Tom Leykis is annoyed with the FakeLeykis. Tom thought he had the world by the tail when Westwood One wanted to syndicate his show, but only 1 non-CBS station (that I know of) signed up, and CBS promptly dropped the Free FM talk format, leaving Tom with lots of free time on his hands.
Fellow unemployed talk show host Brian Whitman has produced a couple of podcasts of FakeLeykis, which caused Tom to have an attorney send a nasty lawyer letter, demanding that Brian (among other things) stop creating material that resembles something Tom might do if he still had a show. 1) Fair use has broad exceptions for parody in copyrights, which everyone in radio knows 2) Copyrights cover works in a fixed form, not ideas 3) Trademark 76548109 is for “Tom Leykis” not “Leykis”, and for use in radio talk shows – the internet is not radio You can’t trademark your last name. 4) Brian’s podcasts were pretty baaaad. 5) Since Brian is calling himself the fake Leykis, nobody could reasonably believe they are listening to the real thing 6) Californa has a law that gives a judge the power to assess the defendent’s lawyer fees against the plaintiff if the judge believes the intent was to interfere with someone’s first amendment rights or intimidate them with the threat of a lawsuit. 6) I am not a lawyer
Having said that, I would be happy if Tom appeared somewhere on radio. While I didn’t agree with some of what he did, the show was entertaining and not cookie-cutter radio stuff.
Phil Henrie adds in his own 2 cents on youtube [here]. His parody of combover boy is much more brutal and funny.