Monday, May 18, 2009

Woody Allen Scores Successful Settlement (+ Canadians in the news)


Woody Allen has scored a 5 million settlement - half of the $10 million he had demanded from American Apparel for the unauthorized use of his image as seen above, apparently taken from that lovely old film Annie Hall. No bad indeed from his viewpoint, taking everything into account.

Here's the BBC take on it.

The unhappy founder and CEO of American Apparel is Dov Charney, a Canadian. Charney claims his insurance company made him settle. It would have made an interesting trial, to be sure.Here's Charney's interesting press release

Charney and his company (which he has sold but still runs) have been reported as having other legal problems as well. See also here. And lots of other places. Here's the NY Times take on the settlement and Mr. Charney's other troubles. According to the NY Times, "Mr. Charney, who has admitted in interviews to sleeping with employees, has faced several sexual harassment lawsuits since 2005."

Speaking of creative Canadians whose business involves IP, Conrad Black is no doubt pleasantly surprised to learn that he will get his day (actually an hour) before the US Supreme Court on the issue of:
Whether the “honest services” clause of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 applies in cases where the jury did not find - nor did the district court instruct them that they had to find - that the defendants “reasonably contemplated identifiable economic harm,” and if the defendants’ reversal claim is preserved for review after they objected to the government’s request for a special verdict.
For those that follow these things, here are some links:
And here's David Akin's perceptive take.

HK

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