Saturday Silly's...

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Just a couple of silly cases I just came across..I've always known that the world was to sue happy, but come on people where doe is end?!

John Fogerty v. Himself
Next, any who would contemplate selling off the rights in their works should make sure they don't wind up doing battle with themselves for copyright infringement. In 1970 songwriter John Fogerty, a founding member of Creedence Clearwater Revival, wrote "Run Through the Jungle." Fogerty then sold the rights to the song to a company called Fantasy in exchange for a percentage of the sales and other royalties it would bring in. Fifteen years later when Fogerty published another song, "The Old Man Down the Road," Fantasy sued Fogerty for copyright infringement, claiming that the new song was essentially the same song he had previously sold to Fantasy, with different lyrics. Fogerty was not immunized against this result since the rights he had licensed to Fantasy with "Run Through the Jungle" included the right to create a derivative work from it (Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 654 F. Supp. 1129, 1132 (N.D. Cal. 1987)). And so a jury found itself faced with the bizarre task of determining whether one Fogerty song sounded too much like ... well ... another Fogerty song. Ultimately, the jury decided that "The Old Man Down the Road" did not infringe on "Run Through the Jungle" (see 984 F.2d 1524, 1526 (9th Cir. 1993), and Fogerty eventually was awarded his attorneys fees for defending his work against, well, his work. (See Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 94 F.3d 553 (9th Cir. 1996).) The lesson to young copyright holders should be clear: caveat venditor, or "let the seller beware."


Barney Cries Fowl
The owners of the rights to Barney, the (in)famously optimistic purple dinosaur character, sued a fellow by the name of Ted Giannoulas for trademark and copyright infringement after he incorporated a Barney look-alike into his own routines as a sports mascot called The Famous Chicken (Lyons P'ship v. Giannoulas, 179 F.3d 384, 385 (5th Cir. 1999)). Specifically, The Famous Chicken engaged in what the court said could "perhaps loosely be referred to as 'performance art,' " appearing alongside a Barney look-alike in an impromptu "dance-off," in which the dinosaur unexpectedly outdances the chicken. The chicken would then proceed to "flip, slap, tackle, trample, and generally assault" the Barney look-alike as part of the act. Though most of the audience no doubt found this amusing, there were apparently a number of children present who genuinely believed they were witnessing an attack on the real Barney. In fact, Barney's counsel argued, "only after several days of solace was [one child] able to relate the horror of what she had observed in her own words - 'Chicken step on Barney' - without crying." In affirming the dismissal of the copyright and trademark claims on summary judgment, the Fifth Circuit ruled that The Famous Chicken's routine was a parody, and therefore permissible - crying children notwithstanding. (179 F.3d at 386 - 90.)

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

It always amazes me when I see things like this at the ridiculousness of some of these lawsuits but this is nothing new and we have been sliding down the slope for a long long time. Kind of side branching the original subject I can actually remember when I realized that the world was sue happy and full of nuts out to take people's and businesses hard-earned money for frivolous things. Without trying to date myself too much it was 30 years ago and I was 16 years old working a summer job at a chain hardware store. While on break I was admiring a hydraulic log splitter and thinking how nice it would be to have one of those when I noticed a warning sticker on the side of it. I realize that the sticker must've been placed there by the manufacture because some idiot had done this and most likely sued the company for not warning them about it. It was a yellow caution sticker with the standard stick figure man and said "Warning do not place head between ram and wedge is serious injury or death may result" and the sticker showed the wedge crushing the head of the stick figure man.

It amazes me that with all these frivolous lawsuits that we have not changed our laws so that if you sue someone and lose and the suit is deemed frivolous that you have to pay for the other person's legal fees and time. I think this type of thing is like trolling in reverse where people sue companies for not placing warning labels on products etc. and a lot of times companies will just pay as the amounts are small enough that it's not worth litigating.