Jessica Seinfeld Law Suit

When Jessica Seinfeld's book came out, I definitely did not take her side in the battle of the cookbook and thought and still think she is an idiot, and that she was definitely influenced by the other cookbook. However much she was influenced though, I think she will probably win this lawsuit that was filed against her for copyright and trademark infringement.

I am always skeptical of any lawsuit that is accompanied by a press release. In this case, Missy Chase Lapine's attorneys had a PR company prepare a press release announcing the lawsuit and why it was filed. It was totally unnecessary and instead just makes the law firm look like a bunch of blowhards. Yes, you want attention and publicity if you are a law firm, but you are suing Jerry Seinfeld and his wife and everyone is familiar with the two books. You will get attention without having your lawsuit filed with a PR blast to media outlets.

The first thing we need to get out of the way is that they are just suing Jerry Seinfeld to say they are suing him and to make more noise. There is no way that Lapine will win for the comments Jerry made on Letterman. Here are the comments from the show.



They are just an opinion. Yes, he probably knew that the books were not published at the same time, but the rest is all opinion. Just like I called his wife an idiot, he can call Lapine a whacko. Now, instead of calling her a whacko, Jerry had said, Lapine had spent some time in mental hospitals, THEN she would have a case.

Plagiarism is a tough thing to prove. The closest anyone has got in awhile was the guy who sued Dan Brown. Lapine's lawyers list a number of examples where the books are identical or close to identical. To me they are mostly meaningless. The only ones I hold any stock in are the list of the food and the purees that go with them. That is the section that will either win or lose the case for Ms. Lapine.

I have linked over to The Smoking Gun beginning on the page of similarities that Lapine alleges. Take a look and decide for yourself. That is what a jury will do. There are about five pages to look through.

A Million Little Pieces

When James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces was revealed to have fabricated portions of his memoir, he was brought on Oprah and basically hammered by her and made out by her to be the worst human being in the world for making her look bad. You can read every question she asked James Frey, his publisher, and various media people about the situation right here.

By now most of you know that Jessica Seinfeld has been accused of stealing recipes for her new book Deceptively Delicious from a book entitled the Sneaky Chef which in turn I think might have lifted some ideas, but not recipes from Sneaky Veggies.

I think that every parent has tried to think of some way to make their kids eat vegetables or some other food they won't eat. I'm sure all of you tried to hide it, blend it, lie about it or whatever to get your child to eat the vegetable. What I don't think anyone has done is say, hey, "I'm going to add spinach to brownies," or "avocados with chocolate pudding." If you thought of the latter one, you are one sneaky person and I'm scared of you and your kids should be scared of you also because they will never get away with anything.

So here we have an unknown author who sent two different manuscripts to Harper Collins. One she sent before she had an agent and then another after she had an agent. The manuscript included recipes. Then, enter Jessica Seinfeld who on her own comes up with the same odd combinations of desserts and vegetables. I don't think so.

If this were anyone else, especially after the entire James Frey incident, Oprah would have had this person on, handed them back the $21,000 shoe thank you gift, and ripped her a new one in front of the world. Instead, because of who Jessica Seinfeld is, and who she is married to, Oprah lets Jerry come on, promote his Bee Movie, which looks funny by the way, and doesn't do anything to Jessica.

In my opinion this is worse than the James Frey book. In Frey's book, only portions were fabricated, and some others embellished, but at least it was his own work, and his own ideas.

In this case, I'm not sure we can determine whether this is really Jessica Seinfeld's own work. Allegedly Harper Collins wanted nothing to do with Missy Lapine when she came knocking twice because they had a similar book. Enter Jessica Seinfeld who had a great agent and a great name and who cares if it was a similar book to one they already had and one they rejected.

Let's take a quick look at the William Morris agent who brought Jessica Seinfeld to Harper Collins. Her name is Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. Name sound familiar? Probably not. But, she is also the agent of Kaavya Viswanathan who is the Harvard sophomore who was proved to have plagiarised her best selling book. I bet Oprah sure would like to have a few words with that agent huh?

Harper Collins is convinced Jessica Seinfeld is legit because she made them mac and cheese with meatballs. Wow, sure, that makes her a cookbook author alright. Jerry has also volunteered that he was a guinea pig for much of the recipes. I don't doubt that Jerry. I just want to know where she got the recipes from, and I think Oprah to be fair, needs to have her on and ask her.