TWiT Sues Twitter After Falling Way Past Rock Bottom

Update 2: This is the audio that Leo thinks will win his case. Listen and tell us what you think.

Update 1: Linus Tech Tips addressed the conflict, saying “I don’t personally think most people even know what TWiT is.” (58:21)

Lisa Laporte reaching for that hopeful Twitter settlement money

When Leo Laporte showed his inbox Sunday, we wondered what a message from his lawyer stating “We will file the complaint Tuesday since the courts are closed on Monday” was about.

We started searching the Northern District of California Courts and the federal PACER system, but we found nothing.

Unfortunately, TechCrunch scouped us.

TWiT sued Twitter for trademark infringement.

The chat room was/is muted for hours, of course. Ycombinator discussions are happening — including saying TD is “made by a hateful obsessive” and “run by an ex-employee”.

Leo Laporte is alleging that some reasonable person would confuse Twitter for TWiT’s useless trademarks. Nobody knows what TWiT is!

As one Total Drama chat room member put it:

“One shows NFL games, one shows a fat man’s stubby pecker

Leo’s lawyers wrote, without irony:

“The TWIT mark is a strong, distinctive mark, in which substantial goodwill has developed to the benefit of plaintiffs Laporte and TWiT.”

Wow.

Leo — probably Lisa — wants a settlement. That’s how desperate they are for money. They even enabled monetization on their YouTube videos recently. They want that Twitter money to keep going on cruises since their actual business is toast.

The embedded Scribd version is below, but here’s the PDF if you want to read the complaint at your leisure.

TWiT vs. Twitter on Scribd

Inside TWiT – January 7, 2018

Remember when Mike Elgan fell for a “Hey, would ya blow me?” joke but couldn’t pronounce it correctly?

Leo Laporte rang in the new year by bragging for the live stream in an empty room (he fired all the employees).

Thanks to a tip, we have this impromptu Inside TWiT. In it Leo:

  • Brags about a private Caribbean cruise
  • Gloats about destroying another drone by flying it into the ocean — a violation of MARPOL regulations
  • Describes Henry’s uninteresting interest in hot sauce
  • Realizes TWiT is “the AltaVista of podcasting”
  • Laments that hot wings-related shows on YouTube are far more popular than TWiT
  • Wonders where he went wrong
  • Gets pissed that Neil DeGrasse Tyson will go on a hot wings show but not Triangulation
  • Threatens to not pay the remaining employees (Burke admits he will work for free)
  • Laments the $8-9k rent for the next 8.5 years

For your sanity, I did a bunch of quick jump cuts on the first vacation bragging part so you don’t have to hear his grating rhetorical style. I can’t even explain how bad it is to edit this type of video, listening to him say the same things over and over to get the edit points.

Please continue to send in tips!

Also, be sure to tune in to TWiT for CES live coverage. Just kidding. FMCP will be there (Leo doesn’t have to pay for a place for him to stay), but Bryan and Kara are fired, so there’s nobody to run a camera and no money for a LiveU.