On April 6, lawyers will assemble downtown to approve the settlement of the A Million Little Pieces litigation against Random House and James Frey. Did you buy the book in the U.S.? Are you willing to swear you were misled? Congratulations! You're in the settlement class! But you'll only have until May 15 to get your $23.95 for your hardcovers, and you'll sign away the right to have a beef with Frey ever again. [UPDATE: That's a proposed date—real date to be hashed out later.] Best of all, they've already registered the website, with the sexy URL of AMLPSettlement.com. Come and marvel at the web skills of the legal community!

Here we go! Viacom, which has been "negotiating" with YouTube for months in an attempt to protect its valuable clips of foul-mouthed cartoon children and crank-calling pieces of felt, has upped the ante in its battle with the Google property. They're suing the fuck out of them, Kurt Eichenwald style! Full memo after the jump. This one's gonna be good, we can feel it.

Former Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald has written a long, vehement, must-read letter, providing his own time-line of his meeting and interactions with Justin Berry, the subject of his online kiddie-porn story of December, 2005. He also describes his fight with the Times over disclosing his interactions with Berry, and says that he's begun legal proceedings against Debbie Nathan, a reporter who he describes as "a woman who has a vendetta against me." He describes her account of Justin Berry's recent courthouse appearance as "misleading and false." He is also totally, totally pissed off.

Oh, Jennifer Aniston's redacted nipples! We've never before been so happy to see them, as they herald a sparkly-new lawsuit. The Smoking Gun reports that Universal City Studios has filed a copyright infringement suit against Mario Lavandeira, claiming that the topless footage was stolen during production of The Break Up. Unfortunately, they're not seeking monetary damages, but they do request a court order "directing the U.S. Marshall to seize" the copyrighted material from Lavandeira. Hot!

Sure, semi-spurious libel suits against publishers aren't usually anything to celebrate, but this one is special. Special K, that is. We're delighted to report that Alex Kuczynski has been named as a co-defendant in a lawsuit being brought against her publisher, Doubleday! The plaintiff is a plastic surgeon who claims that Special K. maligned him in Beauty Junkies, her recent non-bestseller. Dr. Arnold W. Klein, who specializes in 'injectables,' is demanding $10 million in damages, claiming that Doubleday knew that the book's claims of his negligence, incompetence, and his conflict of interest with a pharmaceutical company were false. He also — and this is the really sad part — says that the book libels him by reporting that he "lost control of his bladder" when faced with a troubling allegation in another case. His rebuttal? "Klein did not lose control of his bladder for any reason remotely connected to the case or his concern about the supposed 'coup,' referred to above," the complaint states. So why did he pee himself? Rest assured, we're looking into it.

We have to admit, we've often found ourselves guilty of harboring less than charitable feelings towards the group of bums who loiter drunkenly on the corner of our block all day and night, occasionally interrupting their nonstop revelry to have teary fights, vom, and whip out their mottled, chicken sausage-ish wieners and pee. But it's never crossed our mind to litigate. Then again, we don't own a Madison Avenue antiques boutique. And also, we're not the world's biggest asshole. Not so Karl Kemp, who is suing the four unfortunates who huddle outside his pricey shop for one million dollars (in quarters, one assumes). Kemp isn't just motivated by pure avarice, though: he actually has the greater good in mind.

Today's Observer follows up on that gay-discrimination lawsuit at Sullivan & Cromwell, and gives you all the information you need to know (the firm denies everything, complainant Charney is representing himself because Lambda Legal Defense wouldn't take the case, Sullivan has a "gay-friendly" rep in the industry, etc.). More to the point, we've taken these photos from Sullivan's website: Charney is at right, while Eric Krautheimer (of "I just took a shit while reading this, and some might still be on there for you" fame) is at left. We're not well-versed in this aspect of the law, but, come on. We are so backing the hot gay guy.

We got an e-mail this morning from one Aaron Charney, who informed us that

This one's a lot less irresponsible a rumor than we usually monger, because Hearst has actually been served with papers, but a tipster writes:

How much does it suck to be UTube.com? A lot, according to the company (Universal Tube and Rollform) that now gets over 2 million unique visitors a month (up from 1500) from braindead surfers looking for YouTube.com. So they're suing the video site for the bandwidth cost.

• Steve Ballmer, given a chance to finally be right about something Steve Jobs was wrong about, fucks it up — iPods carry more legal music than stolen music. [CD Freaks]

What identifies the big players in tech? Revenue may indicate it, mindshare too. But truly deep pockets get targeted by high-profile lawsuits. Take, for example, the lawsuits filed against the Big Three this month, here listed from most worthy to most frivolous.

Video sites like YouTube and Google Video are sloppy about allowing TV shows and other copyrighted material on their sites — and we all thank them for that — but take a hard line against anything R-rated. Now we know why.

Forgive the late notice, but back in March, unbeknownst to all of us, a broken man sued Yahoo for robbing him of his world-changing invention. Yes, I am talking about ChatAbles.

No wonder MySpace is scrambling to stop sexual harassment — everyone who gets laid through the site ends up suing MySpace.

Settlements, it seems, are busing out all over these days. Not only did Martha Stewart announce on Today this morning that she's close to settling with the SEC, but word also came last night that the sexual-harassment suit against Billboard magazine reached a settlement yesterday morning, as jury selection entered its second day. As you'll recall, two fired Billboard editors charged that the mag discriminated against minorities, encouraged workplace hookups, and created an oversexualized workplace — as most famously exemplified by exec editor Ken Schlager, who allegedly kept on his office shelf a green dildo, which from time to time he brandished to female employees. The fired employees wanted $27 million; today their lawyer is pronouncing them "very happy" with the settlement. Sadly, though, the rest of us are far less happy: This means we'll never get to hear about the dildo in open court. Alas.

What's happened since Tim O'Reilly's lawyers attacked Tom Raftery like a rabid shark attacking a kitten? (In other words, sent him a cease-and-desist against holding any "Web 2.0" conferences because O'Reilly's trademarking that name?) THESE THINGS HAPPENED:

Tech publisher Tim O'Reilly's lawyers C&D'd an Irish non-profit two weeks before its "Web 2.0 half-day conference" for violating a pending trademark. Sure, Tim O'Reilly (pictured and also happy to see you) may have every right to register the mark "Web 2.0" for the use of conferences — he did popularize the phrase, and he has been running Web 2.0 Conferences for two years. But dudes, if there's anything to learn from Sensei Cory Doctorow, it's that reality doesn't apply to the blogosphere. Thus:

• Animal Magazine editors sneak into Apple's 24-hour store without waiting in line. Then they pull the classy move of setting its website as the test computers' home page. They also confirm that the SNL staff shouldn't head out without makeup. [Animal Magazine via Blogebrity]

Kazaa maker Sharman Networks — the file-sharing company that once had the balls to sue the record industry for copyright infringement while they were doing the same to Sharman — sued P2PNet for libel last week.