"The Law Has Already Sawed That Claim in Half"

The latest from Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizen), pushing back against threats of trademark litigation over parody.

From Levy's Consumer Law & Policy Blog post, "Defending the Right to Be Funny" (and check out the demand letter itself):

Late last year, Harrison Greenbaum, a New York comedian and magician, included Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos, better known in the magician trade as Criss Angel, who is, apparently, a very well known magic act, in an annual satirical review that he offers of major figures in the magic trade. A particular point of this performance was a restaurant that Sarantakos opened in a rural area outside Las Vegas called Criss Angel Breakfast Lunch and Pizza, or CABLP. Greenbaum put together a parody of the restaurant's menu, and put the menu online for the performance, using the domain name CABLPRestaurant.com, which was still available for purchase because Sarantakos, quite logically, chose some much shorter domain names (eatblp.com and cablp.com) which could much more easily be typed into a browser.

Angel was neither honored to have been included in the satirical hall of honor, nor amused by the jokes. He hired a lawyer in New York to send Greenbaum a demand letter asserting that the parody menu infringes his copyright and his trademark, and that the domain name infringes his trademark, and threatening both to sue for damages and to invoke the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy ("UDRP") to seize the domain name. Hoping to achieve a prompt resolution, Greenbaum's initial reaction was to offer to give up the domain name, but at that point Sarantakos got greedy, demanding both a confidentiality clause as well as a commitment that Greenbaum would never again display the parody menu.

The result is that Sarantakos is likely to get nothing besides more publicity for the CABLP Restaurant parody. In a letter sent late last week, I explained both that the domain name for the parody menu is well protected by a line of cases that Public Citizen established back in the first decade of this century, and that the menu itself is a fully protected, noncommercial parody that cannot possibly be confused with Sarantakos' commercial enterprise and in any event is fair use under both trademark and copyright laws….

Comments

[IamtheBruce]

The reference to the Streisand Effect in the response letter is a nice touch. Would love to be a fly on the wall when his attorney explains it to crissangelmindfreak.

[Ridgeway]

I would respond substantively, but I do not want to get blackballed by the Magicians’ Alliance.

[darkknight9]

The Levy response letter is all kinds of good. 🙂

[IamtheBruce]

I was reminded of the response letter by Blue Jeans Cable to a Monster Cable demand letter a number of years ago.

[santamonica811]

Do you have a link?

[santamonica811]

Never mind…Google brought it up easily.

[Rossami]

That’s a lawyer who enjoys his work.

[Bored Lawyer]

In the vast majority of cases, the trademark law requirement of likelihood of confusion will not be met in cases of parody or criticism. That is usually the simplest way to fend off these kinds of claims.

[Ridgeway]

You mean CABLP won’t argue that its food is indeed revolting and incredibly overpriced?

It reminds me of Spike Milligan suing someone for libel after they called him a “filthy, Irish pervert.” He denied that he was Irish.

[Tempe Jeff]

Since, you have apparently patronized this establishment; 2 hours outside of Las Vegas, what price is fair? $8.99 for an omelette, is not over-priced anywhere in the United States. Or, are you butt-hurt over the lack of Arugula?

[Ridgeway]

Woooosh.

The only way that CABLP could claim likelihood of confusion is if they could show that someone could look at the “parody” menu and think it was the real thing.