10 Huge TV Shows That Have Been Sued For Being Complete Rip-Offs
6. LOST
The idea of a story centred on a group of plane crash survivors is nothing new, though when a writer discovers that a show has been made that is similar to their own work to the point that it has the exact same name, they are understandably going to be a little upset.
Producer Anthony Spinner filed a lawsuit against ABC and LOST creators J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof in 2005, one year after the show premiered on the network to his apparent shock and disgust. Spinner produced on a New York cop series called Beretta from 1975 to 1978, and it was during that time that he alleges ABC hired him to write a pilot.
His suit claimed that the pilot was entitled Lost and that it involved a plane crashing on a strange and mysterious island, marooning a small group of survivors there. Spinner also insisted that it was not only the name and concept of the show that were his, but a number of the characters, too.
In the end, the court ruled that the time-span between Spinner writing his pilot and ABC creating LOST was just too large. In fact, nobody working as a producer at ABC between 1975 and 1978 was still doing so in 2004, and so the judge dismissed the case against the network and the writers.