Deadline Big Brother

After it failed to block the Monday premiere of ABC’s The Glass House over similarities to its own Big Brother, CBS is hitting back with a tongue-in-cheek “press release” about new reality series Dancing On The Stars. Read the spoof announcement below. Meanwhile, the judge handling CBS’ request for a temporary restraining order against ABC and Glass House has yet to hand down his official ruling after declining to grant the TRO at a hearing Friday, when he also said he was leaning towards denying the request. It will likely come down by end of this week. In addition to laying out the similarities between Big Brother and Glass House, CBS also has argued that the ABC series is being produced by former Big Brother producers in violation of nondisclosure agreements. Despite the publicity surrounding the legal battle, Glass House premiered to soft ratings on Monday premiere, earning a 1.6/4 in 18-49.

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 21, 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, ground-breaking 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.

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UPDATE – 2:55 PM ABC issued the following statement today in response to CBS’s lastest legal salvo to get a temporary restraining order against the production and June 18 debut of the reality series Glass House.

CBS’s submission today underscores the frivolous nature of their claims.  This entire dispute apparently boils down to the fact that both shows feature a blonde woman, both shows feature people talking in hot tubs, and both shows feature red chairs and brown pillows.  CBS cannot lay ownership to the entire genre of reality television and prevent America’s viewers from watching ABC’s new and original reality show.

UPDATE: Later today, Judge Gary Feess ruled that CBS be allowed to file its documents in support of its TRO request under seal.

PREVIOUS: ABC’s Glass House “is a copy of Big Brother,” a copyright expert said today. Based on footage that ABC has put up online this week, CBS filed a declaration (read it here) from Jeff Rovin. A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning on CBS’ request for a temporary restraining order to stop production on Glass House and halt its June 18 premiere. ABC began putting footage of the house and its inhabitants online earlier this week. “ABC and its creative team have introduced virtually nothing new in the way of staging, camera work, setting, narrative, wardrobe and anything else that comprise the expression of Big Brother,” said Rovin in the screenshot-heavy 11-page declaration.

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CBS wasted no time replying to ABC’s opposition to a temporary retraining order on its upcoming reality show Glass House. “The clear theft and use of CBS’s material, coupled with the admitted destruction of emails, clearly … Read More »

ABC has just filed its opposition to CBS’ request for a temporary restraining order that would halt production on the reality show Glass House and prevent its June 18 premiere, for which ABC says it has already spent over $16 million in marketing. (You can read the filing here.) On May 10, CBS sued ABC and several former Big Brother employees who now work on Glass House over the ABC reality series. The lawsuit alleges copyright infringement, with the new series called a blatant rip-off of Big Brother, trade-secret misappropriation, unfair competition, breach of contract and conspiracy among other claims. With the discovery stage of the proceeding dragging on, CBS last week filed a petition for a temporary restraining order.

In its opposition today, ABC asks the court to deny CBS’ application. The network argues that “CBS’s copyright claim will not succeed” as “none of the alleged similarities shared by Big Brother and The Glass House involve copyright protectable elements — they are all generic staples of the reality show genre: people living in a house, competing with each other to avoid elimination, and winning a prize. Nor is the sequence and arrangement of these unprotectable elements the same in Big Brother and The Glass House, foreclosing the possibility of infringement.” Addressing the rest of the CBS claims, ABC says that “there was no conspiracy to hire away Big Brother employees” and “that here is  no ‘secret sauce’ in Big Brother’s production process” that could’ve been misappropriated.  Read More »

UPDATE 12:15 AM  – As expected, CBS filed an application tonight for a temporary restraining order to “cease production of, and refrain from broadcasting, the show Glass House until the trial of this matter…” The 37-page document also adds that “if the Court is not willing to order Defendants to cease production of Glass House at this time, CBS respectfully requests that, at a minimum, the Court order Defendants to produce the first taped episode of Glass House by June 15, 2012 to allow CBS’s counsel to evaluate its contents, and to allow the parties to address it in any further briefing regarding CBS’s request for a preliminary injunction.” Glass House, which CBS contends is a rip-off of its Big Brother reality series, is set to debut on June 18, 2012.

UPDATE 8 PM: ABC has issued a statement slamming CBS‘ latest attempt to stop ABC’s new reality series Glass House.

This is a naked attempt by CBS to stifle competition and creativity by claiming that reality techniques that have been developed over many years, on many shows by countless producers, are somehow exclusive to CBS.

PREVIOUS: CBS’ outside counsel tonight will file for a temporary restraining order against ABC in an effort to prevent ABC from premiering the Big Brother-like new reality series Glass House on June 18. The filing will be made electronically at midnight with US District Court judge Gary Allen Feess. The move was expected as the discovery phase in CBS’ lawsuit against Disney and ABC over Glass House has been moving slowly, and a federal judge not expected to make a ruling in the case before June 15 at the earliest. That is the Friday before the Monday, June 18 scheduled debut of Glass House.

We’ve learned that the TRO request is based primarily on the deposition for former Big Brother producer Kenny Rosen, now executive producer/showrunner of Glass House. In a deposition with CBS lawyers last Sunday, he admitted to taking a copy of the Big Brother Guest Manual and having it typed up separately as part of a Glass House manual. Given that the manual is considered a proprietary document and viewed as highly confidential by CBS, the network lawyers will argue that that is a clear violation of the non-disclosure agreement Rosen signed when at Big Brother. Rosen also admitted about two-thirds through his depo that he “consulted” the Big Brother Master Control schedule in an effort to partially figure out how many people he would have to hire for the production of Glass House. Rosen’s attorney Devin McRae shut down the line of questioning at that point, claiming attorney/client privilege. But Rosen also allegedly revealed that even more former Big Brother staffers being employed by Glass House than previously known. He put the number at 25-30, half of the ABC series’ staff. He also acknowledged that development of Glass House at ABC started around the time former Big Brother producer Corie Henson joined the network as an executive in the unscripted department. Additionally, Rosen admitted to deleting Glass House-related emails after CBS had filed its lawsuit over the show. Read More »

The clock has partially run out on CBS’ legal attempt to stop production and the June 18 premiere of ABC’s new reality series Glass House, which CBS says is a rip-off of Big Brother. Today, a federal judge said he won’t decide until at least June 15 the battling networks’ dispute over the discovery process in the case. This means the time CBS has to look at documents and depositions to find out exactly how much Glass House resembles Big Brother so they can shut it down is very tight. To make matters more pressing for CBS, ABC has already announced the Glass House contestants and plans to offer voting viewers an online look at the house on Saturday. Of course, the plaintiff network isn’t out of options: CBS said in court documents filed yesterday that it will be seeking a temporary restraining order against Glass House while these matters are ongoing. Nothing had been filed as of Tuesday evening. Read More »

ABC and CBS may be locked in a legal battle over whether Glass House is a rip-off of Big Brother, but that didn’t stop ABC from naming the show’s 14 contestants today. Glass House … Read More »