CBS Mocks Its Own Failed Copyright Lawsuit By Sarcastically Announcing New 'Completely Original' Show 'Dancing On The Stars'
from the the-snark-is-strong-with-this-one dept
A few weeks back, we wrote about a silly lawsuit from CBS, arguing that it could basically hold the copyright on some of the most basic concepts in reality TV. CBS was suing ABC, because ABC was about to put on Glass House, which was similar to CBS's Big Brother. Of course, this is the nature of TV and most people deal with it. You can't copyright an idea (or so we're told) but that doesn't seem to stop big companies from pretending otherwise. Here, at least, the judge wasn't convinced. He refused to issue an injunction blocking the showing of Glass House, and noted that it certainly looked like the ideas were different:"I think is very likely to induce quite different behavior than one would expect to see in the 'Big Brother' show."CBS had put out a statement saying that it would keep fighting the lawsuit, but apparently it decided on another way to fight this as well: by snarky press release. In something that honestly reads like it was meant for April Fool's Day (and caused many people to wonder if CBS's system had been hacked), the company put out a mocking and sarcastic press release supposedly announcing a "groundbreaking and completely original new reality program" called Dancing on the Stars. Here's the full press release:
Yeah, that last sentence might push this one a bit far over the top, don't you think? This is the kind of response that people have and joke about internally. They don't release it to the world. I will grant you that it's amusing, but it also seems pretty petulant for a company having lost the basic argument in its lawsuit. If it really is going to fight on with this lawsuit, perhaps so publicly mocking the judge who ruled against you isn't such a good idea.CBS ANNOUNCES DEVELOPMENT OF “DANCING ON THE STARS,” AN EXCITING AND COMPLETELY ORIGINAL REALITY PROGRAM THAT OWES ITS CONCEPT AND EXECUTION TO NOBODY AT ALL
Los Angeles, June 20, 2012 – Subsequent to recent developments in the creative and legal community, CBS Television today felt it was appropriate to reveal the upcoming launch of an exciting, groundbreaking and completely original new reality program for the CBS Television Network.
The dazzling new show, DANCING ON THE STARS, will be broadcast live from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and will feature moderately famous and sort of well-known people you almost recognize competing for big prizes by dancing on the graves of some of Hollywood’s most iconic and well-beloved stars of stage and screen.
The cemetery, the first in Hollywood, was founded in 1899 and now houses the remains of Andrew “Fatty” Arbuckle, producer Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paul Muni, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, George Harrison of the Beatles and Dee Dee Ramone of the Ramones, among many other great stars of stage, screen and the music business. The company noted that permission to broadcast from the location is pending, and that if efforts in that regard are unsuccessful, approaches will be made to Westwood Village Memorial Park, where equally scintillating luminaries are interred.
“This very creative enterprise will bring a new sense of energy and fun that’s totally unlike anything anywhere else, honest,” said a CBS spokesperson, who also revealed that the Company has been working with a secret team for several months on the creation of the series, which was completely developed by the people at CBS independent of any other programming on the air. “Given the current creative and legal environment in the reality programming business, we’re sure nobody will have any problem with this title or our upcoming half-hour comedy for primetime, POSTMODERN FAMILY.”
“After all,” the spokesperson added, “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
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Filed Under: big brother, glass house, reality tv, television
Companies: abc, cbs
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CBS is not getting it. The issue is not that ABC did not get the idea of Glass House from Big Brother. I have no doubt that ABC did get the idea from CBS. Just like CBS got the idea from the same show from the Netherlands.
The issue is whether the government should grant a monopoly on that mere idea. Should the mere idea of people being filmed in a house be locked up for perpetually minus one day? That makes no fricken sense.
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Sam Kinison called it
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I am curious to see how much they Americanize it, in comparison to the BBC's astonishing feat of finding an actor with an even more English-sounding name than 'Sherlock Holmes' to play Sherlock Holmes.
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Wonder how they'll work Inverness capes into the show...
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Agreed. The misdirect with Mycroft in the first episode was brilliant, as was the misdirect with John in the last episode of the first season. Deerstalker thing was awesome too, for sure.
Though, I wasn't a big fan of the Baskervilles episode. All the elements of a great idea were there but somehow it just came across as silly.
I think the most brilliant move is just the whole character of Moriarty. Turning him into a fey and twitchy but terrifyingly rage-filled imp with an eerily sexual bent was... awesome. He's like a mix of Elim Garak and Buffalo Bill.
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Having just recently re-watched some old episodes of Fawlty Towers, I do generally agree with that sentiment :)
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Not sure if it qualifies for Americanizing, but the last I heard Watson will be played by Lucy Liu.
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Originality
Ideas should be original,like marijuana it was originally used as a drug but people didn't use it the right way,so what people see now is the addiction as an effect of using not the medical uses for marijuana...
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a new sense of energy and fun
Maybe this situation really did put a new sense of energy and fun into their thoughts. Maybe the way to make new shows from now on would be to tick everybody off and then send them to work.
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Simpsons did it...
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"Hi, you've reached Fox Television. If you're pitching a show where gold-digging skanks get what's coming to them, press 1. If you're pitching a ripoff of another network's reality show, press 2..."
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"Up next - Who Wants To Marry A Million Bears?"
I realize they have gotten quite a few good reality tv digs in over the past few years
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I'd watch it
IMO, cemeteries are a waste of land anyway, I never really understood the desire to reserve plots of land for corpses to decompose in forever...
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I wouldn't do that if I were you... Unless you like being charged with desecrating a corpse.
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No No No
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All the "reality TV shows" now are so fake that it hurts to watch them. It's like listening to the eyewitness reports, on the news, about a robbery. I think they look for the craziest person on the street that then exaggerates the story to the point of insanity.
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Good riddance to the troupe of opportunistically upset....
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Further, coming on this article to just to whine about it is a bit like if CBS were to release some stupid petulant press release after losing a court decision...
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I kinda wish that CBS (and the others) would go dance on Sagittarius A.
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1984
"He who controls the past, controls the future"
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Personally, I think the networks could benefit by a little bit of snarky rivalry in the court of public opinion.
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If you could wind back time and take the court case out of it, then imagine that this was their official response to someone copying an idea*, then I reckon that would actually have gone down pretty well.
* that they've copied themselves, but hey...
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ABC
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Whining, entitled babies
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Knock offs of sucessful series nothing new!
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I am greatly amused.
I am so sick and tired of these wasteful and childish fools. Stop worrying about what the competition are doing and get on with doing your own jobs properly. There, problem solved.
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Dancing...
Christ, don't give my wife another damned reality show to watch!! :)
Even jokingly...
She'll be waiting all Summer for it and it'll be clogging up my DVR.
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Snarky Announcements
Dancing on the Stars, wonder if they'll take it beyond concept?
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