Take me out to the lawsuit : Mastercard "priceless" ballpark ads sued by documentary film makers

Restored 1966 Volkswagen Microbus: $25,000

Summer-long cross-continental commercial shoot and production involving dozens of baseball stadiums and a whole bunch of location setups: A million or two

Massive media placement to saturate the airwaves with your epic multi-part tale of how two young and unemployed buddies can spend a summer driving a classic vehicle around the country to attend expensive baseball games and buy a bunch of $150 jerseys with their no-limit credit cards during an economic slowdown: $30-60 million

Getting sued by the guys whose documentary film you stole the idea from: Priceless

McCann-Erickson and MasterCard go "Uh-oh." Read all about it at the Boston Globe.

Finding out about it at Adland before Advertising Age or Adweek even catch wind of it: Pretty nifty

It was deja vu this summer for Hoch and Marble when they saw a series of television commercials for MasterCard: two guys in an orange-and-red Volkswagen van cruise the country seeing baseball games, collecting souvenirs and memories. The tag line for the ads: "Priceless."

The use of a VW van isn't the only coincidence between the documentary and the ad campaign, Hoch and Marble contend. In a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement against MasterCard International and its ad agency, McCann- Erickson USA, exhibits A through S show what the plaintiffs claim are remarkable similarities. These include shots of directional road signs, similar camera angles, shots of players warming up on the field, a look at Camden Yards in Baltimore, one of two fellows waiting to enter parks and more.

"Coincidences?" asked Marble, a real estate broker. "We don't know how many coincidences can be piled up and still be considered coincidences."

In the complaint filed last month in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, Hoch and Marble allege that MasterCard and McCann-Erickson lifted not the idea of a road trip for baseball fans but the expression of the idea, and they claim that they've suffered irreparable harm. They ask for unspecified damages.