(Pittsburgh, PA, March 13, 2000) In November 1999, former television executive William Craig launched a Web site from Toronto (domain in Pittsburgh) which streamed television shows from 17 U.S. and Canadian network channels onto the Internet. The site -- iCraveTV.com -- was astonishingly popular. In December 1999, the Web site received 800,000 hits.
On January 20, 2000, lawyers for 10 Hollywood movie studios, three TV networks, the National Football League and the National Basketball Association, filed two lawsuits against Craig and commenced a fierce legal attack against iCraveTV.com and Mr. Craig. Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America calls the case "one of the largest and most brazen thefts of intellectual property ever committed in the United States.
"Early in February, Blair Levin, a former FCC official, told USA Today that "Broadcasters have told me that if they lose this case, it's the end of the world."
The cases were closely watched by the broadcast and Internet industries and leading legal scholars from Silicon Valley to New York. Within days, the entertainment group got a temporary restraining order and an injunction against Mr. Craig and iCraveTV.com. Then, on February 28, 2000, Mr. Craig agreed to permanently stop broadcasting copyrighted U.S. and Canadian television shows on the Internet in exchange for dismissal of the case.
In the end, one of the most important copyright/trademark infringement cases in U.S. history was resolved not in Washington, New York or Los Angeles, but in Pittsburgh in a federal court with a young, relatively unknown lead counsel. And while some of the nation’s leading law firms had important roles in the cases, Gregory Jordan of the Pittsburgh office of Reed Smith Shaw & McClay LLP held the key to the case. He knew Bill Craig better than anyone in the legal world. For nearly 10 years, Jordan has represented Fox Sports Pittsburgh, where until 1997 Mr. Craig was general manager and vice president.
Mr. Craig's reputation for living on the legal edge was well known. Bill Craig and Greg Jordan had gone through many high-profile cases together. However, within a year of Bill Craig's departure from Fox Sports, Jordan had sued Mr. Craig on behalf of Fox Sports Pittsburgh. After leaving Fox Sports Pittsburgh, Mr. Craig had formed a network and attempted to obtain the broadcast rights for Pittsburgh Penguins hockey games -- even though Fox had a 20-year $100 million contract with the team. Mr. Craig tried to find a legal loophole in a contract that Craig had forged with the Penguins while Craig was still at Fox and Greg Jordan was Fox's counsel. Jordan and Fox enjoined Craig in the Penguin suit. Craig then tried to use the same tactics in his launch of iCraveTV.com.
Flashback
As the MPAA organized the entertainment group's legal response to iCraveTV.com, Greg Jordan and his partner, Fred Colen, were asked to participate in a "beauty contest" at the Los Angeles headquarters of the organization. While the MPAA coordinated the legal effort, the major studios each nominated a law firm to be lead counsel. Fox recommended Greg Jordan and Fred Colen his Reed Smith Shaw & McClay LLP partner. As Jordan remembers the situation, "We felt confident in our abilities, but the fact was, we were asked to make presentations against the people who write the books on copyright and trademark law. That was not where we wanted to compete. Our advantage was simple: we knew how Bill Craig's mind worked We knew how he operated. And we knew more about stopping him than anyone else."
The Reed Smith Shaw & McClay presentation to the MPAA included remarks by Jordan and a videotape presentation of Craig -- and was titled "Being Bill Craig," a reference to the recently released movie "Being John Malkovich." The presentation focused less on the legal issues than on Mr. Craig's personality and what the Industry Standard of London recently described as his "passion for risk taking." His strengths and weaknesses were well documented in the presentation. He was a formidable opponent, the Reed Smith Shaw & McClay lawyers said, who also had glaring weaknesses. Jordan and his partners believed that the meeting had gone well but prepared to head home. As they drove around Los Angeles, a call came from the MPAA with a few more questions. Ultimately, they were chosen to lead the legal pursuit of Mr. Craig.
The entertainment group's legal team soon was assembled and Wilmer Cutler & Pickering and Covington & Burling helped Reed Smith's Colen build the intellectual property case. The debate began whether to file the lawsuits in Los Angeles, New York or Washington. Jordan urged them to go to Pittsburgh for a practical reason: Mr. Craig's particularly nasty divorce had resulted in a million-dollar judgment against him and a bench warrant for his arrest in Pittsburgh. An Ontario court had transferred his ex-wife's claims to Pittsburgh and he skipped a November 1999 hearing on the matter. So, if he returned to Pittsburgh to defend the iCraveTV case, he would be arrested because of a bench warrant in the divorce case. That logic made perfect sense to the MPAA. The case was filed there, the injunctions were issued there and within weeks the case was settled.
A 13-hour deposition of Mr. Craig in Toronto brought home the irony of the case for Greg Jordan. "During Bill Craig's deposition, there were several weird exchanges. After all I had been through in seven years of representing him at Fox Pittsburgh, we were now on opposite sides for the third time in two years. After one of my questions, he said, 'That's just the kind of question you used to tell me to not answer.'"
About Greg Jordan
Gregory B. Jordan has been with the firm since 1984 and is a Partner in the Litigation Group. He is the firm wide Director of Legal Personnel, previously served as the Director of Practice Development and is a member of the Management and Executive Committees. In addition, he is head of the firm's Financial Services Litigation Group. Mr. Jordan's practice involves primarily banking and financial services litigation, securities and derivative litigation, trade secrets and intellectual property litigation, and media and first amendment litigation. He has tried and argued a number of significant and precedent-setting cases. He has been named as one of The Best Lawyers In America (1995-1996, 1997-1998 and 1999-2000 editions).
A native of Wheeling, West Virginia, Mr. Jordan obtained his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Bethany College in 1981. He graduated in 1984, cum laude, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review and the Order of the Coif.