Cosby v. Channel101 [1]

Justin Roiland created four episodes of a video series called "House of Cosbys." The series tells the story of a Bill Cosby fan who clones multiple Cosbys, each of whom has a special power. The series aired on the online TV website, Channel101.

Sometime in June 2005, Cosby's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Channel101. (The details are not entirely clear, but it appears that the letter was addressed to Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon). The letter asserted that the House of Cosbys series violated Cosby's right of publicity in his voice, name, and likeness. It demanded that Channel101 stop the development and distribution of the House of Cosbys series.

Upon receipt of the letter, Dan Harmon initially pulled down the videos, but later he reconsidered and re-posted them. According to a statement [2] by Harmon, Cosby's lawyers then contacted Channel101's hosting service, which told Channel101 to take down the videos "under threat of pulling the plug." Channel 101 complied with the request.

A fifth episode surfaced on the Internet. This episode, apparently not created by Roiland, contained a still image of the cease-and-desist letter, and a voice reads from the letter during the video.

In March 2006, blogger Andrew Baio received a cease-and-desist letter for mirroring copies of the House of Cosbys series. He did not remove the files. (For more information, please see the CMLP Database entry [3] for the Cosby v. Baio Letter.)