The Secret: legal battle

Fascinating legal battles emerging over The Secret, as detailed in the New York Times.

The Secret is a self-help book/video/money-marking venture based on the belief that adherents to its philosophy will receive “unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity”. And who wouldn't want unlimited love? And some unlimited health, happiness and prosperity sounds ok too I guess. Try not to laugh - The Secret has apparently pulled in revenue of $300million.

Apparently "the universe will make your wishes come true if only you really, truly believe in them". Obviously to date I haven't wished hard enough for a new Maserati, Red Hill acreage and for Rachel Bilson to fall deeply in love with me. I'm gonna start wishing harder -starting now.

Anyway, onto the legal stuff. It sounds messy - involving Hungarian companies, jurisdictional battles between Courts in the US and in Australia, conflicting views as to authorship and lots more fun stuff.

Watch this space - I'll try and follow this case through.

Extracts from the New York Times follow:

On Monday the movie’s director, Drew Heriot, filed a copyright suit in United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, against Ms. Byrne and her production company. The suit claims that Mr. Heriot is the co-author of the screenplay and the book and is therefore entitled to up to half of what his lawyers estimate as $300 million in “Secret” revenue.

The suit alleges that Mr. Heriot worked on the screenplay, conducted most of the interviews for the film and supervised its editing and postproduction. The book, much of it a transcription of the movie, is based on documents Mr. Heriot created, the suit alleges.

Because he was an independent contractor and not an employee of Ms. Byrne’s production company, Mr. Heriot retained rights to his creations, and Ms. Byrne promised him a percentage of profits, the suit argues.

The legal wrangling over the project began in July 2007, when TS Production applied for the United States copyright to the “Secret” movie and spinoffs. The next month Mr. Heriot applied for copyright to “The Secret,” claiming authorship of the movie and the screenplay.

Soon after that, TS Production filed suit in the Australian courts. Both Mr. Heriot and Ms. Byrne are Australian, and they began working on projects together around 2000. That’s when Ms. Byrne, then a television producer, contracted with Mr. Heriot’s production company for his services as an editor on “Australia Behaving Badly,” a “Candid Camera”-style series.

In the Australian courts, TS Production has asked to be declared owner of all copyrights to the book and movie “The Secret.”

Mr. Heriot, the court papers argue, “directed the film under the terms of his employment under a contract of service” with Ms. Byrne’s company and is not entitled to any copyrights.

After filing suit in the United States, Mr. Heriot’s lawyers filed a motion in the Federal Court of Australia, Victoria District Registry, notifying it that he had started litigation in the United States, the country where the copyright registrations had been filed, and asking it to postpone or dismiss its version of the case on jurisdictional grounds.