The Way I Did It in “If I Did It” Was Not Done the Way He Said I Did It.

O.J. Simpson coauthored a book published in 2005 entitled “If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer,” in which he outlined how he would have done it if he had did it. In 1995, the plaintiff had written “The Perfect Alibi: O.J. Simpson’s Strategy for Murder,” in which the plaintiff outlined how O.J. did do it.

In Pourtmetour v. Simpson, No. CV-07-7308-RGK (C.D. Cal., March 4, 2008), the plaintiff sued O.J. for copyright infringement, claiming that how O .J. said he would have done it if he had did it copied how the plaintiff said O.J. did do it, marking the first time in history that someone who did it was sued for saying how he would have done it, if he did do it, in the manner in which someone else had said he had did it.

The court dismissed the plaintiff’s infringement claim because the plaintiff failed to plead that there was a substantial similarity between his book and O .J.’s book. The court explained that substantial similarity refers to extrinsic similarity, involving the same idea in both works, and intrinsic similarity, involving the same form of expression in both works.

Both books had the same general idea, and there were certain facts alleged in each book, but there was no extrinsic similarity because the general idea of a story and the general facts in that story are not copyrightable.

There was no intrinsic similarity because the plaintiff did not plead that both works were similar in their form of expression. The plaintiff’s book was written in the third person and concentrated on factual analysis, while O.J.’s book was written in the first person and had dialogue and a discussion of historical information unrelated to the murders.

So, O.J. got away with doing it again, if he did do it in the first place, while using the same general idea as the plaintiff as to how he did it, if he had done it. Got it?