Victory for Jerry Seinfeld in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” Copyright Infringement Dispute

The new name for entertainment in the modern-age is simply “Binge-watching”. Online streaming channels like Netflix and Prime have a lot to offer the viewers from their over-flooding multi-genre movie libraries. A simple click on “Play Now” and there is it, the motion picture of the viewer’s choice. Well Yes! Good deals of bucks are offered to the producers for furnishing such content to the streaming channels. Nevertheless, getting acquainted about such fortune brings up the egoistic greediness of many, resulting in law suits. The same happened in Christian Charles and Seinfeld legal dispute over authorship claims in the show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

Greatest comedian of all times, Jerry Seinfeld was attacked with a copyright lawsuit by one Christian Charles in 2018. The plaintiff argued he worked with Seinfeld on pitch of the American comedy series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The show features Jerry Seinfeld riding his vintage cars and picking up funny conversations with celebrities over coffee. It was released in the year 2012 as an online streaming program and was distributed by Sony Pictures through Crackle and thereafter, the broadcasting rights were later to Netflix in 2017.

According to the plaintiff, he suggested Seinfeld to produce a similar show like the present one titled “Two Stupid Guys in a Stupid Car Driving to a Stupid Town” in the year 2001; however, the same was disliked and hence rejected. A decade later Seinfeld expressed his interest to launch a comedy series featuring comedians just chatting and driving around to coffee place in vintage cars and the show thereafter debuted in 2012. While preparing for further episodes, both of them got in an argument about compensation since Charles was paid on “work-for-hire” basis. However, he was paid $100,000 after first episode hit the screens.

In the present suit, Charles claimed neither did he get any authorship right nor any special credit for the show, even after the same aired on Netflix. In point of fact, Netflix pays about $750,000 per episode to the producers. In this light, Seinfeld’s lawyers argued that the present suit was filed only after getting acquainted about the price paid even after 6 years of launch and hence, “This is precisely the type of belated tactical and opportunistic strike suit the statute of limitations is designed to stamp out”, the lawyers said.

The present suit was first ruled and dismissed in September and the same was affirmed by the US Court of Appeals earlier this month. The Appellate Court said, “First, in February 2012, Seinfeld rejected Charles’s request for backend compensation and made it clear that Charles’s involvement would be limited to a work-for-hire basis. Second, the show premiered in July 2012 without crediting Charles, at which point his ownership claim was publicly repudiated. Either one of these developments was enough to place Charles on notice that his ownership claim was disputed and therefore this action, filed six years later, was brought too late.” 

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