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Pastimes : Investment Chat Board Lawsuits -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (7270)	2/11/2005 10:11:15 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12465

Re: 2/8/05 - [UCSY] Courthouse News Service: CNN Sued for Misuse of Wolf Blitzer's Name CNN Sued for Misuse of Wolf Blitzer's Name An Israeli businessman is claiming that CNN is vicariously liable for defamatory statements posted on a Web site by someone using the identity of anchorman Wolf Blitzer. Michael Zwebner, chief executive of Miami Beach-based Universal Communication Systems, alleges postings under the screen name "Wolfblitzzer0" began appearing on the Raging Bull site in December, accusing him and his company "of criminal misconduct and other offensive actions." CNN had an "affirmative obligation" to police the unauthorized use of the Wolf Blitzer name, "including any confusingly similar variants thereof," Zwebner says in a federal court complaint ( courthousenews.com ). But the postings continue to be published and distributed ... and the Defendants have thereby implicitly adopted them as their own. The suit seeks $100 million in damages. The defendants also include CNN's owner, Turner Broadcasting System, and Blitzer himself. There appears to be no precedent for imposing vicarious liability on a trademark owner for the defamatory use of its mark. But Zwebner's attorney insists the case is not a "stretch." "When a trademark owner does not police the mark and a party is injured, the result is a claim of the injured party against the trademark owner," says John H. Faro (Faro & Associates, Miami). Trademark licensors have been sued for the tortious acts of a licensee in defective product cases. But courts have held that a mere failure to police the mark is not sufficient to establish liability. The standard should be whether the licensor was significantly involved in the design, manufacture, or distribution of the defective product, a federal judge said in Kealoha v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 844 F. Supp. 590 (1994). If that standard applies to CNN, it certainly could not be liable for WolfblitzzerO's postings since it had absolutely no involvement in creating or distributing them. ----- UPDATE ... Attorneys for CNN say Zwebner fails to state a claim because he does not allege that the network itself published any false statements about him. "[T]here is no liability for a publication resulting from an independent act of a third person," they argue in a motion to dismiss ( courthousenews.com ). ----- In separate actions, Zwebner has sued Raging Bull and Internet portal Lycos, which operates the site. 2/8/05 courthousenews.com