Thursday, December 8, 2011

THE MOST SHOCKING JUDICIAL ROSE CEREMONY EVER: Following up on our discussion about David Denby's breach of the Dragon Tattoo embargo, a similar imbroglio has resulted in litigation. Producers of The Bachelor are suing Reality Steve, a site which has made its name by getting spoilers for the show, claiming that the folks behind the site have offered money to contestants to get them to breach confidentiality agreements and asserting tortious interference with the producers' confidentiality agreements with the contestants.

As a general rule, at least under New York law, tortious interference with contract is pretty much the last refuge of someone looking for a claim who can't/doesn't want to sue the party who actually breached, and the interesting thing here is that the producers have not sued anyone for actually breaching their contract--indeed, while the folks behind the site don't seem to deny sending the e-mails, their defense is (in part) that no one took them up on their offer to pay them to breach. This will be interesting to watch to see how it develops.

4 comments:

  1. Based on the headline, I thought you were going to be discussing last night's ANTM finale, for which they had to reshoot the final judgment b/c the apparent winner leaked the results on her FB page post-filming, pre-broadcast.  Which is unreal

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  2. Meghan3:40 PM

    Lotta supposition that that wasn't the real reason they DQed her.  The internet loves a scandal.  I'm sure there's some super-sleuthing going on.

    Here's why i love this blog: I'm not a lawyer so the word "tortious" is completely new to me.

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  3. Alyssa8:22 PM

    Seems like a pretty extreme reaction to decide on a new winner, but that is all I can find on the interwebs. Would love to know from a reliable source why she was DQed.

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  4. I was just going to bring up the ANTM finale, too.  It was pretty strange - for a show that thrives on drama, they chose to explain DQ'ing Angelea in very brief, vague terms. And it was clear that the finale had already been shot before her disqualification, and then reshot without her, so it seems like a strong possibility that Angelea was originally the winner. In this time of so much online gossip, I find it even stranger that there's absolutely no explanation of this online, except for a vague idea that Angelea spoilered the winner on her Facebook page, which no one has proof of.

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