Fox News, trounced and ridiculed in court and in the blogosphere (see Ernest Svenson's analysis here), has dropped its lawsuit against Al Franken:
- The lawsuit had sought unspecified damages from Franken and Penguin Group, publisher of "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."
"It's time to return Al Franken to the obscurity that he's normally accustomed to," Fox News spokeswoman Irena Steffen said.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin denied Fox's request for an injunction against the book cover. Fox dropped the suit Monday.
Fox contended that some people might be tricked into thinking the book was a Fox product because the cover includes the words "Fair and Balanced" and a picture of Bill O'Reilly, the network's top anchor.
But the judge said Fox's case was "wholly without merit," and the trademark "Fair and Balanced," registered by Fox in 1998, was weak. He also said the network was "trying to undermine the First Amendment." [AP]
Meanwhile, the attention has driven Franken's book to #1 in Amazon. Sometimes acting like a spoiled child - as Fox News has done here - gets you exactly what you deserve.
Article comments
1 - TDavid
Kind of reminiscent of BT who tried to claim a patent on hyperlinks. Why hasn't anybody tried to patent air yet? Er wait, that was in the movie Total Recall, wasn't it?
2 - jadester
d'you know that Sony was considering making "Shock And Awe" a trademark in the early stages of the Iraq War (when the US government seemed keen on using the phrase), the idea being they'd make a game related to the phrase. Happily, they dropped the idea not long after announcing they were considering it.
If phrases can be trademarked and/or copyrighted (are they, in fact, equivalent?) does that mean soon dictionaries will have to pay royalties to lots of companies?
It's like that thing with patents - some guy a little while ago demonstrated how stupid the current system is by obtaining patents for a number of basic inventions, including the wheel.