Lane Kiffin Being Sued By Author Looking To Make A Buck After Allegedly Sharing A Passage From His Book

Lane Kiffin is among the most active college football coaches when it comes to social media, a perennial pot-stirrer if you will, so news of him being sued by someone isn't necessarily the most surprising thing in the world. The person suing him and the reasoning behind the recently filed lawsuit is certainly a stunner, however, given the circumstances.

According to court documents obtained by the Clarion Ledger, Kiffin is being sued by Dr. Keith Bell, a Texas-based swimming psychologist and the author of the book "Winning Isn't Normal." The doctor is seeking damages from Kiffin, who has a yearly salary at Ole Miss of $8.75 million, on the grounds of one count of copyright infringement.

The lawsuit states that Kiffin "retweeted" a passage from "Winning Isn't Normal" back in 2016, Bell caught wind of it and sent the coach cease-and-desist letters informing him that the copying of the passage "constituted copyright infringement." Kiffin deleted the post, according to the filing.

Fast forward to March 2022, and Kiffin shared a photo of a seven-paragraph passage with a heading that read "WINNING ISN'T NORMAL." The alarms went off for Dr. Bell again, he sent another cease-and-desist letter to Kiffin, with the lawsuit claiming that he failed to comply.

The lawsuit says "Kiffin's leaving up his infringing post is irrefutable evidence of willful infringement," although the post in question appears to have been deleted.

Lane Kiffin is being sued by an author after allegedly sharing an excerpt from his book on social media years ago. (Credit: Getty Images)

So, just summarizing from the allegations laid out, one of the most popular coaches in American sports appears to be a big fan of a certain book, he shared passages from said book with his 682,000 followers on Twitter, but since he didn't give proper credit, he is now being sued by the author. The lawsuit specifically argues that Kiffin's status both on and off of social media makes the use of his sharing the "Winning Isn't Normal" passage commercial in nature.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Kiffin wasn't trying to present excerpts from the book as his own literary work or anything along those lines, but Dr. Bell being the owner of the copyright clearly believes he has a chance on profiting off of the head coach's decision in the form of damages.

It's hard to imagine just how big the smirk on Kiffin's face had to be when he was told he was being sued by an author for allegedly sharing an innocent photo from a book on social media.