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Monday, May 07, 2001 |
Sorry Ms. Parks |
US hip-hop outfit OutKast are facing a potentially watershed case in music law over the right to use a person's name for the title of a track.
Two years ago the Atlanta group were cleared by a Detroit judge of illegally using American civil rights icon Rosa Parks' name for the title of one of their songs. Now the band face a federal appeal on May 11 in Cincinnati.
Ms Parks, now 88, is widely acknowledged as helping kickstart the US civil rights movement after she refused to vacate her seat for a white man on an Alabama bus in 1955.
The Grammy-nominated track from their double US platinum 'Aquemini' album contained the lyric: "Hush that fuss, everybody move to the back of the bus."
Ms Parks claimed that OutKast defamed her by implying she approved of it and that the 'profanity, racial slurs and derogatory language directed at women' on the album would have a negative effect on her future business dealings, cause emotional distress and taint her legacy.
However, the original case collapsed because the references to her were metaphorical rather than factual.
Top lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who has represented OJ Simpson and Puff Daddy, has been drafted in by Ms Parks and said that the band, their record label La Face Records and the parent multi-national company BMG have violated her common law right of publicity.
Lawyers have warned that if Ms Parks it could have a massive knock on effect with a flood of similar claims predicted.
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