Seth MacFarlane Sued for copyright infringement for ”Ted”

This actually happens all the time. A movie gets put out, and someone out there says they thought of it first so they try to take a piece. Well, now it looks like Seth MacFarlane is getting his first-taste of why movie studios have impressive legal teams. That’s because the producers of an online web series called Charlie The Abusive Teddy and Acting School Academy have filed suit against Seth and Universal for copyright infringement claiming that ”Ted” is a direct ripoff of their character ”Charlie”. In a statement sent to Deadline, the producers had this to say:

“Both Charlie and Ted reside in a substantially similar environment, including that both Charlie and Ted spend a significant amount of time sitting on a living room couch with a beer and/or cigarette in hand,” the suit claims. “Charlie and Ted each have a substantially similar persona, verbal tone, verbal delivery, dialogue, and attitude.”

And yes, when you watch the web series it definitely is a concept about a talking teddy bear that enjoys the company of hookers, enjoys his fair share of drugs, and so forth. Even more hysterical, the producers of ”Charlie” are pissed that the Twitter and Facebook statuses for both their character and Ted are kinda similar such as:

Charlie 2009 Twitter post: “What the f**k is Twitter?”

Ted 2012 Twitter post: “Hello, Twitter. Kindly go fuck yourself.”

Charlie 2009 Twitter post: “I like Fox News. They’ve made s**t talking an art form.”

Ted 2012 Twitter post: “I like Game of Thrones for tits and blood and Fox News for laughs.”

For my money, I call bullshit. For starters, why in the hell are the producers of ”Charlie” just NOW coming forward? What the hell took them two years to gather their bearings (see what I did there?) and NOW file suit? Also if you look at both characters, while the two share similar traits, I always thought of ”Ted” as having more of a heart than Charlie. Oh yea, and you can’t sue for similar thoughts and dialogue, otherwise Bill Hicks would have hauled Denis Leary’s ass to court LONG ago.  I’d be curious to see if the producers of ”Charlie” have indeed registered a copyright on their character, and more over, registered with an agency like the Writers Guild to protect the concept of their character.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but don’t be surprised if a judge looks at this and tosses it faster than you can say, ”Ted 2 is filming”.