TMZ May Be Held in Contempt of Court Over O.J. Excerpt

Posted on June 22, 2007

TMZ may be in legal trouble for obtaining a copy of O.J. Simpson's book If I Did It and posting an excerpt online. Lorraine Brooke and Associates, Inc. (the shell company that O.J. formed to get the proceeds from the book) filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Florida, which means that a bankruptcy trustee now owns all the assets of the debtor. The biggest asset is the manuscript, the profits of which have been awarded by a California judge to the family of victim Ron Goldman. The bankruptcy court held that the company was formed as a sham entity by Simpson to avoid paying the Goldmans any proceeds of the book. The bankruptcy court ruled that the Goldmans' claim on the estate is valid and ordered that all copies of the manuscript in any format be turned over to the Trustee. Then TMZ posted a link to the entire manuscript in pdf format for two hours, during which time anyone could have downloaded it. (It's now on Bit Torrent so the cat's really out of the bag on this one).

It's kind of complicated legally, but the Trustee is accusing TMZ (and Time Warner who owns TMZ) of violating the Turnover Order and the Automatic Stay provisions of the bankruptcy code. The Trustee also wants TMZ to show up at a 2004 Exam (the bankruptcy court's version of a deposition) to disclose where they got the manuscript. The Trustee wants big damages. So, it's a bit of a mess. The Goldmans claim that because the book were posted online the value of the book has diminished.

There was an emergency hearing at which the judge said he would hold a full hearing on these issues, including whether TMZ (and Time Warner) should be held in contempt. The judge indicated that TMZ could be financially liable, although TMZ says the full manuscript was online only for only ten minutes. TMZ claims the small excerpts (that are still on the site) fall withing the "fair use" doctrine. What a mess.