Sep 26 2008
Kathy Griffin Files Lawsuit
“The Emmy-winning, Grammy-seeking funny lady has filed a cyber squatting lawsuit against the owners of KathyGriffin.com, alleging the site makes unauthorized use of her name and image.
The lawsuit was filed Sept. 16 in Los Angeles Superior Court and seeks at least $100,000 in statutory damages under the Anti-Cyber squatting Act and for misappropriating her right of publicity, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The harm to [Griffin] is direct and palpable,” the lawsuit reads, adding the site was purposely designed to make viewers “confused into believing that [Griffin] authorizes, sponsors or somehow is affiliated with the…website.”
The suit, filed by star attorney extraordinaire Marty Singer, states that the owners of the site, which was registered to Trafficz.com via a privacy-protection agency, have been trading on the reality star’s “good reputation and recognizable name for a commercial purpose…and reaping the uncompensated benefit from the unauthorized use of [Griffin’s] name and identity.”
The operators had offered to sell the domain name to Griffin back in July for a cool $3,500. The site, which previously contained solely commercial content and click-through advertising, has since been considerably stripped down, consisting now of just two lines. Are you looking for Kathy’s official website? It’s located at kathygriffin.net,” it reads.
But the update hasn’t seemed to appease Team Kathy, which has otherwise been enjoying a banner year.”
Source: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b31122_kathy_griffin_puts_cybersquatters_on.html
Kathy Griffin in my opinion has every right to file this lawsuit because being associated with the site not only hurts her reputation but it also hurts her fans. People should be cautious of any web site claiming to be associated with a celebrity, check and see if there is proof of authenticity before thinking any web site is associated with your favorite celebrity.
2 Responses to “Kathy Griffin Files Lawsuit”
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Hey there!, well unfortunately many people tend to pose as celebrities, I read somewhere that David Hasselhof had a similar problem as Kathy, other name that I remember is Kelly Osbourne, checking on the myspace I found many imitators of many luminaries. I always give the advice to check the bio and interest of the celebrities on their blogs, because those are the password to reveal if they are real or not.
And I want to applaud you, you are the first one who gave a comment on my latest entry without any vulgarity or insult, I would like to continue our perceptions of the debate.
Y didnt kathgriffin register “.com” instead of “.net” ?