Hatrack River Forum: Judge slams FOX

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Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :

quote:
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.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=3&u =/nm/20030822/ts_nm/media_fox_dc_9

My favorite part. . .

quote:
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."

Oh, and I liked this part a lot, too.

quote:
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.

Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :

Yay Al Franken! Thanks Kayla!

Posted by Fitz (Member # 4803) on :

Geez, if the title "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" confuses some consumers, doesn't she think the other title, "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them," would tip said consumers off as to the views of the author?

Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :

I don't know...it's just my opinion...but it seems to me that giving people or organizations the ability to copyright phrases that are made up of common words and are not actually the name of a product is just silly. And doesn't FOX (and their laywers) know that there are laws against prior restraint in this country?

No. Probably not. They're probably too busy sitting around trying to figure out ways to get people who actually watch FOX news channel to swallow the idea that anything they do is fair and balanced. I've spent some time watching their programming, and I've never seen anything fair or balanced about it. Not, you understand, that I'm saying any of the other news organizations are any better at that, but the others at least don't try to proclaim themselves "fair and balanced" by executive fiat. It's like FOX thinks that if they just say it often enough, people will believe it.

Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :

Postmodern like a FOX