Yoko Ono’s not a very nice lady, is she? First she split up The Beatles, then she was responsible for a series of musical abortions with the Plastic Ono band and now she’s going out of her way to sully the memory of her late husband by trying to grind as many shekels out of him as possible.

According to Jam, Ono has threatened to sue the owner of a Dundee pub which is dedicated to the former Beatle. Indications suggest that the ”singer” has had her lawyers send a letter to Mike Craig, the owner of “Lennon’s Bar”, that accuses him of copyright infringement.

Craig claims to have spent thousands of pounds on Beatles memorabilia for his pub which was opened in tribute to a member of one of world music’s most important acts. However, the letter from Ono’s lawyers is demanding that he removes all the memorabilia and changes the venue’s name within 14 days or he will face legal action.

After all, no-one but Yoko is allowed to remember John Lennon because if people are allowed to remember him and his contribution to the world in their own way then she would disappear in a puff of smoke and our editor Mof Gimmers would have no-one to fake retweets of.

The owner of ‘Lennon’s’ said: “It’s ridiculous. The pub’s been called Lennon’s for about five years, but the signs will be removed this week.” Before probably muttering “evil witch” or words to that effect under his breath.

Ono is famously litigious in her pursuit of a quick dollar. She has been involved in several legal disputes in relation to her late husband, in an effort to maintain her own ailing relevance. In 2006, she filed a £5.35m lawsuit against EMI and its subsidiary Capitol Records for “wilfully and knowingly under-reporting royalties.” She needs to be kept in hemp.

In 2008, meanwhile, it was reported that she sued the singer Lennon Murphyfor using the name Lennon as a performance name. Although the money-grabbing hippy later revealed that she had not sued the singer, her legal team did object after Murphy applied to the US trademark office for exclusive rights to the name Lennon for musical performances. Clearly those rights should be deferred to a dead man.

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It seems that intellectual property is the new black and acting like a litigious dick every time someone uses one of your ideas and runs with it. For example, we could sue the entire world for ripping off our idea that Justin Bieber is a travesty and is therefore something to be held up as a hate-figure. But we don’t! It’s a good idea!

Why shouldn’t you, the general public, be able to use our intellectual “Bieber is a Sodwallet” property as your own? It’s a free country.

Of course, it looks like America isn’t. David LaChapelle, a photographer, is suing pop star and domestic abuse victim Rihanna over the content of her S&M video (more on that video, here). You know… the sexy one that been banned in loads of countries ’cause it’s so totally extreme and stuff. His idea, unfortunately.

Naturally hecklerspray would never comment on the ongoing civil case of one attention-grabbing twat basket suing another as that could be seen as contempt and we could be taken to America and locked in a cupboard while a gruff Southerner poked electrodes into our collective anus.

Not what we’re into.

In saying that though, it should be pointed out that at a glance, there are a lot of similarities between the two shoots. He might even win. Let’s face it- who cares? Unfortunately the writ was filed by LaChapelle himself, crawling to the courthouse dressed as a giant baby.

It’s a progression that could have been nipped in the bud before LaChapelle lay crying in the foyer of the courthouse, banging his feet off the floor because he’d crawled into the edge of a chair. You see, LaChapelle suffers from a rare psychological condition called “Westwood’s Syndrome” or “Crisicuntamania”, the symptoms of which are similar to the film Benjamin Button only without the necessity of pretending to give a fuck.

“Westwood’s Syndrome”, named after its most high-profile sufferer, comes about where the patient starts off their life wearing clothes styled in an adult way. Paisley patterns, cords, brogues- that kind of thing. As the patient progresses through life they begin to regress through clothing styles until, around middle-age they suddenly stand out from society for dressing like teenagers.

Cases vary in their severity, so far the patient for which the syndrome was named has not regressed as far as LaChapelle who now dresses in a towelette nappy and powder-blue romper suit for all but the most pressing engagement.

Will there ever be a cure? Modern medicine is yet to find one. The thinking among psychologists is that if sufferers were told “You look like a daft git. Grow up and put some chinos on.” at around the age of 39 then the progression of the illness could be arrested. For LaChapelle and Westwood, it’s far too late and it’s only a matter of time until they’re burbling around in their own faeces taking photos of scantily clad women or talking incomprehensibly about hip-hop respectively.

Hopefully though, by suing the Barbadian singer and getting his name in the gossip headlines to prove he’s relevant, LaChapelle has been able to draw attention to the debilitating condition and the effect it can have on famous (?), middle-aged men’s lives. “Chrisicuntamania” is ruining the lives of the rich and the famous. Sometimes behind closed doors, sometimes not. You can help by copying the work of famous middle-aged men. Only that way, will they be able to come out and face their condition. In a court of law.

heckler note: It took us about three reads of this story before we realised that Rihanna wasn’t being sued by comedian Dave Chapelle.

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There are a lot of people who really, really, really love JK Rowling’s Harry Potter tales. In fairness, there’s millions of flies that like swarming around dung piles, so numbers don’t necessarily account for taste, right? That said, as one hecklerspray reader pointed out, “there’s no such thing as a bad story”. Unless you count the plethora of really bad stories out there.

Either way, Rowling has been wildly successful with Potter, watching her daft little books become gigantic blockbuster movies.

However, some claimed that JK Rowling (real name, Jamiroquai Rowling) had copied a load of ideas from a book that features Willy The Wizard. Sounds amazing doesn’t it? (No).

And so, the plagiarism case was started and everyone took it very seriously, despite the fact that all cases had to be presented with really stupid names in the mix, like Willy The Wizard and Dumbledore.

Did JK Rowling copy someone’s ideas? Well, an American judge doesn’t think so, dismissing the case that alleged Goblet of Fire was pilfered from author Adrian Jacobs and his The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard book.

A spokesman for her US publisher Scholastic said:

“The court’s swift dismissal supports our position that the case was completely without merit and that comparing Willy The Wizard to the Harry Potter series was absurd. Judge Scheindlin clearly agreed, stating, ‘The contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity’.

“Scholastic will continue to vigorously defend any such frivolous claims challenging the originality of Harry Potter and the brilliant imagination of its author, JK Rowling.”

Yeah! How does Rowling come up with the idea of someone having a superpower and being The Chosen One and all that? We’ve certainly never seen its like before in fiction or mythology!

She’s not completely off the hook yet. Rowling may still have to appear in a UK court after the High Court ruled in October the claim was “improbable” but still had a chance of success.

The hilariously named Mr Justice Kitchin refused applications by Rowling and her publishers, Bloomsbury, for an immediate judgement.

So yeah. That’s that then. What about that girl who is in the films and her new haircut? (etc)

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We thought Heidi Montag didn’t tell her family about her marriage to Spencer Pratt because of a deep sense of burning shame.

But we were wrong. It turns out that Heidi Montag didn’t tell her family about her marriage to Spencer Pratt because they didn’t actually get married. Apparently Heidi and Spencer did had a wedding ceremony in Mexico, but it doesn’t count because it was only a symbolic wedding and no official permits were filled in.

So Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt were just attention seeking by getting married; something completely out of character for both of them. It’s hard to know how to react to this news, other than fighting the urge to hit both Spencer and Heidi in the nose with a symbolic cricket bat, then push them down a symbolic flight of stairs and then set some symbolic dogs on them. Remember, it doesn’t count if it’s symbolic.

We’ll admit to feeling a frisson of excitement when we heard Monday’s news that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt from The Hills had got married to each other in Mexico. It was like watching them admit defeat, an acknowledgment that nobody on the planet could ever put up with their constant overprivileged braying and galactic self-regard so they may as well just swallow their pride and stick with each other.

And it gave us hope for the future, too – not just for the clotheared punditry industry, but also because we knew that if Heidi Montag’s shrill, off-kilter sense of entitlement ever genetically mixed with Spencer Pratt’s sneering wankery and guff-coloured beard to form a baby, then at least it’d make everyone else’s kids seem less awful in comparison.

But guess what? It turns out that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt didn’t get married after all. You see, the rumour goes that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt were drinking cocktails on the beach when all of a sudden they decided to get married. Within the hour rings were bought, vows were written and a team of reporters from US Weekly were in place to record the entire ceremony in extensive detail.

But the problem with that is that Americans getting married in Mexico have to go through a five-day process involving health and birth certificates being translated into Spanish and blood tests, and even then the state of California wouldn’t legally recognise it. So, long story short, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt aren’t even nearly married. AP reports:

The couple acknowledged Wednesday that their wedding ceremony  was symbolic, and not legally binding. “We had a beautiful ceremony here … officiated by a minister and photographed by the hotel photographer. We’ve never been happier,” said the couple in a statement provided by Us Weekly. “And, like other elopements that happen outside the country, we’ll take care of the legal details when we get home.”

A symbolic wedding. We don’t know about you, but that sounds like either compulsive attention-seeking of the very wost kind or a needlessly complicated way to get free cake.

But so what if this was all just a cynical attempt at keeping Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt in the headlines and that the last person to pull a ruse like this was Anna Nicole Smith and look what happened to her. The important thing here is to stay positive.

For instance, if the Heidi Montag/ Spencer Pratt wedding isn’t legal, then they’ll want to have another marriage ceremony to make it legal in the near future, and that gives us plenty of time to buy lots of confetti to throw at them. Well, OK, not confetti. Gravel. Razor sharp gravel. And clumps of salmonella. We want to throw gravel and salmonella at Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt.

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Everybody seems to be getting in on the comic book-to-movie adaptation thing, with easily one of the most anticipated being that of Watchmen.

While normally this would be greeted with trepidation and a slight amount of fear, the sheer quality of the source material, combined with the fact that the film is supposed to actually be, y’know – good – has people sweating around the groin, awaiting next year’s release.

That is, unless Fox have their way and ban the film from ever coming out.

Oh, we’re not kidding here – that’s what they’re trying to do in the latest of legal battles that shows just how the company is actually forged from Satan’s testicles themselves. There’s evil, then there’s Fox evil.

This is the company that cancelled Family Guy in its prime – though they did bring it back, they actually ended up becoming more evil by letting the damn thing continue, seeing as it’s turned into utter tripe in recent years. Then there was the cancellation of Firefly, but we won’t go into that – it’s still too painful. They cancel, they block, they ruin and they devour, and they never seem to stop.

Next on their list is Zack Snyder, director of 300, and his adaptation of Watchmen, the classic 80s comic series that ranks amongst the finest books ever written. Apparently. With some nice spoof adverts.

The film is bankrolled and due for release through Warner Bros early next year, but some convoluted and complicated legal wrangling has revealed that Fox are claiming that they own the rights to a film release of the property.

While this came about in February of this year, well before Watchmen fever had truly got a hold of the internets, it has been decided recently by a judge that Warner Bros could not have the case thrown out of court as they had asked.

What this means is that Fox are free to pursue their copyright infringement case against Warner Bros, and are looking to get back either damages for the trouble – sure to be a few quid at the very least – or, in a worst case scenario, ban the movie from being released indefinitely.

And it looks like Fox‘s band of lawyers, built as we all know from pure evil, are looking to force a worst case scenario – pushing to kill the project altogether rather than take some of its potentially huge box office. A statement released by Fox read:

“Warner Bros.’ production and anticipated release of ‘The Watchmen’ motion picture violates 20th Century Fox’s long-standing motion picture rights in ‘The Watchmen’ property.”

Which is pretty standard stuff until you realise they seemingly don’t even care enough to get the name of the comic right in the first place. So if they don’t even care about that, do they care about you, the fans – the public? Do they bollocks. It’s idiots in suits playing at running the world again, and it’s getting to be a bit annoying now.

But hey, at least Fox can clear the way for their own films to come out next year, and there’ll be no risk of them being compared side-by-side with Watchmen. That could be viewed as a good point. If you were mental.

The case is far from settled, though Fox are pushing for it to be fast-tracked through the courts. Probably so they can get back to stealing candy from orphanages, or burning down babies or something.

Today’s vitriolic rant brought to you by hunger pains and a lack of coffee. We will resume normal service shortly.

The Britney Spears/ Kevin Federline child custody case has been going on forever, mainly because most people agree that the kids would be better off being looked after by a pack of hungry bears than either of them.

But, although the custody case must be emotionally hard for both Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, it's only financially hard for Britney Spears because she's paying all the legal bills.

And now Britney Spears wants that to stop. Britney's lawyers have been in court trying to get Kevin Federline to hire a lawyer with his own funds, but Kevin's not scared. If Britney wins this legal fight then he'll just have to find the best lawyers that a scrunched-up $5 bill and half a packet of Funyuns will buy.

Kevin Federline is an idiot. There, we've said it. What do you mean you already knew? What do you mean that Kevin Federline's forays into the world of hip-hop and autobiographical biopic scriptwriting left you in no doubt of his unquestionable stupidity?

No, listen. Kevin Federline is an idiot. A gigantic plank. A gold-plated knicker-brained bell-end. All that other stuff is just window dressing. Kevin Federline – the man who got Britney Spears to pay his legal fees in their custody battle because he was so poor – was recently caught leaving a $2,000 tip for a $365 meal.

Britney's lawyers have found out about Kevin's gormless tipping practises, and it's safe to say they're not exactly thrilled. If Kevin Federline can throw down that sort of gratuity in a restaurant, they're saying, then he's obviously rich enough to pay for his own $600-an-hour lawyers. And, yes, this means even more dreary court appearances. Lucky old us. The Associated Press reports:

Phillips had asked for the hearing to challenge a move by Federline's lead lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, to have Spears pay his legal bills. Commissioner Scott Gordon did not rule during the hearing, part of which was held behind closed doors. Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini said the decision may be made Tuesday. During the hearing, Phillips said that Federline's lawyers have billed excessively and are entitled to only about $150,00 to $175,000. Phillips also said Federline has the money to pay his lawyers himself, citing excessive personal spending by him. "God bless!" Phillips said. "If he's willing to tip someone that much for serving him, he should be willing to pay his legal fees."

Kevin Federline will no doubt argue here that the discrepancy between his earnings and Britney Spears' earnings are more than enough to justify her paying both sides of the legal fees. Not only that, but if Britney Spears ever gets short of cash she can always sell those stalker-sent dildos of hers on eBay.

However, Britney's lawyers do have a point – does Kevin Federline really need a $600-per-hour legal team if he's not prepared to pay for them himself? The simple truth is that he doesn't. He really doesn't. Although fighting such a high-profile custody case usually requires a bunch of high-powered lawyers, let's not forget that Kevin Federline is fighting a custody battle against Britney Spears.

Honestly, Kevin Federline could have a homeless goat in a bowtie represent him in court and he'd still get to keep the kids. This is Britney Spears we're talking about, remember.

Read more:

Spears' Lawyer Fights K-Fed's Legal Fees - Associated Press 

We know. You thought that all this kerfuffle about Britney Spears would die down now that has to spend the next fortnight locked up in a psychiatric hospital.

Chance'd be a fine thing. No, instead focus has shifted away from Britney Spears' well-being to all of Britney Spears' stuff. Yesterday in court effectively saw a fight between Britney and her Dad about whether or not he should be her conservator while she's banged up in the nuthouse. Turns out he can.

So now Jamie Spears is in charge of Britney's estate and finances, plus he'll also be legally obliged to shave his hair off, drink 20 Red Bulls a day and have his vagina on full display whenever he gets out of a car. Hey, we don't make the rules.

As shocking as it is to hear that Britney Spears is so gravely disabled that doctors have decided to keep her locked up in a padded room for a fortnight, perhaps it's the best thing for her. It'll be the first fortnight for a year where the paparazzi hasn't shadowed her every move, she won't have to keep turning up to court only to be told that she can't see her children and her only responsibility is to cover her ears at night to block the tortured screams of the other psychiatric patients. Britney can just take it easy and claw back some of her life for her own.

Alternatively, Britney could oppose everything that she's asked to do and start a ludicrously bitter public legal feud with her own father for trying to take care of her estate while she's incapacitated. But, no, let's credit Britney Spears with some intelligence. Only an idiot would do something like tha… wait, that's exactly what Britney Spears has done, isn't it? Arses. E! Online reports:

Court Commissioner Reva Goetz tapped Jamie Spears and Andrew Wallett as interim guardians of the 26-year-old's welfare after deeming her incapable of caring for herself at this time… An attorney named Adam Streisand appeared before Goetz on Monday and claimed he was retained by Spears over the weekend. She "expressed to me her very strong desire" that her father not be named conservator of her estate, said Streisand. "There has been an estrangement for quite some time. With him as conservator, that is causing her more agitation and more distress."

However, since she's now legally Gravely Disabled and therefore can't even be trusted to feed or dress herself, Britney Spears was never going to get very far trying to make complicated legal appeals, allowing Jamie Spears to keep control of all things Britney until at least February 14.

And, really, we can't see what Britney's problem is – surely of all the people in the world, her own father will have less of an agenda than anyone else who wants to control her $40 million estate. Agreed, he might tinker with the decision-making process a little now he's in charge, but that's to be expected. And he might use some of Britney's money to fund his dream of becoming a gangsta rapper, but there's nothing wrong with that. And he might digitally alter all of Britney Spears' songs so it just sounds like she's yelping "I love you Daddy" over and over again in a creepy child's voice, but… oh you get the idea.

Read more:

Britney Unable to Fight Daddy Day Care – E! Online 

Here at hecklerspray, we know that there are many things we can’t do for you. We know we can’t rub that painful bunion on your heel, and we know we can’t buy you that box set of Good Times. 

And we certainly can’t help you if you’re in an accident. We’re just gonna keep on driving, because Tom Cruise is really the only one that can really help. Just listen to his widely leaked Tom Cruise: Scientologist video that you weren’t supposed to see, and haven’t mirthfully shared with all of your friends.

But we can report on the inevitable fallout from said video. Today’s fallout involves the Church of Scientology’s legal team sending scary letters to Gawker Media because they first posted the video. Yay!

Actually, it’s one scary letter, and it’s not so much scary as it is your nana waving a knobby finger at you because you fed all of the stale circus peanut marshmallow candies to her teacup poodle.  

Nonetheless, lawyers representing the Church of Scientology have cited copyright infringement on Gawker Media, claiming that it was unlawful for the Gawker to distribute crazy Scientology videos that didn't belong to them. Here’s a snippet of the letter: 

“Our office represents the Church of Scientology International (“CSI”), the owner of the copyright of a video of a private CSI religious event filmed in 2004… we were recently notified by my client that this copyrighted work had been stolen from one of its Churches.” 

Gawker Media issued a return letter that pretty much said, ‘yeah, we did nothing wrong, so take a flying leap’, and do not appear to be complying with the request to remove the video anytime soon.   

Well, we’re taking a couple of things away from this. First, the video was made in 2004, which looks to be before Tom Cruise got his teeth fixed, making the video extra creepy. Second, we finally know what CSI stands for, and they hold their meetings in poorly lit rooms with blue lighting and get DNA test results in minutes and they can determine by analysing dust off a spec of mouse dung that the ex-manager’s best friend’s butcher killed the hooker. Fascinating.

Read more: 

Church of Scientology Claims Copyright Infringement – Gawker

Hey kids, don't bother trying hard at school; it turns out that the quickest way to financial success is to knock up a borderline-deluded superstar a couple of times – just ask Kevin Federline.

As we've told you every day since pretty much the dawn of man, Kevin Federline and Britney Spears are currently fighting for custody of their two children. If she didn't act so crazy, Britney would have been the obvious choice for custody because a) she's the mother, b) the father is Kevin Federline, a man who looks like he still needs to use children's safety scissors and c) she's loaded. Even though she does keep acting crazy, though, the last point still stands true. But if Britney Spears wanted to exploit that by riding the custody battle out until Kevin Federline runs out of money and gives up, she's in for a shock – Britney Spears has been ordered to pay for Kevin Federline's legal bills as well as her own.

It's never been in doubt that Britney Spears is a special mother. After all, it takes a certain calibre of person to call your children accidents in public, endanger their lives by driving with them perched on your lap and then have a full-scale head-shaving meltdown that sees you end up babbling about being the Antichrist in rehab. 

But just to reinforce that point, the judge presiding over the interminable custody fight between Britney Spears and Kevin Federline has ruled that Britney Spears now has to pay the legal bills for Kevin Federline as well as herself. And now that she's effectively funding the world's biggest negative publicity campaign against herself and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to have her children torn from her forever, that has to make Britney Spears the specialest mother ever.

Because, as much of a loving father as Kevin Federline is, he's also a workshy sod and a hopeless rapper to boot. As court documents from last week show, it took all of last year for Kevin Federline to make what Britney Spears earns in a month. And that's a month of nothing but listless idleness too – now that Britney has an album out that figure could skyrocket. Meanwhile Kevin Federline has to live off the $3,000 he got in royalties from PopoZao, whatever money he's got left from that Super Bowl insurance advert and all the handouts he gets from Britney. How's a hustler supposed to piece together an effective legal strategy on a shoestring like that?

The short answer is that he isn't – now that it's become apparent that Kevin Federline can't afford his lawyers it's down to Britney Spears to cough up the outstanding $120,000. Commissioner Scott M. Gordon wrote in his ruling that:

"Even if a party has the ability to pay his or her own fees, a disparity in the parties' respective circumstances may itself demonstrate relative 'need.'"

But if Britney Spears is now paying to try and keep her children and paying for Kevin Federline to take her children away from her, doesn't she get any sort of say in the matter? If we were Britney Spears we'd only agree to pay Kevin Federline's legal bill so long as he promised to sack his current lawyer and instead employ someone who'd be less likely to paint Britney Spears as a terrible mother in court.

True, even a blind Albanian orphan with learning disabilities and no grasp of the American legal system whatsoever would have trouble painting Britney Spears as anything other than a terrible mother but, hey, it's probably still worth a shot anyway, right?