Posted on 05/18/2009 7:28:05 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Woody Allen has settled a suit he filed against trendy clothing company American Apparel, and the company will pay him $5 million for using his image in advertising, Reuters reports. "I am told the settlement of five million dollars I am being paid is the largest reported amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law," Allen said outside Manhattan federal court where the case was supposed to be heard this morning. Allen claimed his reputation was damaged and the image was used without consent, while American Apparel founder Dov Charney told reporters the case was about "the dignity of ideas." He continued: "I am not sorry for expressing myself."
Allen originally sued American Apparel last year for $10 million, claiming the company didn't have permission to use his likeness in a 2007 advertising campaign which depicted him as a Hasidic Jew along with Yiddish text meaning "the holy rebbe." The image American Apparel used was a doctored shot from his Oscar-winning movie Annie Hall.
How do you harm someone’s “good name” when the persons name in question married his own adopted daughter?
What a freak.
One comment from the EW.com news story sums this up:
Jerk-o Mon, May 18, 2009 at 01:30 PM EST
American Apparel stole a copyrighted image of Woody Allen, who has a right of publicity (ie he can choose what his image is used for and should be paid for it). They then threatened to smear him in an effort to lower the licensing fee. That’s extortion, pure and simple. Then they had the gall to claim they were being victimized and their right to free expression was at stake, which is a total crock. AA’s case was so lame and wrong that their own insurance company forced them to settle against their will, and the CEO’s even carping about that. Yeesh.
A suggestion for J. Robinson.
Could we get a backroom called who gives a sh*t?
WGAS.
Somewhere to post these kind of stories.
How could this perverted POS possibly have his "reputation" damaged?
Just to clarify Soon-Yi Previn was not Allen’s adopted daughter. He never married or lived with Mia Farrow and he was certainly not her legal stepfather.
And how exactly does that have any bearing on Woody Allen's property rights?
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Soon-Yi Previn was 22. To claim that what Allen did was wrong or creepy is pretty legitimate and I won’t argue it. But “pedophilia” is illegal and Soon-Yi Previn was a consenting adult.
Didn’t the Freak do something to his adoped daughter so to speak behind his wife’s back first that was quite dispicable? Its hard to imagine damaging that kind of exixting remnant of a reputation!=D
Hmmmmmmm ... guess the Che Guevara 'estate' might have a similar lawsuit against all those trendy t-shirt sellers ....
Re post #14
Yes I know what they look like. What’s your point?
Smart cookie.....knows where the money is!
Piss poor headline. American Apparel settles with Woody Allen for 5 million is more like it.
"Do something to his adopted daughter?"
What did he do? The courts said he didn't do anything to her. I'm sure you must know something everyone else doesn't know. I'm sure that you wouldn't make a nasty allegation simply because you don't like (or can't understand) his movies.
This might explain:
“The issue is relevant is determining the value of the endorsement — which of course the company never bothered to get from Allen. Allen is fighting a demand to turn over documents in discovery that would show his endorsement requests after his scandal with Soon-Yi.
.
.
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This case is clearly stronger and the fight will be over the value of the endorsement in ads that only ran for a week.
On one level, the discovery would appear relevant given the need to appraise the value of the endorsement. On another level, it comes close to the “libel-proof” plaintiffs theory in defamation where the party argues that they could not have harmed the reputation of the defendant because the defendant had no good reputation. This is confined for the most notorious defendants. Here, the argument is that Allen destroyed the value of his endorsement through the scandal and thus would be entitled to modest compensation.”
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