3 Count: Troubled Curves

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1: Suit Filed Against Warner Bros. in Screenplay Theft

First off today, Michael Cieply at The New York Times reports that Warner Brothers has been sued over the movie “Trouble With the Curve”, a 2012 baseball film starring Clint Eastwood. According to the lawsuit, the movie was written by Don Handfield, a screenwriter hired by the plaintiff in the case, Ryan Brooks, and not the credited author, Randy Brown.

Warner Brothers, however, was quick to fire back, sending a letter to the plaintiff’s attorneys noting that they had optioned the script a full fifteen years ago, well before Brooks started work on his project “Omaha”, which he claims “Trouble” is based upon.

Attorneys for Brooks claimed that the evidence is “manufactured” and that Brooks researched the script with Handfield but were caught in a conspiracy to credit Brown, a little-known screenwriter with almost no baseball experience, with the film. Brooks also says that there’s no evidence of a registered early script of the movie and that the early copy of the script presented by Warner Brothers is a fake.

2: ‘Baby Bath Time’ Video Goes From YouTube to Court

Next up today, Sam Reynolds at Courthouse News reports that YouTube user Ashley Candler is suing another YouTube user, Shannon Carter, for alleged copyright infringement.

According to Candler, she uploaded a video of her baby in a bathtub teasing their dog, making it jump for a toy until it misses. However, she was surprised to learn that the video was posted to a video channel owned by Shannon Carter, who has since received over 69 million views for the video and that Carter was licensing it out to third parties.

Candler filed a takedown notice against the video, temporarily getting it removed, but Carter filed to have it put back, saying that the video was removed as a mistake. This prompted Candler to file a lawsuit after calls and letters to Carter were ignored. She is seeking damages and an order enjoining Carter from distributing the video.

3: Johnny Marr Linked to Cartoon Takedown Case

Finally today, in an update to a story we talked about yesterday, RTV6 ABC reports that Johnny Marr, the former guitarist for The Smiths, was apparently the driving force behind Universal’s desire to take down comics featuring lyrics from the band being inserted into Peanuts comics.

The comics, which were hosted on Tumblr, were removed after Universal filed a takedown notice against them. However, when The Smiths frontman and co-owner of the lyrics Morrissey gave his approval to the site, they filed to have the comics put back.

Now, a leaked letter seems to indicate that it was Marr that requested the removal of the blog, getting Universal to file on his behalf.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

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