CELEBRITY ACTORS AMONG THOSE TRYING TO HALT SAG-AFTRA MERGER

A dissident group of SAG members, who include such notables as Ed Asner, Valerie Harper, Ed Harris and Martin Sheen, is going to court in an effort to halt the union’s plans to call a referendum on the proposed merger with AFTRA. The lawsuit claims that SAG’s board, under union rules, were required to conduct [...]

CBS’S MOONVES WOULD HAVE PAID MORE THAN NBC FOR GLOBES

In a court filing, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has submitted a transcript of a deposition by CBS Chairman Les Moonves in which he said that he had informed HFPA President Philip Berk that he was prepared to pay $25 million over five years for rights to the Golden Globes Awards. “It was an opening [...]

COURT BATTLE OVER GOLDEN GLOBES GOES INTO SECOND DAY

Testifying in the second day of the court battle between The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. and Dick Clark Productions, Fran LaMaina, the former DCP President and COO, said that the HFPA’s Golden Globes event was regarded as “somewhat [of] a joke” before Clark became associated with them. “Dick Clark’s reputation was the antithesis of the [...]

SUIT TARGETS LENO FOR SIKH JOKE

Sikh outrage over a joke in a Jay Leno monologue last week in which he showed a photo of the Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, and referred to it as “Mitt Romney’s summer home on Lake Winnipesaukee,” escalated on Tuesday as an Indian-American, Dr. Randeep Dhillon, filed a lawsuit against Leno, saying that [...]

GERMAN COURT FINES WOMAN WITH NO COMPUTER FOR PIRACY

Lawyers seeking to sue those who download pirated copies of movies may find Germany a hospitable place to do so, according to the website TorrentFreak, which tracks BitTorrent usage in the U.S. and abroad. On Wednesday the site described a recent case in which a German woman found herself accused of piracy even though she [...]

JOHN SINGLETON SUES PARAMOUNT FOR $20 MILLION

Filmmaker John Singleton has filed a $20-million lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, claiming that the study backed out of a two-picture promise that was part of his deal with the studio for his 2005 film Hustle and Flow. In the suit, he claims that he agreed to sell the movie to Paramount at the Sundance Film [...]

OWNER OF NIKKI FINKE SITE SUES THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Penske Media Corporation (PMC), owner of Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com and other media-related websites, has made good on its threat to sue the Hollywood Reporter for copyright infringement. The suit accuses the trade publication of resorting on an almost daily basis, to “the outright theft of intellectual property, including but not limited to whole articles, content, [...]

NOW MURDOCH FACES U.S. BOMBARDMENT

As if Rupert Murdoch did not already have enough turmoil to deal with as his British news unit faces increased scrutiny from police and politicians following the recent phone-hacking scandal, now a significant revolt is developing among some of his chief U.S. shareholders. On Tuesday the shareholders, who include Amalgamated Bank, New Orleans Employees’ Retirement [...]

VIACOM SUES CABLEVISION OVER IPAD APP

Viacom on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Cablevision, the cable company that primarily serves the New York City region, for its app that allows viewers to watch television programs on their iPads at home, effectively turning them into an additional TV screen. Although Viacom and Cablevision have been discussing Viacom’s complaints — that such use [...]

DID CBS-OWNED COMPANY PEDDLE PIRACY SOFTWARE?

In a case that is growing increasingly bizarre, FilmOn founder Alki David, whose own attempt to offer the programming of the major networks online was shot down in court, is trying a new tack: he’s suing the CBS-owned CNET.com over its distribution of millions of copies of the Limewire file-sharing software. Limewire was one of [...]

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