Netflix Defeats Spurious ‘Slumlord Millionaire’ Lawsuit

The gears of justice turn slowly, but they do turn. Late last year we discussed a delightful gentleman named Roland Macher, who goes by Spanky", because of course he does. Spanky was a restaurant owner and real estate businessman who found himself in prison for over 2 years because paying your taxes is hard or annoying or something. Either way, he didn't do it. In jail, he wrote a book about how others should do business and called it Slumlord Millionaire. Some time after that, Netflix released a series called Dirty Money, focusing on bad people doing bad business. One episode that centered on possible real life replicant Jared Kushner was also titled Slumlord Millionaire. And because of that, Spanky sued, representing himself.

Now, as we explained in the original post, this was never going to go anywhere. This lawsuit was always destined for the wastebin. The filing itself was rife with grammar issues to start with, but the merits of its claims that any of this is trademark or copyright infringement were laughable. Titles of works are not copyrightable elements and the content of the creative works were so completely different that no part of the copyright claim could have possibly have held up. As for trademark, here again the content is so different that the mere titling of an episode about completely different subject matter the same as the title of some book somewhere simply isn't going to create any confusion in the public about source or origin, or the involvement of Spanky in a Netflix series.

And now we learn that the court has agreed, having dismissed the suit for being deficient in many respects."

The episode has nothing to do with Macher or his book," Judge Thomas T. Cullen said in his July 27opinionin US District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

The judge noted that even under the more lenient standard" of review afforded to apro seplaintiff's complaint, it must still allege facts sufficient to state all the elements of [the] claim.'"

Cullen said it has been well-settled" that titles are not copyrightable, and the works' differences mean there wouldn't likely be confusion between the book and the show that would support a trademark claim.

And there you have it. Instead of filing spurious lawsuits he wrote himself and representing himself pro se, Spanky can now go back to... advising others on how to business, presumably without the whole, you know, going to prison thing.