12/13/2007, 9:25pm, EST
Thursday, December 13th
Defamation lawsuit charges Apple, BET, Viacom
The BET show, which reaches 1.3 million households and has about 1.7 million total viewers, chronicles the rise and fall of the country's most notorious African-American criminals -- which implies that both Prince and Randle were part of that group, the lawsuit says. Though they a not mentioned by name, their photos are shown in the video alongside that of Larry Hoover, a known Chicago gang leader. The greatest offense committed by either of the plaintiffs was by Prince, who was issued a restraining order by a Houston Court after it was claimed that he had arranged the beating of label executive Ronnie Bookman following a dispute.
"During the advertisement program, a photograph of Mr. Prince and Mr. Randle is shown with Mr. Larry Hoover, without their permission, with the narrator stating that they were 'MURDERERS,'" the suit alleges. "Neither Mr. Prince nor Mr. Randle has ever been convicted of felony offenses, let alone murder. Such patently false, inflammatory and defamatory publications have maternally [sic] and substantially harmed the reputation of my clients."
In addition to using the plaintiffs' images without permission, Apple, Viacom, and BET have also allegedly refused to pull the episode or modify the content to protect the identities of the plaintiffs, the lawsuit claims. Furthermore, Apple and the other defendants have purportedly acted with reckless disregard by continuing to air the episode on BET and sell its digital version via iTunes.
None of the companies named in the suit have offered comment on the matter.
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If the MacDonald's lawsuit you refer to is the infamous hot coffee one, then THT is one of the finest examples of a BAD lawsuit and a terrible precedent.
Suing to get someone else to pay for your own STUPIDITY is lower than low.
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
One thing not mentioned in the first link was the 81 year old lady originally requested medical bills paid. ($20k) THATS ALL! Yet, McDonalds refused, which is why the case when to court.
Things are never as cut and dry as they may seem.
[hypothetical] If Hasbro rips off an entrepenuer for a toy idea and then markets it and sells it thru outlets like Wal-Mart - WalMart is not liable for Hasbro's fuckup_ All WalMart knows is that it has a distribution deal with Hasbro - and Hasbro does not have any accord to release toy development background on the products it contracts out to WalMart_
All Apple would be guilty of is re-selling content [as a distributor] without prior knowledge of any defimation or infringement_
Besides - this will probably make the episode[s] very popular to some extent just because someone is having a temper-tantrum over it_ So the iTMS downloads should increase a little until it is or not pulled_
Then it gets exploited across YouTube and DIgg for weeks and weeks and months and months_
Funny as hell_
Talk about morons...
As for McDonald's woman, if the coffee was dumped/dropped/spilled into her lap, that's one thing. If she put it there, that's another.
And the reason the coffee is HOT (I know, who would think hot coffee would be hot??) is that so many morons then shove cream and the like into it, cooling it off. If the coffee was just warm, it would become cool, which then no one would buy.
BTW, this is why I never drink coffee. Personally, I think Starbucks was created just to get me to scold my genitals. But I'm not falling for it! You hear me Howie! It's not going to work, you bastard!
But I ask anyone here if your would appreciate your photo put on national TV with the label of murderer. And if it happened and the networks refused to pull the false info, what would you do?