This is amazing. The Daily Variety filed their ridiculous lawsuit against us in Delaware to try to intimidate the Vandals into giving them the $75,000 in liquidated damages they were demanding because they said there “were” some images on our web site that violated our 2004 agreement not to use the original artwork for “Hollywood Potato Chip.” Stick with me here.

Their arguments strain credulity but also interesting is that even THEIR clients would be dramatically inconvenienced by a trial in Delaware, where NOBODY involved in this suit does business. But Variety’s lawyers have filed this opposition to the motion to change venue to California anyway, probably because they get paid to do this and they can bill their clients for it. It probably cost Variety about $20,000 to have this “outside counsel” supervise their “double outside counsel” to file these documents in Delaware. Harassment is expensive at their level. At this stage, we believe that the law-firm of Fulbright & Jaworski is probably stealing more money from their own clients than they are trying to steal from us. Variety shareholders, are you getting this?

However, the revealing part of the document below is the argument they give for suing us and ignoring the 30 days we were guaranteed to have to correct any “inadvertent” postings that might occur on the unpredictable Internet. First they argued that we ignored our ability to “cure” the breach. (Which is funny, because earlier letters declared we did not HAVE the right to cure the breach.) When they realized it was provable that the violation probably never occurred in the first place but was at the very least completely “cured” within 30 days they shifted gears. Now they argue that we did not “cure” the breach because we did not satisfy the “cure steps.” What are the
“cure steps?” Those are arbitrary demands they made up.

The first one is “give us a certified bank check for $75,000.” One other outrageous demand is for us to agree that we will give them DOUBLE this amount next time. Follow me here.  They are saying that the only way to “cure” the breach, and thus avoid the $75,000 penalty, is to pay the $75,000 penalty, AND promise that it will be double next time.  So curing the breach is more expensive and onerous than NOT curing it and just paying the liquidated damages according to the original agreement.

This is a circular demand designed to prevent an end from ever coming to this lawsuit, we believe, so that Fulbright & Jaworski can forever drag this on and continue to bleed their client for money regardless of whether they get money out of the Vandals or not.

You can’t unilaterally make up new ways to “cure” a breach that are worse than the original liquidated damages and then assert that a breach is not “cured” because no one paid your silly tantrum money you demanded.  We believe that this makes the law-firm just as culpable as Reed Elsevier and The Daily Variety in this outrageous attempt to extort money out of the Vandals.

It is a pure shake down like a kidnapping because satisfying their demands doesn’t lead to any legal solution. They can keep suing us for double any time they feel. Just like a kidnapper can just re-kidnap the victim the next day. You’re only paying to stop the crime for one day. Then you are a sitting duck again. Who would agree to this? No one could. That’s why we believe they are committing a very serious crime here.