Marty Singer demands blogger stop being mean to Demi Moore

By Eriq Gardner

We're not surprised to hear that Demi Moore tasked attorney Marty Singer to tame a blogger who had the nerve to suggest that a little Photoshopping on December's W cover made her look like "she had some sort of weird car accident that left a wedge of meat missing."

After all, celebrties hire Singer all the time to do strange stuff, including stopping sex tapes, theatrical plays, reality show marriages, and, if you're Tiger Woods, photos in magazines proving out-of-wedlock affairs.

We're also not surprised to hear that Singer attempted to muzzle the blogger who picked apart Moore's W cover by claiming his cease-and-desist letter was a "confidential legal communication."

Others may scoff at this sort of claim, but Singer has elevated C&D letters to a whole new realm of creative expression. Shouldn't he be able to copyright and otherwise protect them. Don't you agree, Jeremy Piven?

Moore's willingness to go after the blogger is more surprising, frankly. 

What possible reason would compel the actress to set the record straight? After all, the only reason we know about this guy is because Singer sent a letter demanding that he retract his claim that the photo was manipulated. 

Gawker limits liability in 'McSteamy' threesome case

By Eriq Gardner

Gawker caused a mini-sensation three months ago by posting video of a three-way naked romp involving "Grey's Anatomy" star Eric Dane, wife/actress Rebecca Gayheart and former beauty queen Kari Ann Peniche.

A threesome is hot enough. A threesome with lawyers is downright dirty.The stars of the video sued for copyright infringement. 

On Monday, Gawker took a big step toward limiting its liability in the "McSteamy" scandal when California District Court Judge George Wu ruled in favor of the website on some issues raised in its motion to strike. Most importantly, the judge ruled that Dane and Gayheart can't recover statutory damages or attorney's fees because they registered the tape with the U.S. Copyright Office after the alleged infringement.

The ruling doesn't foreclose the possibility that the gossip website will be enjoined from distributing the sex tape (which is still available on the site) or ordered to pay actual damages. (How Dane and Gayheart prove actual damages is something we'll have to investigate at a later date.) For now, the ruling represents a legal victory for Gawker and its lawyer, Alonzo Wickers at LA's Davis Wright Tremaine.

Just last week, in response to the motion to strike, Dane and Gayheart's lawyers at Marty Singer's firm had criticized their counterparts for a "premature motion" that "serves little purpose but to waste the parties' time and money..."

Image via gawker.com.

The myth of Sophia Stewart endures

By Eriq Gardner

Science fiction writers have long been fascinated with parallel universes. Perhaps in one, Sophia Stewart really did win $2.5 billion against Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, James Cameron and the Wachowski brothers for allegedly ripping off a short story to create both the "Matrix" and "Terminator" film franchises.

But not in this universe. 

Yet the tale of Stewart's huge court victory has flourished despite any evidence. Last week, a few small news outlets published news of a win, and word spread quickly. Sophia Stewart became a hot search item on Google, the talk of Twitter, and various podcasts rushed to interview her on the success.

Huh? Flash back five years.

In 2004, a Los Angeles federal judge dismissed Stewart's copyright complaints because of a lack of evidence showing similarity between an unpublished story, "The Third Eye," and the defendants' successful films. A year later, the LA Times published a 2000-word feature called "The Billion Dollar Myth" examining the Sophia Stewart phenomenon, from newspapers mistakenly reporting court victories and Internet rumor-mongering to the proposition that the case of an aggrieved African American writer illustrated racial tensions and distrust of mainstream media.

Since then, Stewart has been an underground cult hero, no doubt aided by her own testimonials on her blog, MySpace page, message boards and podcasts.

But here's a little twist to the story: Those who trumpet Stewart's victories are at least right that there continues to be courtroom action on the woman's huge claims. However, they haven't been very successful. In 2007, in Utah district court, Stewart sued her attorneys in the original case for malpractice (including failing to prepare evidence and perjury before the court). She tried to enter fraudulent copyright registrations of "The Matrix" as proof of some wrongdoing. 

A Utah district judge has denied Stewart's motions and objections several times this year, most recently two weeks ago. Here's an example of the ongoing saga of Sophia Stewart. The myth endures.

The future of embedded video will (or will not) be televised

By Eriq Gardner

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has decided to crack down on Fox News clips appearing on the Internet, recently sending out more than 150 takedown notices to YouTube. The efforts caused the temporary shutdown of News1News' YouTube channel, which provides clips of Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the Fox News gang to a number of web outlets, including Huffington Post.

There are a couple of ways to read this new development.

At first, Fox News' DMCA claims seemed to be targeted at the liberal blogosphere as a way to prevent left wingers from ridiculing the channel's personalities. But Fox News later sent takedown demands and subsequently caused the shutdown of some right-leaning YouTube channels too, such as GlennbeckClipsDaily and ConservativeNation.

We wonder whether the crackdown on Fox News clips is the first phase of Murdoch's stated threats to scrub Google and its affiliates of News Corp. properties. Murdoch's plans have generated curiosity and heated discussion, including from lawyers debating whether his intentions fly under "fair use" analysis.

But there's another way to read what's going on.

In the past couple of years, many rights-holders have wondered whether embedded clips threaten their businesses. In May 2008, Fox, CBS and NBC took down RedLasso, a then-popular web service that let users search its database of recorded television for clips to post online. (After signing licensing deals, the company recently relaunched a more modest version.) 

Less noticed has been a New York court case between ASCAP and YouTube. In May, YouTube was ordered to pay $1.6 million plus future payments to account for the public performance of music on the video-sharing website. But that didn't end the case. 

After ASCAP started targeting websites and bloggers who embed clips, YouTube agreed to pick up the legal fight on downstream embedded uses of YouTube videos. Currently, both sides are before the Copyright Royalty Board arguing how much YouTube should be charged to allow its users to embed videos. 

The decision, as well as crackdowns by Murdoch and others, could end up impacting the future of embedded video clips online. 

Buzz Media claims Superficial website price was superficially inflated

By Eriq Gardner

A Hollywood-style feud has broken out in the world of celebrity websites.

Buzz Media, an L.A.-based startup, has gone on a buying spree of late, purchasing big pop culture sites like Stereogum, Idolator and Celebuzz.It also runs official celebrity websites for the likes of Britney Spears, Mischa Barton and Tila Tequila. The company's got big ambitions and just hired former executives at MTV to come aboard. 

In a new lawsuit, Buzz claims that Karl Wang, founder of celebrity gossip site The Superficial, "made false, fraudulent, and misleading statements to deceive Buzz Media and induce it to purchase the Website for an inflated and fraudulently induced price."

So Wang created too much buzz?

He allegedly told Buzz that a third party, Gorilla Nation Media, had a made an offer for The Superficial.

Buzz allegedly had a right of first refusal on the website, and to keep its rights it began to negotiate a purchase. Later, Buzz says it found out that there was no real offer from a third party. The company is now suing for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, and breach of good faith and fair dealing. Here's the complaint.

We're sure this kind of negotiating tactic, if true, might not cause any agents and lawyers in this town to blink. Pretending to have an offer from another party is probably the oldest play in the Hollywood dealmaking book, but will it fly in the new media world?