THR, Esq.

Over the years, A&E Television Networks has displayed a knack for getting sued due to its channels' distinctive brand of crime-based reality television. But we doubt there's anything on A&E that's going to be as entertaining as a lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday by a woman named Marlorita Battle.

Eat your heart out, Wesley Snipes.

ANALYSIS: “Very valuable” or just “a hill of beans”? That’s the question surrounding Section 181 of the tax code, a film financing tax deduction that Congress recently renewed through 2011. Experts disagree on the answer.

Time to delve into the tax code, always a scary proposition.

Section 181, which was extended by Congress retroactive to the beginning of 2010, permits a 100% deduction for the first $15 million of the cost of films and television series that commence principal photography prior to 2012. So explains a memo by Schuyler Moore, a partner specializing in entertainment tax law in the Los Angeles office of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

That sounds simple, but no tax provision ever is. At the most basic level, cautions tax counsel Bernard Topper of New York entertainment law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, people confuse tax deductions with tax credits. Credits reduce taxes dollar for dollar: a $100 tax credit reduces your taxes by $100.

Suing a big entertainment studio with claims of idea theft isn't easy. Maybe plaintiff lawyers are starting to get the message?

Yesterday, a copyright infringement lawsuit against producers of Project Runway was dismissed by New York District Court Judge Loretta Preska.

Those adorable, annoying, uber-litigious Chipmunks are at it again.

Bagdasarian Prods, owner of the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, is suing EMI Music for allegedly failing to pay appropriate royalties on a boxed set of Chipmunks music featuring 24 songs.

• Rovi Corp., owner of TV Guide, is suing Amazon.com and its IMDb.com subsidiary for patent infringement. Rovi says it has licensed its technology to Apple, Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner, Verizon, and others. The company says it had entered into licensing discussions with Amazon but was unable to reach an agreement. It's somewhat unclear from the complaint what technology features are being claimed as infringing, but one of the patents in question allows for "the unattended recording of future occurring programs using a personal computer." It's likely the complaint targets Amazon's On Demand program guides. [Here's the complaint]

The trial date in the defamation case against Courtney Love over her outrageous Twitter postings has been postponed three weeks. 

Lawyers for Love and fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir—who is suing the rocker over a March 2009 tirade of Tweets in which Love called the self-proclaimed "Boudoir Queen" a prostitute and a thief—were in the Los Angeles courtroom of Hon. Debre Weintraub this morning for the final status conference in the case. The trial date, which was to have been on Jan 18, has been pushed to Feb 8 for scheduling purposes. The trial is expected to last at least a week. 

The NFL begins its playoffs this weekend, but the most intriguing action may be occurring behind closed doors. After the football season ends, the collective bargaining agreement between the players and owners is set to expire, and without any new contract, it's expected that the NFL will lock out its players and there won't be any games to broadcast.

As much as the prospect of no football may hurt both owners and players, it's TV networks that might be the real victims in the dispute.

Nu Image Films, the independent production company behind the summer smash The Expendables and nearly 180 other films, has signed up with the The U.S. Copyright Group, the Washington-based outfit that has made waves suing thousands of pirates.

Score a major victory for Hollywood in the indecency wars. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York today tossed a $1.4 million FCC fine on ABC and selected affiliates for airing a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue that showed actress Charlotte Ross’ rear end.

Today’s decision comes on the heels of a July three-judge panel from the Second Circuit in the so-called “fleeting expletives” case that the FCC's enforcement of its indecency rules is “unconstitutionally vague and chilling.”

The following article appears in the current issue of The Hollywood Reporter available on newsstands Wednesday.

Courtney Love was very upset.

The firebrand rocker had been locked in a dispute with Dawn Simorangkir, a fashion designer who was demanding payment for a few thousand dollars worth of clothes.

Joel Tenenbaum, who was found liable for copyright infringement for sharing 30 songs online, is asking an appeals court to consider the constitutionality of big damage awards in copyright cases.

In a brief to the First Circuit Court of Appeals filed on December 27, Tenenbaum argues there are "systemic problems that produce unconscionable awards" in copyright cases against accused file-sharers.

An appeals court in New York has re-ignited EchoStar's claim that various Disney-owned networks breached licensing agreements by demanding payment for high-definition feeds.