So Sue Me…

The lawsuit was laughable from the start. MTV The Real World: Key West participant John Devenanzio claimed that an animated-show-within-a-show plotline of HBO’s Entourage, featuring Kevin Dillon’s character Johnny Drama as the voice of monkee Johnny Bananas, caused him emotional distress.

Creative distress, maybe. But as it merited to be, THR Esq. contributor Matthew Belloni Eriq Gardner reports today that a New York judge mercifully threw out this nicked nickname claim last week. Albeit on a technicality:

The episodes in question started airing on Aug. 15, 2010, and Devenanzio didn’t bring the claim until Oct. 3, 2011. The one-year statute of limitations window had closed, and so the judge finds the lawsuit to be less “Johnny Bananas” and more “Johnny Rotten.”

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From “book ‘em, Danno” to “sue ‘em, Litto.” That is essentially where an original stakeholder in the Hawaii Five-O franchise has progressed, via a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

THR senior editor Eriq Gardner has the details and full PDF complaint. The somewhat delayed timing of talent agent George Litto’s $10 million-plus legal maneuver has a lot to do with the fact that Rose Freeman, the widow of Hawaii Five-O creator Leonard Freeman, passed away in March. This reportedly left Litto as the sole manager of the Freeman estate company at the center of the dispute. Per Gardner:

Litto alleges he was cut out of the [TV series] success and even threatened with litigation if he contacted CBS… Since the series is reportedly a “cash cow” for CBS, he adds had the 1974 deal not been amended, it would have allegedly resulted in “massive profits” of millions of dollars to the company he set up with Rose.

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Sometimes, all it takes to cross the legal Hollywood licensing line is a tweet or Facebook post.

After Burberry crowed on social media about the late actor Humphrey Bogart having worn one of its trenchcoats in the final scene of Casablanca, Bogart LLC filed suit Wednesday. The estate of the iconic actor said it never gave permission to Burberry to use a Bogart still in such a manner. From the press release:

“This is such an incredibly disappointing and disrespectful action by Burberry,” said Stephen Bogart, son of the Hollywood legend. “Apparently they believe a shoe company can advertise the fact that Brad Pitt wore its brand while jogging down the street, or a beverage company can claim George Clooney drank its product in one of his movies – all without even asking, much less obtaining, the actors’ permission. Wouldn’t that be a nice, clever way to get Hollywood icons to endorse or advertise products without paying compensation or, more importantly, obtaining permission?”

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Cary O’Neal, who goes by the YouTube and Facebook handle of “Mr. Malibu,” now admits he was wrong.

Contrary to his previous video reports “Pepperdine Recklessly Dumps Sewage on Malibu Beach” and “Luxury Beach Homes of Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks, David Duchovny and Pink Under Siege,” Pepperdine University was not the source of contaminated storm water runoff into Marie Canyon. The school filed an April 11 libel suit against O’Neal, which – according to the Malibu Surfside News – it has now agreed to drop in exchange for a public retraction. The paper reprinted the apology, received via email from O’Neal:

Please consider this letter a retraction of my statements. I acknowledge that these statements were inaccurate. Pepperdine does not operate the Malibu Mesa Water Reclamation Facility and does not discharge sewage or sewage effluent into Marie Canyon or any other location. Instead, Malibu Mesa is operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

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Remember the old Robin Leach Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous punchline “champagne wishes and caviar dreams?” We certainly do, and it came to mind while reading one of the choice anecdotes in Daniel Miller and Matthew Belloni’s Hollywood Reporter magazine cover story about flamboyant (and now embattled) megaupload.com founder Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz).

The reporters were unable to secure an interview with Dotcom. But they did correspond via email with Maximillion Cooper (that’s not a typo; that’s how he spells his first name), founder of the cross-continental car rally Gumball 3000. Cooper says he galavanted for a decade around the globe with Dotcom, and remembers one St. Tropez incident in particular:

Cooper recalls a memorable 2001 trip to the south of France on the 264-foot Golden Odyssey, which features a mosaic-tiled swimming pool, gym and coral-reef aquarium that spans two decks. For lunch, Cooper, Schmitz and a “huge entourage” that included what Cooper describes as “Aryan” bodyguards all took speedboats to the shore for lobster and champagne.

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Not sure if this is a score for the little guys, or just a big FU to the big guy, but either way we feel pretty good about it. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey ruled this week that Sam Zell is officially last on the Tribune Company’s list of creditors as it emerges from Chapter 11 status–behind $759 million worth of claims from other holders of “Phones” notes.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Zell put only $315 million of his own money at risk in the deal. In recent litigation, his investment venture attempted to get equal footing with other low-ranking creditors when it comes to sharing recovery, on the basis of a claim for $225 million. The attempt failed.

Judge Carey’s conclusions, issued Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., set the stage for a June 7 effort by the media company to win confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan and get out of bankruptcy after more than three years.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Too bad someone couldn’t have put Zell in his place before he destroyed one of the most important media empires in America.

UK attorney Mark Lewis, a thorn in the side of Rupert Murdoch when it comes to the very messy ongoing business of Fleet Street tabloid phone hacking, says he is about to bring the News International legal fight to these shores.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast’s Mike Giglio, Lewis confirms that he is traveling to California later this week and New York on Monday as part of his preparation for up to three separate U.S. lawsuits against News Corp. It’s unclear at this point whether any of the hacking occurred on American soil. But Lewis tells Giglio at least one of the prospective plaintiffs is a U.S. citizen:

Lewis declined to give specifics on the three U.S.-based cases, but all three center on high-profile subjects. In one case, the alleged victim was connected to the royal household and to Princess Diana, Lewis says. In another case, the alleged victim was connected to England’s national football team. Lewis describes the third as a Hollywood case in which the alleged victim was in contact with a top celebrity, and therefore a target for hacking.

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When the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD) filed suit against CNN over the news network’s lack of close-captioning of online videos, the cable channel responded with an anti-SLAPP motion. Very broadly, CNN argued, all of its activities – right down to the decision not to caption website videos – are protected by the First Amendment.

Per a THR Hollywood, Esq. report by Eriq Gardner, CNN’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit has been denied. Oakland United States Magistrate judge Lauren Beeler ruled on March 23 that GLAD will have its day in court:

CNN also made the argument that not providing closed-captioning was an issue of editorial control because the news organization should have the right to reject something that didn’t satisfy its editorial standards, including technology that could result in inaccuracies.

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Filmmaker Chris Abbas has decided to drop his plagiarism claim against Invisible Children and its now infamous “Kony 2012″ film. Segments of Abbas film Cassini Mission were used in “Kony 2012″ without attribution. Abbas thought he had a case. He doesn’t, as he admitted on Reddit in bullet-point form.

• A work created under the Creative Commons NC BY SA license does not require permission to be used by anyone and is free game.
• I have conceded my original claim thanks to some thoughtful answers, in particular by user sibB (see first comment for a thorough breakdown of the facts).
• The title is sensationalist at best and clearly could have been more accurate and less dramatic if there was more careful consideration of the license and less frustration in the brain.
• I maintain that I do not want my work included in a video which supports military intervention as a solution to the LRA problem, however under the current license I do not have the ability to deny it’s usage in any format. This is my fault, and I am bound to the license structure of the music I used.

Yeah. When you create a film that exclusively uses other people’s music and imagery, as Abbas did with NASA’s images and Nine Inch Nails’ music, it does tend to create some problems on the copyright front.

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Alleged megaupload.com bad guy Kim Dotcom is countering the Hollywood studios for the first time publicly since his January indictment and website shutdown. Speaking via telephone from New Zealand with torrentfreak.com user Ernesto, the flamboyant businessman offered detailed examples of what he claims is an ability to refute pretty much every claim contained in the U.S. legal action.

One of several torrentfreak.com sidebars focuses on Dotcom’s contention that Hollywood was eager to work with his website. From the lead article:

Megaupload’s founder shared five emails with torrentfreak that were sent by representatives from big media companies including Disney, Warner Bros. and Fox. Instead of requesting mega to take down content, they suggested various partnerships.

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