Deadline.com sues The Hollywood Reporter

It's war! Deadline.com has sued The Hollywood Reporter for copyright infringement. One of their pieces of evidence is the CSS code found on TV Line that allegedly appears on THR. Omigosh! I have to say: This is the wrong evidence to present if Deadline is trying to discredit the reporters that work for THR. CSS has nothing to do with interviews and writing.

They need more evidence than CSS. I think I have to follow Deadline closely now -- this lawsuit could be entertaining!

From Deadline:

PMC is filing this lawsuit to protect its content creation and development, and to finally put an end to THR and other websites’ misappropriation of PMC’s hard-earned product and intellectual property. Enough is enough.

PMC is taking a stand against desperate and copycat news organizations and media outlets such as THR that constantly monitor PMC’s websites for the sole purpose of copying and imitating PMC websites’ news stories and original content within minutes after online publication. These copycat media outlets such as THR, rather than conducting their own independent reporting and investigation, developing their own sources and insiders, and generating their own leads and stories, simply steal PMC’s content and pawn it off as their own.

In truth, THR, faced with the harsh reality that it had become a second-rate entertainment industry news source unable to attract insiders’ attention anymore, changed ownership and re-launched its website. At first it hoped to create a competitive online presence by going after a broader consumer-focused audience with celebrity news and gossip. When consumer, retail and other related advertising failed to appear, THR began trying attracting Hollywood trade advertising again. It has become abundantly clear that part of THR’s turnaround strategy was to engage in an unprecedented campaign of theft and misappropriation of PMC’s intellectual property and content to accomplish that.

First, THR attempted to poach PMC’s key employees, by urging each employee to breach their existing and exclusive contractual obligations to PMC. When that strategy failed, THR’s owners and managers pretended to negotiate with PMC for PMC’s www.deadline.com (“Deadline”) to provide trade news for the relaunched THR website. When that strategy also failed, THR then began its incessant campaign of misappropriating wholesale content from Deadline’s website. As if that were not bad enough, THR then egregiously and flagrantly stole integral source code and intellectual property from PMC’s www.tvline.com (“TVLine”) website in a blatant act of copyright infringement.