California Court Dismisses Copyright Suit Against BBC Over Cosby Documentary Over Lack Of Jurisdiction
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180227/09361339316/california-court-dismisses-copyright-suit-against-bbc-over-cosby-documentary-over-lack-jurisdiction.shtml
Late last year, we covered a very odd lawsuit brought against the BBC by the production team for The Cosby Show centering around a BBC documentary covering Bill Cosby's fall from grace in America. Bill Cosby: Fall of an American Icon used several short clips from The Cosby Show, altogether totaling less than four minutes of run-time, and all of them used to provide context to Cosby's once-held status as an American public figure in good standing. Despite the BBC distributing the documentary exclusively overseas, production company Casey-Werner filed its suit in California. Whatever the geography around the legal action, we argued at the time that the BBC's actions were as clear a case of fair use as we'd ever seen.
It seems that legal argument will not be answered in this suit, however, as the court has decided instead to simply dismiss over a lack of jurisdiction. While the BBC's filings had indeed hinted at a forthcoming fair use defense, it also argued that the California court had no business adjudicating this matter to begin with.