasting Co. over an episode of "Family Guy" that featured a song called "I Need A Jew" over the tune from "When You Wish Upon a Star."

Bourne had argued in its copyright infringement claim that the song's "new anti-Semitic lyrics" damaged the original.

Batts retorted in her opinion that Bourne had benefited from the song's association in films like "Pinocchio," and that "It is precisely that beneficial association that opens the song up for ridicule by parodists seeking to take the wind out of such lofty, magical, or pure associations."

"Family Guy" has sparked lawsuits in the past. For instance, comedian Art Metrano has battled the show for nearly a decade for ripping off his material. 

Elderly woman learns calling Paris Hilton 'ugly' has consequences

By Eriq Gardner

We don't blame VH-1 for showcasing the comments of an 81-year-old woman, who, when asked to state her opinion of Paris Hilton, answered, "I think she's an ass...I'm sorry, she's just not...on my list. I think she's ugly. And I think she's a disgusting human being."

Those comments were provided by Anne McCourt to a camera crew on a residential street in Los Angeles, as they awaited Hilton to emerge from an acting lesson Then the comments appeared on VH1's "Celebrity Eye Candy."

Now, in a complaint against Viacom, McCourt claims she never signed a release form, and the aired comments subjected her to emotional distress, humiliation, and public ridicule. She's suing for defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

We don't imagine this lawsuit will go very far. If the producers of "Borat" were able to survive the many lawsuits emanating from ridicule, even from those who didn't sign releases, poor 'ol McCourt hardly stands a chance. She'll have to live with saying such distressingly mean things about Ms. Hilton.