Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
As some of you may know, I've been defending one of the most ludicrous and vexatious lawsuits ever pursued for thelast 8 years but I'm glad to report that it's over and we've won.
The parody you see at left was attacked in 2004, but we had no means to defend, so we settled and took it off the shelves; big mistake.
To believe a media company that would step all over the 1st Amendment, from which they derive all their rights as a media company, would honor a settlement agreement is a fantasy. The fantasy turned into a nightmare, but the nightmare is over. Overwhelmed by negative publicity (Google them), thanks to outlets like Ricochet, Red Eye on Fox, KABC and KFI in Los Angeles, Andrew Breitbart, the O.C. Weekly, and even the Huffington Post, the Plaintiffs dismissed all their claims on the eve of pre-trial conferences, as some predicted they would. Since we have no "loser pays" system here, our legal fees are our own burden and The Daily Variety goes on their merry decline in readership and add revenue, pretending they didn't just spend $800,000 unsuccessfully suing 4 musicians over a font.
The biggest lesson for Variety is the fact that they lost the confidentiality protection their sinister activities enjoyed from the first settlement. I warned them about this. They didn't listen. Now we can talk about this all we want. And we will.
Among other things, I can now get on Ricochet more often. It feels good.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Congrats, Joe! Looking forward to seeing more of you around these parts.
May '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Congratulations! I hope this affords you more time for Ricochet, too... but I also hope you take some time to relax. I can't imagine the stress of going through such a long, expensive, frivolous lawsuit.
Jul '11
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Make the story epic! Congratulations on the ending of what must have been very annoying time.
Edited on March 1, 2012 at 8:12amRe: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Fabulous, Joe. Many congratulations. Glad the system forced a sane-ish ending. All best luck in future pursuits, not to mention vengeance. : )
Mar '11
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Congratulations, Joe! That's great news!
I've been following this story since you first wrote about it on Ricochet, as one of my pet peeves (as a lawyer) is frivolous bully-type lawsuits like this one. So good to know it ended well.
Aug '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Congratulations.
May '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Congrats! Can't wait to read the whole story. Glad to read some positive news.
Nov '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
I can see a punk rock opera springing forth. Well done. A true lesson in the value of endurance.
Aug '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Welcome back from the Inferno. Congrats on the win against a frivolous lawsuit.
Apr '11
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Congratulations! It will be nice to see you here more often.
Nov '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Way to go, brother! I HATE reading about these kinds of shakedowns, and I'm very glad to see you took them on. Keep up the good work!
Oct '11
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Well...welcome back to all font land!
Aug '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Oddly enough, I can see this, too.
Congratulations. It'll be fun to have you around more.
Apr '11
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
So Joe, is a reissue in the works, then?
Jul '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
What fantastic news! Still the bit about the legal fee burdens is troubling. Is there a Vandals Defense Fund?
May '10
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Yea!!! So that's why you didn't make it to the meet up. Okay, you're no longer dead to me. You're more... zombie-ish.
Re: Thank You Ricochet. Thank You Everyone. We beat the Reed Elsevier / Daily Variety Monster.
Joe, I hope we can discuss the lawsuit as business cudgel over a beer sometime. Sorry about the legal fees--I feel your pain, as a former president famously observed. Congratulations on putting this behind you.
And I can't wait to see you posting here more often.