*Ø* Blogmanac | Fox Loses Bid to Stop Sale of Franken Book

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday slammed Fox News' trademark infringement lawsuit against Al Franken and his publisher Penguin Group and refused to stop the sale of the liberal satirist's new book that pokes fun at the network and host Bill O'Reilly.

"Fox charged that Franken had violated its trademarked phrase 'fair and balanced' by including it on the cover of his book entitled 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.' Fox is owned by News Corp. and Penguin is a unit of Pearson . The book went on sale on Thursday.

"'There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case,' said U.S. District Judge Denny Chin. 'This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally.'

"'Parody is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. The keystone to parody is imitation. Mr. Franken is clearly mocking Fox,' said Chin."

Source

A fair and balanced judgement
Just when the rest of the world thinks American law has gone crazy, a good judgement comes in that helps restore our confidence. This judge used common sense to stymie a huge TNC that was trying to stop free speech.

I have to admit that I have no idea who this Al Franken is, and all the news stories I've read about him don't elaborate, they just refer to "Al Franken" as though we should know, so he must be pretty famous in America. And I don't know if his book's any good. All I know is that his 'Fair and balanced' gag was funny, when you know that Fox uses that slogan (Veralynne explained it to me, with some difficulty), and that the Blogmanac was one of many blogs that added 'Fair and balanced' to their mastheads.

I know, too, that you can get his book through the Wilson's Almanac store at Amazon.com. Support my mate Al Franken!