unknownkadath666 wrote:
Adveser wrote:
Afro Lint wrote:
Adveser wrote:
Chuck Norris has publically supported these "facts" and enjoys them quite a bit, that does not grant a company liscense to market and print materials using his name and reputation as a means to sell books and make money.
But...
The publisher will win the lawsuit because parody is protected free speech. The only way Chuck has a leg to stand on in court is if he himself can prove that his own book of "facts" would suffer (due to copyright infringment). There is no such project on his end in the works, so this isn't likely to happen.
There is a difference between parody and totally using someone's name to sell a product. The publisher loses this battle.
Too bad Chuck Norris didn't stop this earlier, if he had maybe he could make a claim that it has harmed his reputation and career, He certainly can't make that claim now years after the fact because he doesn't like HOW they are producing the material.
Essentially the parody statute is written in such a way, it supercedes trademarks, copyrights and anything else, even defamation, so long as it is not obviously "not really a parody" and as stated, no one takes this shit seriously, Chuck will lose the case because he is essentially trying to stop legal parading of his image because there's money being made, not because he objects to the content
It doesn't make a difference if its harming him or not. the parody law is all good and fine but it isn't written to serve the purpose of protecting the publishers in this case. They need to pay to use his likeness / get his approval.
If what you are saying is true, Jerry Falwell would have won his suit against Larry Flint, but he didn't. To this day the magazine can run fake ads of him getting fucked by a donkey, using his image and insulting him at the same time.
(a brief aside: it must be mentioned that both men became somewhat friends after thier legal battle)
Anyway, if you look around, there are a lot of copyright infringers and misrepresenting people's character on sketch comedy shows.
Chuck Norris is a public figure, and as such, he can not control when his likeness (which can not be copyrighted because he is not a fictional character) is used. Every person in the world takes the risk of being photographed and the photographer owning the rights to thier likeness, for good or ill, no matter what, why wouldn't chuck norris be subject to the same standards.
