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Wow. This guy used to be a Governor? How pathetic. I’m actually embarrassed for Crist here. Talking Heads singer David Byrne obviously set out to humiliate someone and landed himself a United States Governor and former Republican star.

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has settled a lawsuit filed by Talking Heads singer David Byrne after Crist used one of the group’s songs without permission in a campaign ad last year, both parties confirmed Monday.

Terms of the settlement were not released, but it included a recorded apology by Crist that was posted on YouTube Monday afternoon. Byrne had sued Crist for $1 million for using the song “Road to Nowhere” in a YouTube video attacking Marco Rubio, one of the governor’s opponents in the U.S. Senate race.

Crist said Monday that he was pleased with the terms of the settlement and that Byrne “couldn’t have been a better guy” when they met last week to mediate the case.

“As I told him, I was sorry it ever happened at all,” Crist said. “He couldn’t have been more of a gentleman about it.”

Byrne gloats:

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Since when can you be sued for using a font? The Vandals, an L.A. based punk band, learned the answer to this question when they parodied Variety’s iconic logo for their 2004 album “Hollywood Potato Chip.” The word Variety, or a newspaper image was nowhere to be found. The Vandals weren’t mocking Variety in any way. The album cover merely used a font similar to Variety’s logo, as an example of Hollywood-ism. Perhaps if they had used the Hollywood sign’s Helvetica font instead, they might have got away with it. But Variety sent them a cease-and-desist letter claiming trademark infringement.

At their own expense, the Vandals had the cover replaced with one that didn’t use the offending font. Everything was hunky-dory until March 24th when the Vandals were hit with a lawsuit filed in the Delaware courts. According to The Wrap, Henry Horbaczewski, counsel for Variety’s owner said: “We sued them, and they accepted a settlement agreement in which they promised to stop misusing our mark, because we wanted to stop the misuse, not their money. They then ignored their agreement.”

Here’s the problem, the Vandals changed the art. But copies of the old cover art are floating around somewhere on the net, which is nigh impossible to redact. In fact, the very article I linked to shows the old and new covers. Variety isn’t willing to reveal where this infringement took place. So this is essentially a nuisance/intimidation suit, the kind meant to squeeze money from some soft targets who can ill afford an extensive legal battle that they would probably win. Since lawsuits are usually unpredictable, most people settle. Which is something sue happy sharks have known for years. That’s why there are so many frivolous lawsuits in the land. Usually it’s individuals going after companies for some coin. (more…)

You can tell a corporation is in trouble when they begin threatening legal action against smaller companies without any evidence.  You can tell they’re in serious trouble when they won’t even tell their targets what they’ve done wrong.

Apparently, Variety is in serious trouble.  On March 24, 2010, the sinking publication filed a lawsuit against the punk rock band The Vandals [Ed. note: Vandals' bassist Joe Escalante is a BH contributor]  for allegedly using their trademark in an album cover some years back.  There’s only one problem – that issue had already been settled back in 2005, with The Vandals agreeing not to use anything similar to the trademark.  Since then, The Vandals haven’t used the trademark in any way, shape or form. 
 
So what’s a struggling publication to do?  How about finding random websites in different places, then accusing The Vandals of having posted the old trademarked material there and leaving it up purposefully, without any evidence to back up such claims?

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On April 1, California State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore’s campaign for U.S. Senate against Barbara Boxer released the YouTube, “After the Hope of November is Gone,” a parody video based on Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.” The video criticized President Obama and mocked celebs like Henley who have been made “crazy” with desire over the President. 

It took just six days for Henley to file a copyright claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and YouTube immediately took the video down.  

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Refusing to be intimidated, DeVore fired back with a DMCA counter-notification and on April 14th created another YouTube parody aimed at Boxer’s support for cap-and-trade. ”All She Wants to do is Tax” is based Henley’s “All She Wants to do is Dance” and immediately began racking up 10,000 views a day.

Though he doesn’t hold the rights to ”Dance,” Henley filed a federal suit against DeVore and encouraged the true copyright holder to file a copyright infringement complaint with YouTube.  Within a few days YouTube took DeVore’s second video down. Then DeVore caught Henley off guard and fought back with a counter-suit claiming Henley was infringing on his First Amendment right to political parody.   (more…)