DUELING GURUS: How Infomercial King Anthony Robbins Had to Pay A Former Cab Driver for Copyright Infringement

On November 16, 2000, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a $655,900 jury verdict in favor of former taxi cab driver Wade Cook against Anthony Robbins, the well-known professional motivator. In Wade Cook v. Anthony Robbins, 232 F. 3d 736 (9th Cir. 2000), the appellate court held that Robbins infringed upon Cook’s best-selling stock guide, Wall Street Money Machine. In doing so, the court confirmed one of the tenets of copyright law: once an infringement is shown and the copyright owner is entitled to damages based upon the infringer’s profits, the burden of proving that the infringer’s profits were not as a result of the infringement is upon the infringer. To put it another way, the copyright owner simply has to prove the infringer’s gross revenue and does not have the burden of allocating the revenue to the use of the copyrighted material.

As explained by the appellate court, Anthony Robbins read Wade Cook’s Wall Street Money Machine in April 1996. Cook’s book contained the phrases “meter drop” and “rolling stock,” neither of which Robbins had ever used in his seminars. Robbins then attended a portion of Cook’s seminar, “Wall Street Workshop.” Robbins approached Cook, proposing a joint venture, “but the negotiations crumbled in June 1996.” Nonetheless, in Robbins’ revised financial seminars which were first presented in August 1996, Robbins began using the terms “meter drop” and “rolling stock.”

For the full story, please view the PDF.