The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is attempting to prevent the Grammy Award that Stevie Wonder won for the 1973 song “Superstition” from going up for auction.
NARAS has filed suit against Gotta Have It! Collectibles, which somehow obtained Wonder’s lost Grammy statuette, for fraud, unjust enrichment, false advertising, conversion and other charges. The defendant had planned to sell the item for a minimum of $12,000, but NARAS questions whether auction buyers might get the wrong idea about its association with the sale.
Gotta Have It! Collectibles previously has irked some celebrities. The company obtained some of Lady Gaga‘s belongings, including early demo tapes, forcing the singer to buy back the items herself last year.
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Some other entertainment legal buzz…
- A number of broadcasters, including Viacom and Scripps Network, are upset at Time Warner Cable over a new service that streams several dozen TV channels to customer iPads. Legal threats have been made.
- A British man is suing the BBC, claiming he invented the Dr. Who character Dalek. Steven Clark says he first drew up the character as part of a 1972 competition run by the defunct TV Action magazine over who could create the best comic-strip villain.
- BlueBeat.com, which famously crafted a somewhat bizarre legal argument why it should be allowed to sell Beatles tracks online for 25 cents, has agreed to pay record labels $950,000 to settle a lawsuit.
- Marvel Entertainment has settled its trademark lawsuit against an Ohio-based power tool manufacturer, Airbase Industries, for selling a line of industrial and home equipment under a “Hulk” brand. Terms of the settlement haven’t been released. Here were some of the products in question.
- Warning for TV Broadcasters: Playing an April Fools Joke on unwitting TV viewers may be a violation of the FCC rule book. According to the Broadcast Law Blog, a rule about airing a “crime or catastrophe” hoax was established in the early 1990s after several troublesome incidents.
