"So You Think" It's a Copycat?
So You Think You Can Dance has stepped on a few toes. Actually, 40 toes, to be exact.
Four people have filed a lawsuit accusing Dick Clark Productions, Fox Broadcasting and several other companies of ripping off their idea for the dance competition show now in its second season on Fox.
John Cassese, Mark Wolfe, Maria Lamagra and Brian Nelson are seeking an unspecified amount for damages, according to papers filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by TMZ.com.
The disgruntled foursome state in their suit that they registered their vision of So You Think You Can Dance--including that same title--with the Writers Guild of America on May 12, 2003, and later discussed pitching the concept with reps from Martin Erlichman Associates (also a defendant named in the suit).
According to the lawsuit, Cassese, Wolfe, Lamagra and Nelson struck a verbal agreement with Erlichman Associates to get a pitch together which included that they would be paid for writing, directing and producing the show and would retain full credit for doing so. Afterward, they said, the arrangement was confirmed several times over the phone.
The plaintiffs say that the company contacted Creative Artists Agency on their behalf in September but they were told that CAA nixed the pitch. After September 30, 2005, the lawsuit states, Erlichman Associates was no longer returning the plaintiffs' calls.
So You Think You Can Dance premiered in July 2005. Its May 25 second-season premiere, hot on the trail of the American Idol finale, scored 10.7 million viewers and has managed to hang onto an average of 10.5 million people for each Thursday elimination episode. The Wednesday performance show is averaging a 9.7 million-strong audience so far.
Both So You Think You Can Dance and Idol are produced in part by the U.K.-based 19 Entertainment, founded by Simon Fuller.
Some of the supposed similarities between the Fox show and the plaintiffs' original idea listed in the lawsuit include:
It's a 60-minute show. It recruits contestants from around the country. A panel of professional judges--including a snarky British guy--evaluate the contestants. (That's not exactly how the complaint read, actually...) Non-competition scenes, such as practice sessions, are woven in with the performance sequences. The competition involves pairs dancing as well.Actually, it's starting to sound a lot like Dancing with the Stars.
Another highlighted similarity between the show and the plaintiffs' master plan, per the lawsuit, was that "the final stages of the competition were to involve elaborate costume and set design to highlight the young, diverse, edgy nature and visual excitement of the concept."
Well, that's pretty much So You Think You Can Dance in a nutshell, but it remains to be seen whether all of the above occurred the way the plaintiffs say it did.
The full list of defendants is Dick Clark Productions, Fox Broadcasting Co., Martin Erlichman Associates, 19 Entertainment Inc. and "Does [as in John Doe] 1 through 50"--a series of unnamed defendants to be named at a later time.
The various offenses cited in the lawsuit include breach of contract, intentional interference with an economic relationship, breach of fiduciary duty (i.e. the plaintiffs are owed some money) and unfair competition (as in, Fox and all these other companies are pretty powerful).
Meanwhile, a special two-hour edition of So You Think You Can Dance Wednesday night features performances from the top 20 contestants. Nelly Furtado performs (in a vocal capacity, we presume) Thursday evening.
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