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David Kelley's "Brotherhood" Battle
The ownership of certain words has become the topic du jour in Hollywood, where issues delve about as deep as a puddle.
TV wunderkind David E. Kelley is the latest show-biz player facing a legal tussle over the name of his new CBS series, The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire.
Here's the lowdown: Kelley's production company along with CBS and 20th Century Fox TV are asking a federal judge to decide whether they're free to use the Brotherhood title, since a New Hampshire-based talent agency has raised a stink in a copyright claim based on its short film titled Brotherhood.
In the complaint filed in Los Angeles Wednesday, Kelly & Co. claim that attorneys for MJM Productions and company cofounder Michael MacLeod sent letters to the studio as far back as April asserting copyright- and trademark-infringement claims over the Brotherhood title. The complaint also maintains that MJM sent Kelley letters accusing him of, uh, helping himself to the "title, theme, idea, characters and story," and of "borrowing heavily from all aspects" of the MJM short for his CBS show. In short, ripping them off.
Kelley's drama revolves around three brothers coping with their families and careers in the town where they were born and raised, Poland, New Hampshire. Brotherhood, according to MJM's official Website, revolves around "five friends home from college who discover the realities of life. The film explores the inner psyche of the college male?" (Yeah, we don't see the similarities either.)
For his part, Kelley claims not have had any knowledge of MJM's Brotherhood until after he'd finished penning his pilot script and filed it with the U.S. Copyright Office.
With all the big bucks the Eye network is planning to spend to promote the series over the summer it wants a judicial declaration on the Brotherhood dispute to avoid any costly losses in case MJM files for a temporary injunction over use of the embattled word.
CBS may be taking its cue from its corporate sibling TNN, which has already lost $16.8 million in its moniker dispute with Spike Lee since the director scuttled the launch of the net's new identity as Spike TV earlier this month. Both CBS and TNN are owned by Viacom.
"We believe that MJM's claim that it has any monopoly on the use of the word 'brotherhood' in film or television series titles is ludicrous and is unsupported by the law or the facts in this situation," said a statement from Hollywood heavyweights Kelley, CBS and 20th Century Fox. "Given MJM's meritless demands for compensation and threats to ask a court to enjoin the use of our title, we have filed this complaint for Declaratory Relief to protect our copyright, our First Amendment rights and our ability to move forward unhindered in the production, promotion and broadcast of David E. Kelley's eagerly anticipated new series."
Calls to MJM were not returned.
In the meantime, we hereby declare the proceeding lexicon out of bounds: the letter "e" and all exclamation points.Consider yourselves warned.
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