TV channel sued over snow globe cupcake video
It may only be June, but a Utah-based woman has sued TV channel Television Food Network over snow globe cupcakes.
Elizabeth LaBau filed a copyright infringement claim at the US District Court for the Central District of California on Thursday, June 1.
LaBau owns a website called SugarHero which, according to the claim, receives between 300,000 and 500,000 page views a month.
She alleged that one of her most successful ideas involved the creation and demonstration of edible snow globe cupcakes, which were posted on the website in 2014.
“Plaintiff came up with an original recipe idea for snow globe cupcakes, which involved using gelatine sheets, an uncommon ingredient, and small water balloons to create edible ‘globes’ to place on holiday cupcakes,” said the suit.
On December 3, 2016, LaBau published a video outlining the recipe for and preparation of the cupcakes.
The Food Network allegedly posted a video illustrating the preparation of the cupcakes on December 22, 2016.
“The Food Network video copied numerous copyrightable elements of plaintiff’s work precisely, including but not limited to choices of shots, camera angles, colours, and lighting, textual descriptors, and other artistic and expressive elements of plaintiff’s work,” said the suit.
LaBau then wrote on Food Network’s Facebook page to request that it give her credit and attribution for her work, providing a link to her video for reference.
“Despite plaintiff’s request, defendants not only failed to remove their infringing material from their Facebook page, but ignored plaintiff completely, failing to even offer her attribution or credit,” added the claim.
According to the suit, Food Network’s video has garnered 145,000 likes and over 11 million views.
LaBau is seeking injunctive relief, an account of damages, costs, attorneys’ fees and a jury trial.
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