But a rip-off and a cover-up? After the jump, check out the video alleging Wipeout's fairly obvious theft — banned from YouTube, no less, thanks to ABC.

It would be easy enough to say what comes around goes around: MXC itself is a hyperedited mess of Japanese game show clips, recut and dubbed to mimic "a parody of over-produced network reality shows," notes co-creator and executive producer Larry Strawther — except the clips are licensed and have been running on Spike for almost five years now. Strawther apparently fought back after seeing Wipeout for the first time; you can imagine how poorly that went:

Within five days, ABC lawyers induced YouTube to block the video for copyright infringement. The video is obviously covered by the copyright act's fair use provision (Section 107) which explicitly allows usage for criticism, comment and parody. ...

YouTube did not once notify me or ask for a response before taking action to block the video. Even more disturbing to me is they have apparently altered the search results algorithm to benefit ABC and punish MXC. Whereas before Tuesday, June 24, if you typed in both "MXC" and "Wipeout" you would have seen at least hundreds of fan-generated videos showing clips from our show MXC. Now if you type in MXC and Wipeout, you are taken to results for motocross — which uses MX as an acronym.

Le scandal! Strawther is pretty classic, though, essentially claiming on his site that Spike isn't paying him for MXC reruns and implying that ABC might be worthy of picking up the slack. We see a cease-and-desist in his future long before any settlement, but it's a valuable object lesson to you network execs out there: If you must steal, keep it to talent shows and crime franchises. Falling idiots in helmets are way, way too easy to trace.

• 'MXC' creator says 'Wipeout' yanked YouTube video [The Live Feed]
• MXC vs. Wipeout - a comparison [LocalSports.Biz]

[Minion's Wikipedia page] mentions that the film included some "minor details" borrowed from Joe Frank, and that Frank successfully sued over it. But the theft was far from minor. Many of the details in the film's first half hour are similar, if not copied outright: the chance meeting of a man and a kooky but sexy woman; the woman's offer to set the man up with some of her artist roommate's plaster of paris bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweights; the man's late-night phone call to the woman; his cab ride to meet her, at the end of which his only cash flies out the window; her wearing of a loosely tied bathrobe when she answers the door; her tale of having been raped by man who came down the fire escape; and so forth.

We're also directed to a 2000 profile of Frank pointing out that he was "paid handsomely by producers of a Hollywood film (which he won't name) that plagiarized his dialogue." We've often wondered if this had anything to do with Scorsese's tendency toward straight book adaptations, remakes and biopics since then; Hearst will surely have an answer for that one by Independence Day.

• The Scandalous Origins of Martin Scorsese's 'After Hours' [Panopticist]