Jerry Seinfeld's Jokes Were Devastating, Says Author in Slander Case

By Eriq Gardner

Last time we checked in with the case of cookbook author Missy Chase Lapine suing Jerry Seinfeld for slander, the comedian's lawyers were arguing that jokes were jokes, protected by the First Amendment.

Lapine's retort was submitted in court papers filed on Tuesday. Seinfeld's comparisons of Lapine to other people with three names — such as James Earl Ray and Mark David Chapman — may have been funny, but Lapine says they were emotionally devastating.

"I have never felt so frightened and vulnerable as the day my daughter, 7 years old, came home from school and asked, 'Mom, what is an assassin?,'" said Lapine in the court papers.

She reports "feeling scared" and thinking she "made a big mistake talking to any reporters because now this billionaire is angry and attacking me everywhere."

As for damages, it doesn't get any worse than a book author being rejected by Oprah. "Four times I attempted to be a guest on Oprah," she writes. "I was rejected each time."

PiracyWatch: Small Wins Compete With Larger Arguments

By Eriq Gardner

The MPAA is on a bit of a winning streak of late. The studio trade association has won small victories, getting pullmylink.com, showstash.com, cinematube.com and other BitTorrent tracking-movie-linking sites to cease operations in recent weeks. Judging by some of the buzz in tech circles, however, the entertainment industry may need another big decision on par with the Grokster or Napster cases to drive home the point that case law favors content holders against pirates trying to wiggle out of much liability.

Lawyers and legal scholars are still pushing legislative readings that would limit the scope of MPAA and RIAA battles against file-sharers.

The latest comes from a Harvard professor who claims that federal law that punishes copyright infringement is actually a criminal, rather than civil, statute. The lawsuits are brought in civil court, of course, but Professor Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School believes that minimum statutory penalties apply in criminal cases and that excessive penalties in civil cases are unconstitutional. The professor has made his arguments in a case against a teenager, Joel Tenenbaum, accused of downloading seven songs over a P2P network.

Making Music Is Not About Charity. Ask Bryan Adams.

By Eriq Gardner

Copyright owners rarely seem flattered when their nearly forgotten works are brought back from the dead.

Witness Bryan Adams. Apparently, the Canadian singer has launched a campaign to snuff out fan sites that use his likeness without authorization. Adams has hired a service called Web Sheriff to crack down on sites like bryanadamsfanclub.nl, bryanadams.nu and badfan.com, that abuse the his copyrights. The sites were taken down until they can agree to a set of guidelines that will allow them to "happily coexist" with Adams.

The Web Sheriff is even targeting a cover band called The Bryan Adams Experience. Apparently, the singer wants them to be called The Bryan Adams Tribute Experience.

The number of musicians who aren't happy about misappropriated songs used in political campaigns also grows larger and larger by the day.

Memo To Barack Obama: Don't Do This

By Eriq Gardner

How Barack Obama will use his 30 minutes of paid airtime tonight is an open parlor game. "Saturday Night Live" made its guess. The NYT as fun speculating, based on the one-minute trailer it was shown. (Yes, even informercials now have trailers.)

One thing he probably shouldn't do, however, is prank call John McCain and leave nasty messages on the Republican candidate's voicemail. Sure, that would be funny, but as two BBC entertainers are finding out, these things have consequences.

Russell Brand ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall") and Jonathan Ross, another high-profile British TV star, have been suspended by the channel after the pair participated in an on-air prank call to 78-year-old comedy actor Andrew Sachs ("Fawlty Towers"). They joked about sleeping with Sachs '23-year-old granddaughter, causing a reported 18,000 viewer complaints. So notwithstanding a a three-year, multimillion dollar contract, the two are now off the air, as the country's version of the FCC investigates whether the broadcasting code was broken.

DEA Agents Try 'American Gangster' Defamation Claim Again

By Eriq Gardner

Drug Enforcement Administration agents are still peeved at their portrayal in Universal's "American Gangster." Now they are going after former drug kingpin Frank Lucas and New York magazine in a new defamation lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court.

Last year, DEA agents filed a a $55 million class action case against NBC Universal for defaming the DEA's entire New York bureau in the film. That lawsuit was rejected when US District Judge Colleen McMahon said the movie failed to "show a single person who is identifiable as a DEA agent," and therefore failed to meet defamation law standards.

The plaintiffs now believe that they'll have better luck against the source of allegations that DEA agents were corrupt and seized more assets than they accounted for. According to the complaint, Lucas' interview with New York Magazine writer Mark Jacobson, published as "The Return of Superfly" in the Aug. 7, 2000 issue, became the source of the film. Lucas, Jacobson, New York magazine, and Grove/Atlantic (which published a book on the episode) are all named defendants in this new $55 million lawsuit.

The new complaint doesn't resolve the identifiability issue that got the first case rejected. Instead, the plaintiffs represented by lawyers at Carey Associates hope to have better luck with a different judge.

Sole Target Of HBO Report on Child Labor Sues for Defamation

By Eriq Gardner

What's worse — allegedly outsourcing the work of the manufacturing of soccer balls to an Indian company that pays children 5 cents per hour or less; or claiming in a lawsuit that a media portrayal is defamatory because it should be targeting other soccer ball manufacturers as well.

Mitre Sports International says in a defamation claim filed in Britain against HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" that "Despite explicitly stating that 'Real Sports' had found 'at least 10 international brands' of soccer balls being stitched by children, the report falsely, maliciously, and intentionally mentions and targets one and only one brand, Mitre."

The company says it plays a leading role in the international effort to eliminate child labor in the manufacture of soccer balls, does not permit child labor, and presented HBO with proof that its allegations were wrong. According to the complaint, the show was rebroadcast at least 55 times.

Google Closes the Book On Major Copyright Case

By Eriq Gardner

Google has put one of its largest copyright lawsuits in the history books by agreeing upon a $125 million settlement with book authors.

The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers have announced they have agreed to settle a 2005 case against Google that alleged the company violated copyright by scanning books from several libraries into a digital database called Google Book Search. Google will make a large payment to the groups, and if accepted by a federal judge, authors will be able to claim a share of at least $45 million in proceeds. (Presumably, the lawyers in the case will be collecting a nice contingency fee.)

But there's more:

Decisions Roundup: No Defamation In Hyperlinking

By Eriq Gardner

Lots of news on the defamation front. A Canada court has issued a "landmark" ruling that declares that a website can't be held liable for defamation by hyperlinking to someone else's defamatory content. The British Columbia court reasoned that the links are analogous to footnotes rather than constituting a "republication."

One possible exception. The court also said, "It is not my decision that hyperlinking can never make a person liable for the contents of the remote site. For example, if Mr. Newton had written 'the truth about Wayne Crookes is found here' and 'here' is hyperlinked to the specific defamatory words, this might lead to a different conclusion."

The decision can be found here.

'Runway' Getting More Crowded: Harvey Asserts Counterclaim For Sabotage

By Matthew Belloni

You didn't think Harvey was going to just let this one go, did you? The catfight over "Project Runway's" move from Bravo to Lifetime has taken a (somewhat predictable) turn, with the Weinstein Co. filing a counterclaim on Friday alleging that NBC Universal's Bravo intentionally refused to promote Season 5 of the show because of the move.

TWC claims Bravo sabotaged the ratings and value of the show by changing its airtime, running few and "unappealing" ads and revealing spoilers about future episodes.

Here's TWC's full Answer and Counterclaim, as well as Lifetime's Answer. NBC Uni's (also predictable) response is here. Hint: they're not impressed, pointing out (somewhat persuasively, in our armchair opinion) that ratings for season 5 of "Runway" were the highest ever.

Some pretty major legal firepower on display in this one. The Weinsteins ponied up to hire Al Gore and Microsoft pitbull David Boies and his firm. Lifetime has New York A-list corporate firm Cravath Swaine & Moore. NBC Universal has been repped in the case by Orin Snyder in Gibson Dunn's New York office. 

As you'll recall, last month Judge Richard Lowe III issued a rare preliminary injunction barring the Weinstein-produced "Runway" from airing on Lifetime until this mess has been sorted out. NBC Universal claims that an unsigned 2003 license agreement between TWC and NBCU and a later amendment gave NBCU the "right of first refusal" for additional seasons of the show as well as spinoffs. When Harvey up and moved the show from Bravo to Lifetime earlier this year, he allegedly breached those deals.   

PellicanoWatch: No New Trial for Terry Christensen

By Matthew Belloni

The news still isn't good for Terry Christensen. The entertainment attorney, convicted in August of conspiring to illegally wiretap client Kirk Kerkorian's ex-wife, was denied a new trial today. Christensen claimed a juror was improperly removed during deliberations for disagreeing with the other jurors.

He'll now be sentenced Nov. 17. Pellicano is set to be sentenced Nov. 12.