On Friday, the lawsuit over the rights to the short-lived NBC poker franchise “Face the Ace” was scheduled to be filed in Federal Court in Las Vegas. Casino security officer Brandon McSmith has alleged ownership to the concept behind the Full Tilt Poker-backed game show. In March, the Eighth District Court in Nevada dismissed the lawsuit.
Originally, McSmith represented himself in the case and argued that he pitched the rights to a similar show to “Face the Ace” dubbed “All Star Poker Challenge.” Each heads-up poker match on McSmith’s show was worth $2,000 and the top prize was a trip to Sin City for the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Contrastingly, “Face the Ace,” which was largely a ratings flop, offered up a grand prize of $1 million. Now, McSmith has sought the services of Thomas Michaelides of TCM Law in Las Vegas.
Copyright infringement falls under federal jurisdiction and Michaelides told Poker News Daily that he hoped to file the lawsuit by the end of the day on Friday. McSmith believes his odds of success are greater if he comes armed to Federal Court with a lawyer. He explained to us, “Since I was going pro se, [District Court] Judge Michelle Leavitt showed an obvious bias towards the defense since I didn’t have a lawyer. Michaelides said that was to be expected. Now, Poker PROductions will have to put forth an answer, which is great for me because everything they put on record will go to the FBI.”
The FBI has contacted McSmith about his case, potentially because of the involvement of Full Tilt Poker. “Face the Ace” featured pros exclusively from the world’s second largest online poker site including Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, and Jennifer Harman. McSmith has been in contact with the office of Arlo Devlin-Brown of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Devlin-Brown’s officials have been behind a bevy of online poker funds seizures throughout the United States.
Michaelides told Poker News Daily that the defendants must first be served and then the discovery process will take place. The latter could take up to a year and a trial may follow. At any point, a settlement between the parties could occur. McSmith told Poker News Daily, “I’m very optimistic about it. The whole point is that Poker PROductions knows they did it. They’ve been extremely quiet about it and haven’t denied the allegation or complaint. Once we get into the discovery phase, it’s all over. They’ve lied three times on record. We just need to get into the discovery phase.”
Poker PROductions has been behind several of the industry’s top poker television series, including “Face the Ace,” “Poker After Dark,” and GSN’s “High Stakes Poker.” McSmith, meanwhile, explained that he has other poker shows to pitch for development and plans to write a tell-all book about the alleged misgivings of Poker PROductions, NBC, and Full Tilt Poker.
Still up in the air is the dollar amount that McSmith may receive. McSmith told Poker News Daily, “My lawyer is going to have to investigate the dollar value because there are several aspects of it. I would have had a show on the air. I have several shows in the works to pitch, one being a poker show.”
“Face the Ace” debuted last August on NBC with a 0.4 rating and a 2 share, or the equivalent of nearly 1.6 million viewers. The program aired in a Saturday night timeslot for its first two episodes before moving to afternoons. “The Sopranos” star Steve Schirripa hosted the show, which began with Ivey falling to challenger Jonathan Nygaard. However, rather than play on for $200,000, Nygaard elected to take the $40,000 first-round prize and run.
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest on the “Face the Ace” copyright infringement lawsuit.