bigpoppanils Posted August 25 Report Share Posted August 25 Fox Loses Bid to Stop Sale of Franken Book ReutersFriday, August 22, 2003; 6:31 PM By Gail Appleson NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday slammed Fox News' trademark infringement lawsuit against Al Franken and his publisher Penguin Group and refused to stop the sale of the liberal satirist's new book that pokes fun at the network and host Bill O'Reilly. Fox charged that Franken had violated its trademarked phrase "fair and balanced" by including it on the cover of his book entitled "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." Fox is owned by News Corp. and Penguin is a unit of Pearson . The book went on sale on Thursday. "There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case," said U.S. District Judge Denny Chin. "This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally." "Parody is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. The keystone to parody is imitation. Mr. Franken is clearly mocking Fox," said Chin. The judge said he thought it ironic that a media company that should be fighting to protect free speech would seek to undermine the First Amendment. He also said he thought the "fair and balanced" trademark is weak because the phrase is used so often. Although the judge refused to grant an injunction that could have stopped further books sales, he did not end the case. Fox could choose to pursue litigation while Penguin could file a motion asking that the case be dismissed. Both sides said they are considering their options. "We don't care if it's Al Franken or Al Lewis or Weird Al Yankovic. We're here to protect our trademark and our talent," said Paul Schur, a Fox spokesman, after the hearing. Fox argued in its suit that the cover's tag line, "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," was used to confuse consumers. During arguments held before his ruling, Chin asked Fox lawyer Dorie Hansworth if she really believed that the cover was confusing. "To me, it's quite ambiguous as to what the message is," she said. "It's a deadly serious cover ... This is much too subtle to be considered a parody." Floyd Abrams, a lawyer representing Penguin and Franken, strongly disagreed. "There is no way that any person not completely dense would be confused by this cover to think that Fox was accusing O'Reilly of being a liar," he said. Chin, siding with Abrams, pointed out that the word "Lies" in the title is printed in large red letters next to a photo of O'Reilly. He said that there was no likelihood that book buyers would think that the sponsor is Fox or O'Reilly. "We are talking about relatively sophisticated consumers here," he said of those who would be buying Franken's book. Chin also said that there was no evidence of bad faith by Franken to mislead consumers into thinking he works for Fox. "There is no intent by Franken to palm himself off as a Fox commentator," he said. Franken, who won four Emmy awards for his work on "Saturday Night Live," is the author of four previous books, including the recent best seller, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seximofo2k Posted August 25 Report Share Posted August 25 :laugh: I actually like fox news for some reason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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