10 Huge TV Shows That Have Been Sued For Being Complete Rip-Offs

FX’s fantasy football sitcom The League aired for seven seasons between 2009 and 2015, with husband-and-wife combo Jeff and Jackie Schaffer the brains behind the often hilarious show. The Schaffers wrote The League in a way that allowed the actors to use improv when they deemed it necessary, a move that attracted stars Mark Duplass and Nick Kroll to the project.

Halfway through the show’s run in 2012 it was subject to a civil complaint filed by writers Joseph Balsamo and Peter Ciancarelli, who accused FX and co-producer/creator Jeff Schaffer of ripping-off their script for The Commissioner, a series that they wrote and registered with the Writers Guild of America back in 2006.

The nine page complaint detailed as many as ten striking similarities between The League and the plaintiffs’ treatment for The Commissioner, including near identical scenes in which the fantasy football players attend a gentlemen’s club and annoy the dancers by talking about their league and the draft taking place in Las Vegas.

Balsamo and Ciancarelli – who made their treatment available to read online after registering it with the WGA in an attempt to attract producers – sued for unspecified damages after they were unable to sell their strikingly similar idea, though were ultimately unsuccessful.