TMZ is being sued for broadcasting allegedly stolen and confidential footage of an interview with Michael Jackson‘s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, shortly after the singer passed away last July.
The Hollywood Reporter Esq. blog reports that details of the suit filed on Monday raise interesting questions about TMZ’s news operation, copyright issues and the boundaries between an entertainment clip and a fair-use news product.
In the complaint, the plaintiff, F. Marc Schaffel Prods., claims to be the owner of a 2003 interview with Rowe. Some of the interview was aired in 2003, but some portions were held back as private and confidential, THRE explains.
After Jackson was indicted for child molestation in December 2003, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff obtained and executed a search warrant on Schaffel’s home and seized the interview. Two years later, THRE says, the County Sheriff represented that he returned the property and hadn’t released the “confidential outtakes” to anyone.
But last July, TMZ broadcast those confidential outtakes.
After TMZ aired the interview, Schaffel and Rowe demanded that the confidential outtakes be removed. According to THRE, TMZ first claimed the source of the video as coming from a British TV station, then said that it came from the Santa Barbara Sherriff’s Department. The plaintiff says that when confronted, TMZ rescinded the story and claimed its source was confidential.
Schaffel is now seeking damages from TMZ over copyright infringement and conversion. The contention is that the confidential outtakes have “an estimated value of potentially millions of dollars, the exact amount of which shall be proved at trial.”
