An attorney representing both Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber sent Bluewater Comics a Cease & Desist order regarding their coverage in the ongoing FAME line. The lawyer leaked the news to BledingCool dot Com yesterday.
"It was odd for a lawyer to leak it to Bleeding Cool," said Bluewater President, Darren Davis, via e-mail. "There really is nothing to say about it. We are within our First Amendment rights."
The lawyer in question is none other than Kenneth Feinswog, the same lawyer who unsuccessfully sued Revolutionary Comics over their Rock n Roll Comics biography line back in the 1990s. Feinswog represented the New Kids on the Block and Motley Crue in that case. A judge decreed that comic books are protected by the First Amendment, just as any other unauthorized biography. Bluewater recently acquired licensing rights to Rock n Roll Comics.
Davis told MTV's Splash Page, "We reach out to all the celebrities and some choose to work with us and some do not." In cases where the celebrity chooses to get involved, the profits are donated to a charity of his/her choice -- as was the case with the recent Fame: Olivia Newton-John issue. Davis said Bluewater Comics even offered to send Justin Bieber a copy of the comic book before it was released.
In the Rock n Roll Comics trial, the judge decreed that while Revolutionary Comics was free to continue its biographical line, it could not use any band logos or trademarks, which means Bluewater will have to excise these before re-release. Davis says Feinswog is trying to assert that the Fame comics are little more than posterbooks.
"It is 100% a biography of [their lives]." Davis told me via e-mail, "All the biographies are like this, and we have dealt with Kristen Stewart and Taylor Swift's people on the same matter. [Neither objected] to the biographies. We have our lawyer dealing with it, as well as the Comic Book League of Defense to protect our rights."
So what's really behind the cease-and-desist? Well... one of these people is a man.
© C Harris Lynn, 2010
A rambling melange of pop-culture.
2 comments:
The lawyer did NOT leak the story to Bleeding Cool. I should know, I wrote the story. You may wish to issue a correction.
Darren however did not choose to comment to Bleeding Cool.
Thanks, Rich!
That is a quote from Mr. Davis, so I went by what he told me. Either way, I apologize on behalf of both of us, as I'm sure Darren was simply mistaken.
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