Creative Protection

'Walking Dead' War: Creator Robert Kirkman Sued By Collaborator

by Matthew Belloni

Robert Kirkman, the famed comic book writer who helped create AMC's hit zombie series The Walking Dead, has been sued by a childhood friend and collaborator who claims he is entitled to as much as half the proceeds from the lucrative franchise.

Michael Anthony ("Tony") Moore, a fellow comic book artist, filed suit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court. In the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by THR, Moore says he was duped into assigning his interest in the material over to Kirkman, who has since gone on to fame and fortune. Moore, on the other hand, has received very little compensation and has not be able to access profit statements from properties including Walking Dead, he says.

"Each of these works was prepared by [Moore] and Kirkman with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or independent parts of a unitary whole," the complaint states. "[Moore] and Kirkman were thus joint authors and co-owners of the copyrights in these works."

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Lawsuit Dismissed Over Virtual Furniture On HGTV's 'Selling New York'

To entice a buyer for a high-end property in New York, a real estate broker featured on HGTV digitally recreated what the apartment would look like furnished. The furniture maker sued.

by Eriq Gardner

A design company that specializes in high-end furniture has failed in its effort to show that virtual furniture displayed on HGTV's Selling New York constitutes copyright infringement, trade dress infringement and unfair competition.

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'Hollywood Accounting' Losing In The Courts

If you follow the entertainment business at all, you're probably well aware of "Hollywood accounting," whereby very, very, very few entertainment products are technically "profitable," even as they earn studios millions of dollars. A couple months ago, the Planet Money folks did a great episode explaining how this works in very simple terms. The really, really, really simplified version is that Hollywood sets up a separate corporation for each movie with the intent that this corporation will take on losses. The studio then charges the "film corporation" a huge fee (which creates a large part of the "expense" that leads to the loss). The end result is that the studio still rakes in the cash, but for accounting purposes the film is a money "loser" -- which matters quite a bit for anyone who is supposed to get a cut of any profits.

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