Web Site Copycat Lawsuit Is No Laughing Matter; Pollstar.com Sues Gigmania for Copying Its Concert Information.

Entertainment Editors

FRESNO, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--May 3, 2000

Even Boris Badinov, Wile E. Coyote, and Hannibal Lecter

Would Have Known Better

Pollstar, a California-based company that provides worldwide concert tour information at its popular Web site, www.pollstar.com, filed suit yesterday against Gigmania Ltd. in the United States District Court in Fresno.

The suit alleges that Gigmania regularly copies Pollstar's concert information and then posts it on its own Web site at www.gigmania.com. Pollstar's suit seeks damages and injunctive relief for, among other things, misappropriation and unfair competition.

According to Pollstar's complaint, after Pollstar began to suspect that Gigmania might be copying Pollstar's concert information, Pollstar began including items of fictitious concert information (including fictitious cities and venues) on its site to verify its suspicions. This fictitious information only appeared on Pollstar.com for a few hours but was quickly copied by Gigmania and posted on its site.

"It didn't matter how absurd the names of the fictitious cities and venues were -- Gigmania would still put them up," said Gary Bongiovonni, president of Pollstar. "It's also obvious that they didn't make much of an effort to update their information -- the erroneous data remained on their site right up until the made up concert date passed."

Gigmania, which claims to be "the premier site for fans of live music" and to provide "consumers with up to date concert information on venues of all sizes in over 2,400 cities worldwide," posted concert dates for such fictional towns and venues as:

-- Roadrunner Theatre in Acme, New Mexico (Acme is the name of

the company that supplies Wile E. Coyote with explosives and

other things used by him in his attempts to catch the

Roadrunner in the popular Roadrunner cartoon series.)

-- Lecter Cooking Academy in Harris, Virginia (Hannibal Lecter is

a cannibal in the Academy Award winning film "The Silence of

the Lambs," based on the book by Thomas Harris. The

Commonwealth of Virginia is the home of the FBI Academy.)

-- Mooze & Skwirl Auditorium in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota 

(Frostbite Falls is the home of Rocky and Bullwinkle.)

-- Badinov Ice Arena in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota (Boris Badinov

is Rocky's nemesis.)

-- Calvin & Hobbes University in Milli, Virginia

-- Lycanthropy Benefit in Talbot, Michigan (Lycanthropy is the

ability to transform one's self into a wolf, and Larry Talbot

was the name of the Wolf Man in the 1941 movie.)

-- Robert Crane Auditorium in Hogan, Arizona (Actor Robert Crane

played the leading role in the television series "Hogan's

Heroes.")

-- Hikawi Gaming Resort in Courage, South Dakota (The Hikawi

Indians lived near Fort Courage in the television series

"F Troop.")

"I suppose Pollstar can take solace in the fact that one of its primary competitors believes that Pollstar is so accurate and up-to-date that the only way to keep pace is to slavishly copy Pollstar's information," said Pollstar's attorney, Steven Shapiro of the Los Angeles law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp LLP.

"Pollstar, however, puts in substantial effort in order to obtain and verify its concert information. Companies like Gigmania hurt the public because they discourage companies like Pollstar from undertaking that kind of effort."

Gigmania also supplies concert information to Yahoo's Entertainment Guide. According to Shapiro, as a result of Gigmania's copying from Pollstar, some of the fictitious information was posted by Yahoo.

"We don't have a present intention to include Yahoo as a defendant in the suit," said Shapiro. "At this point we assume that Yahoo was not an active participant in Gigmania's copying."

Even as of today, Gigmania still has posted on its Web site Pollstar's final message: Gigmania lists concert dates for a fictitious rock group called the Intergalactic Rock Allstars in Ucopy, NJ at the Sloppy Joe's Cafe (Ucopy ... Sloppy) and in Committort, MO at the Court Jester Theater (Committort ... Court).

Pollstar has been computerizing information since 1981 for the professional booking agents, facility managers, promoters and artist managers who make the concert industry run. Pollstar.com has been the public's leading source of concert information on the Internet since its debut in 1994.

The Web site is updated daily by a staff of 60 people based on four continents and currently contains information on more than 5,100 active tours and more than 43,000 individual events. In addition, Pollstar licenses its tour information to numerous other companies including MTV, AOL, Tickets.com and Artistdirect.

Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp LLP of Los Angeles, is representing Pollstar in this matter. The firm has headquarters in Los Angeles with more than 125 attorneys specializing in business law. The firm's practice emphasizes entertainment and new media, technology and intellectual property, corporate, commercial litigation, labor and employment and estate planning.