Two writers are going to court against a host of defendants, including "New Girl" creator Elizabeth Meriwether and director Jake Kasdan. The plaintiffs demand an injunction against the Fox show and a public apology.
In a lawsuit filed in California federal court on Thursday, Stephanie Counts and Shari Gold say that the hit comedy is based upon their script work for a proposed television series titled Square One. Besides money and credit, they demand an injunction that halts further filming and distribution of the popular comedy.
Read the Full Complaint Here
According to the lawsuit, "Any differences between the Square One scripts and New Girl are so small and insignificant that they cannot be afforded copyright protection, and are, in fact, nothing more than transparent attempts to hide Defendants’ blatant plagiarism. These differences are more akin to eraser marks or ink blots on Stephanie and Shari’s creation and cannot be treated as original expression."
It's a real shocker. Very unpleasant situation.
ReplyDeleteIf that's true, then I'm really curious as to why they are doing this now. The show is in its 3rd season. Why not sue back when it aired its pilot episode on TV? Seems so random.
ReplyDeleteI've read part of the lawsuit- seems like they have a strong case. Very interesting. Sad for New Girl fans if true :(
ReplyDeleteWell it's all about money. Say this claim is true..why not sue when New Girl was in Season 1 or 2? Cause it took some time for New Girl to really take off. The more popular the show, the more money they stand to win via the lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteEh. There are a few similarities sure, but if you read into the full thing, many of them are very very weak. And they obviously want money so why would you want the show yanked off the air, stopping any more potential cash you could have gotten in royalties?
ReplyDeleteIn that case, why not wait until the show is cancelled? Or at least wait until next year (assuming it gets a 4th season)?
ReplyDeleteThat's what I thought, but the only logical reasoning I could think of is that they want the public to know. Maybe they're tired from waiting years for it to end and decided to just go for the lawsuit now?
ReplyDeleteWell they declined FOX's original settlement offer because they thought it was too paltry for their suffering. They want cash. Plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean I can write millions of scripts for potential future series and do the same thing they do and win billions of dollars? :D
ReplyDeleteYup. Especially since you can file copyrights right before you file the suit and have them be retroactive to whenever you claim...
ReplyDeleteThe "many" similarities start to fall apart the second you actually read the original pilot script for "Chick and Dicks". They are inferring most of the comparisons on that table to things that happened through two full seasons of the show. It's really easy to stretch things and say they're similar, when you're comparing words on your script page to physical actors who have put their own spin on the characters. The "Nick" in their pilot is nothing like the one in the C&D script, and it's clear that Zooey/Jake put the tension in that relationship. And, I'm not sure how they intend to prove they wrote it first when they only filed with copyright 3 weeks ago. It's super easy to file your written work for protection with a time stamp and it only costs $30. Maybe you'd be too naive to do it before shopping it around, but you sure as heck would do it if in Feb 2011 you already thought someone stole the script. Sounds like they did some editing to add proof when they didn't like the first offer. Because now suddenly there are comparisons with season 2 as well? How convenient.
ReplyDeleteI have a strange feeling it's going to come out that the 10k wasn't even a settlement offer, but payment to avoid litigation in some other respect (like they had signed off on a certain level of interest in the script, but the process broke down and they decided to abandon it). If the scripts were really THIS similar, they would have been this similar two years ago, and they would have thrown WAY more money at them than 10k. These women made it pretty clear they were willing to go the distance with a real lawsuit and it was Kasdan's lawyer with all the info.
ReplyDeleteOh, sorry.
ReplyDeleteOne doesn't simply build a case overnight. If you had read the full article, you'd know they've been pursuing this since 2011.
ReplyDelete