Charles Harris claimed in a lawsuit that in 2008, as Winfrey began supporting Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Harris sent 10 copies of his booklet to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in hopes of gaining publicity. He followed up with several inquiries. Harris got no response, but according to the complaint, on the February 16, 2009 show, Winfrey allegedly read aloud exact questions that were included in the book.
Harris was seeking more than $100 million for alleged copyright infringement.
Winfrey filed a motion to dismiss, seeking sanctions for a frivolous lawsuit, saying that had the plaintiff obtained a public transcript of the show in question, he would have realized that the talk show host didn’t read Harris’ “exact same questions” aloud with the arguable exception of one: “Which one of our presidents weighed the most?”
