Telepictures Productions, the folks behind Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show, weren’t about to let Rachael Ray cannibalize their girl’s ratings by using Telepictures’ own footage.

With Ray planning a Rosie O’Donnell tribute show, her producers planned to use clips from The Rosie O’Donnell Show — a show Telepictures owns. They do not, however, back Ray’s show, which means they didn’t want her stealing ratings points from Ellen in markets they go head-to-head.

So yesterday – as in the day before today, when the show Rosie episode aired – Telepictures rang The Rachael Ray Show and demanded they not use footage from Rosie’s old show, hoping the time constraint would force them to pull the taped show.

But Ray’s camp refused, and the program aired as intended today. Which means if Telepictures doesn’t file some sort of copyright infringement legal action, the only remaining part of this story is how O’Donnell will turn this into a Rosie.com haiku.