LOS ANGELES (CN) - Two producers have restated five-year old claims that NBC Universal made millions by stealing their idea for a show about a team of paranormal investigators and repackaged it as the hit reality show "Ghost Hunters."
     Parapsychologist Larry Montz and producer Daena Smoller say NBC pilfered their "innovative" concept for the show even though they pitched the idea numerous times to the company between 1996 and 2001.
     The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, is the pair's second stab at damages after the 9th Circuit threw out their copyright claims in 2006. The appeals court allowed them to reinstate their breach of implied contract and breach of confidence claims.
     Late last year, NBC Universal asked the Supreme Court to toss the remaining claims, but the court refused to hear the appeal.
     NBC distributes "Ghost Hunters" and its spinoffs, which airs on its affiliate the Syfy cable channel (formerly the Sci Fi Channel) and is produced by defendant Pilgrim Films & Television Inc.
     Montz and Smoller say they conceived the idea in 1981 and presented it to NBC under various names, including "Ghost Hunters," "Ghost Expeditions" and "Haunted."
     "Plaintiffs presented the concepts to defendants consistent with well-established customs and practices of the entertainment industry and on the mutually understood condition and bilateral expectation that defendants would not disclose, use and/or exploit the concepts without plaintiffs' permission and/or without compensating plaintiffs in the form of payments, credit and other consideration to the plaintiffs," the complaint states.
     "However, instead of compensating plaintiffs for their concepts as they committed to do, the NBC defendants teamed up with and used the Pilgrim defendants, their agents, employees and/or alter egos, to misappropriate, use and exploit plaintiffs' concepts by producing the hit series 'Ghost Hunters' without plaintiffs' permission and without plaintiffs' permission and/or without compensating plaintiffs in the form of payments, credit and other consideration to the plaintiffs.
     "Ghost Hunters is now in its eighth season on Syfy and has enriched defendants to the tune of millions of dollars," the lawsuit states.
     Montz and Smoller say they pitched their ideas to numerous executives at NBC Universal, the Sci Fi Channel, USA Network, USA Network and Studios USA. Before their presentations "none of the defendants engaged in the type of programming that plaintiffs proposed," according to the lawsuit.
     "Ultimately, the NBC Defendants represented to plaintiffs that they were not interested in the concepts or programming based on the concepts.
     "After eight seasons of 'Ghost Hunters' and a variety of spin-off projects that are also based on plaintiffs' concepts that plaintiffs pitched to defendants, defendants have made huge sums of money by producing television shows using plaintiffs' concepts without compensating or crediting plaintiffs for their concepts as they committed to do," the complaint states.
     The plaintiffs are represented by Thomas Girardi and Graham Lippsmith with Girardi Keese.
     Named defendants are NBC Universal Media fka NBC Universal Inc., Universal Television Networks, NBC Universal Television, NBC Universal Cable, "Ghost Hunters" executive producer Craig Piligian and star Jason Conrad Hawes.
     A Syfy spokesperson told Courthouse News the case is "without merit" and that it "expects to prevail."
     The plaintiffs' attorney was not immediately available for comment.