Chili Peppers Sue TV Show Over Californication Name

Red Hot Chili Peppers took up arms with Showtime Networks on Monday and filed a lawsuit over the name of its Californication television series.

The show, which stars David Duchovny as a novelist struggling with writers' block and a mid-life crisis, shares the name of the band's 1999 Grammy Award-nominated album — the same Californication that frontman Anthony Kiedis says "is the signature CD, video and song of the band's career... For some TV show to come along and steal our identity is not right."

The suit alleges unfair competition, dilution of the value of the name and unjust enrichment, and claims the title is "inherently distinctive, famous... and immediately associated in the mind of the consumer" with the Chili Peppers.

The series also has a character named Dani California, which the suit points out is a song off the band's 2006 album, Stadium Arcadium. Showtime Networks, Twilight Time Films, Aggressive Mediocrity and show creator and executive producer Tom Kapinos were named as defendants in the suit.

The band are looking for the barring of Showtime's and other defendants' use of Californication, damages, restitution and any profits derived from use of the name.

Kapinos told reporters earlier this year that he first heard the name in reference to Oregon.

"Apparently in the '70s there were bumper stickers that said 'Don't Californicate Oregon,' because Californians were coming up there, and I just thought it was a great, great title for this show," he said in an Associated Press article.

ChartAttack believes that The Rheostatics should sue both the Chili Peppers and the TV show folks because the band used the word "Californication" in "California Dreamline" from 1992's Whale Music, which was named the 10th best Canadian album of all time in a music expert poll published by Chart in March 2005.

Showtime filed an application to trademark "Californication" as a series, but the rights have yet to be granted. Federal registration isn't a necessity to claim rights to a trademark in the U.S.

Rock band Living Colour were unsuccessful a decade ago in their similar lawsuit against the Fox TV network and others over the program In Living Color.