POLITICIAN DROPS BYRNE SONG AFTER LEGAL THREAT
Former TALKING HEADS star DAVID BYRNE has won the first battle in his fig ht to stop a Florida politician using his hit ROAD TO NOWHERE.
The rocker filed a $1 million (=C2=A3666,600) lawsuit against state Gov ernor Charlie Crist on Monday (24May10), alleging he used the 1985 song w ithout permission in an online ad attacking his one-time opponent Marco R ubio.
The suit is demanding damages for copyright infringement and false endo rsement, and the legal threat has been acknowledged by officials in Crist ’s camp, who have now abandoned the track.
A spokeswoman for Crist tells New York Post gossip column PageSix, "We’ ve stopped using the song and the ad has been taken down. We have no furt her comment." In a post on his website, Byrne writes, "If Crist and his campaign folk s had asked to use the song, I would have said no - even if they had offe red a lot of money, such as I have been offered in the past for ad use (t hough I’ve always turned these offers down)… So, my lawyers and I have filed a lawsuit - and we also hope the Republicans might not engage (agai n) in this kind of illegal behaviour in the future." The case continues.
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