Rock, Meet Hard Place: Frank Valentini Feels The Cruel Reality of Copyright Law

I never ever ever ever thought I'd use my now defunct law school education to apply to criticism. But here we are. The Hundred Grand was worth it, Kids!! Actually, I only went to law school because my boss told me to finish my PhD or do something else. I opted for the "something else". Law school was easier.

At any rate, I loved Constitutional Law and Intellectual Property, as I was a media professor already. So, here we are. My worlds all colliding and exploding in Valentini's face. Suck it, Frank! You took our characters, we take yours.  There's a beauty in this. Just when he thought it was safe to go back in the water, the copyright laws bite him in the ass. Think of PP as a giant shark and every time Valentini comes up for air, they bite him in the ass and pull him under. He's fighting, bleeding, but it's not a fair fight. He needs to let go. He's against a superior force- the Legal System. And he's nothing but fish food now, ready to be eaten alive. And I'll bet he tastes fine.

Take that, Douchebag!! OOPS. That's not professional and isn't appropriate. I'm supposed to be like a law professor right now, not a pissed off blogger. How about "You lose, Sir, you lose. Move on to your next venture"?  That's dull.  But so is most of the law.

Let's make sure everyone knows what I mean. Frankie didn't own his three OLTL characters. In actuality, ABC owned them but they leased them to PP for a period of time. That means that the copyrights, or all rights to anything related to OLTL at all, belongs in total to PP for their leasehold. Now, if they violated that lease or breached a contract, those rights would revert back to ABC. This was what Valentini was banking on. And he was wrong.

Don't go to Vegas, Baby, you're a loser on bets. You see Frank got ABC to lease the three characters back from PP for a period. A very finite period. Then, in his mind, PP would default on the deal and ABC would have them all back and he'd have his show back, just call it GH. But, alas, Poor Yorick, didn't happen. PP stepped up, made it work, and told Frank his time was up. They wanted the characters back and any fuckery beyond the contract period would have to be approved. Thus, you got the lamest endings ever in soap history.

Starr runs off to LA because Langston needs her. Why? We don't know. Todd gets two odd calls from a kid he hardly knows and cares about less, by what we saw, and takes off to the town he ran away from, for no apparent reason. Except that he's "never coming back"....yeah, okay, Roger, I mean Todd. And John gets called back by the Feds. Why? We don't know.

The end. Goodbye. It's over. And Nimnut's sex scenes get pulled. He had all these romantic moments planned and tearful goodbyes for McBam and Codd and even the mags were recapping them and then....and then...and then....

Nothing. Nada. Not a crumb.

That's gotta hurt. Okay, it's obvious. PP stepped in and said, "Not so fast, Nimnuts". They put the kibosh on the goodbyes. They put the kibosh on it all. They exited everyone stage whatever and it was done. Proof of the clear and present destruction of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum's dream was today. On GH, as I hear as I won't watch that crap, Carly was depressed about people disappearing from her life. But couldn't say who. Michael was worried....about the ball. And Sam discussed some guy named Clay, who Easton played on PC.

That's it. The Sun is now the Port Charles Press again. It's all gone. Not a mention of the great lurve that was Codd that should have Carly's queen size panties in a wad. Nothing. Not a mention of the girlfriend who hotfooted it out of town without a reason. Nope. Just, "I'm worried about the show, Ma" and she's all "I'm worried about my boy lookin' like one of them fancy dancer types". Okay, it wasn't like that. But I'd love for Carly to show she's white trash with homophobic ideas. She should live in a trailer park and have polyester pants barely covering her huge ass. No offense to people in trailer parks. I saw some lovely ones in Palm Springs. Very kitschy. But, I'm sure she is the worst of the stereotypes. The skank.  SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE SLEPT WITH TONY!

But I digress.

This is too funny for words. It's worse than Dallas's shower excuse. It's just that they're gone. Never to be seen again. Like it was some kind of mass hysteria and never happened. I half expect Todd wake up in bed with Blair....John never arrested him. It was his bad dream. Wait a minute. That sounds good.....

At any rate, I doubt that will happen. Only Newhart had the balls to go for extra-diegetic crap like that.  Sorry, that's shop talk.

But again, me, digression.  Back to the current situation. It's too funny now that Valentini tries at the last minute to pull it all back and say "I have the actors and we're making new characters". It's his "Suck it" to PP. Okay, you try, Frank. Kind of hard to do that while Howarth tapes Todd scenes for PP. And looks happy as a clam, BTW. So, Frank's going to keep his actors and that's it. He'll make new characters and Nah Nah Nah to PP.

Okay. You try that, Frank. First, PP never wanted KA, IMO, so go with her. Best to you both. And you have that lovely PC story already in the works for Easton. So go there, too. And good luck. But what about Buddy Boy? What about him?

Now, let's look at the law and leave the conjecture behind. I don't know the specifics of this contract but I'll bet it says Mr. Howarth is contracted to play "Todd Manning" and I'll bet he's described thereafter. This way, you can't make him play someone else once he's signed unless he agrees. I'll bet that, Frank, a lot of money. Now, I hear Mr. Howarth's representation still claimed as of Tuesday morning that his client was to be Todd on GH. Now, that's not possible. How can this work then, Frank? If they agreed to a new character, why not say so? You did and very publicly. Why won't they back you up, Frank?

Guess. Go on, guess.

Because they don't want to! Because any character he'd have to play on GH could have no relation or likeness to Todd Manning. And Todd Manning is the real draw here. Not Howarth. Remember Pablum Ryan? I do...unfortunately. This character couldn't be a felon, be rich, be smart, be funny, be angsty, be anything like Todd...who also played a lot of personalities. That's hard, Frank. Who could he be but Felix's love interest and that's problematic as Todd did pretend to be gay once or twice and then PP would slap you with a Cease and Desist as Howarth's performance was too close to Todd.

Who could he be? And why would Howarth do it? Really. Why? Not only is this show dead, he'd have to be a whole new character who may not be interesting at all with all these restrictions. Why would he do this? Maybe he'd like to be a recast of another character but that character better not look or act like Todd...that's infringement of their copyright. Trust me. I know.

Now, let's assume that contract did read for Todd Manning. If that's true, ABC cannot perform their obligation. They have to allow him to play Todd Manning on GH and that's no longer possible. The contract, then, is void as it's not viable. It can't be done. Guess what that means, Frank? You got it.  Buddy Boy can walk. You're in breach. You can't perform your end so you have to allow him to mitigate his damages, unless you're still paying him. But there are other damages even if you pay him to sit home.

If PP recasts Todd, then he loses future earnings and could argue that ABC did damage to his career when they held him to a contract they knew they couldn't fulfill. Another actor took the part and was successful and now, PP doesn't want him. His brand, as an actor, is tarnished by playing an obscure, unpopular character on a failing show or they made him stay home and not work. Either one will do irreparable damage to his brand.   And I'll bet he could lose money due to that.  That's bad, Frank. ABC won't like that.

So, there you go. That would explain why they're holding firm about him being Todd on GH. It can't happen. They know it. PP knows it. You know it. Hell, even I know it and I'm on Spring Break. (Woo-Hoo- shoutout to Harry and Arrested Development). It's impossible and therefore, guess what?

Buddy Boy is walking. Howarth Out!! Looks like it to me, Frank.

But we'll see. I've been wrong before.  I didn't make law review and only made Dean's List a few times. I'm just a little professor from a fly over state. Yet even I can smell blood in the water when I read that article about your new characters. Go ahead. I hope it works for you.

Really, I don't care. I have Todd back in Llanview- no matter whose face he's got. And the GH fans hate you more than ever. Good job. Keep it up. You're working your way well into obscurity and take the actors with you. That's nice. But, hey, it's hard to be remembered when you're nobody.