Pacific Press/Getty Images.
Back in June, I posted about LeVar Burton’s new podcast, LeVar Burton Reads. Seems some soreheads are very unhappy with Burton’s success, and that random people are using the phrase “Reading Rainbow for Adults”.
In today’s episode of Black People Can’t Have a Damn Thing, Not Even if We Played a Major Role in Building It From the Ground Up, actor LeVar Burton is being personally sued by a Buffalo, N.Y., public broadcasting station that wants to stop him from using a Reading Rainbow catchphrase on his new podcast.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, WNED filed a “wide-ranging” lawsuit Friday that includes the demands that Burton’s company, RRKidz, hand over access to various websites and social media accounts, and that Burton himself cease using the Reading Rainbow catchphrase “But you don’t have to take my word for it” on his podcast, LeVar Burton Reads.
Although Friday’s lawsuit is new, THR reports that Burton and WNED have been tied up in court for years over a 2011 licensing deal that granted Burton the use of intellectual property related to the beloved PBS show, which ran from 1983 to 2006 with Burton as host.
You can read all about this nonsense at The Root. Me, I’m rooting for LeVar.
Black People Can’t Have a Damn Thing, Not Even if We Played a Major Role in Building It From the Ground Up
Damn skippy.
(Musing how fun it would be to get a random billionaire to back a lawsuit demanding that the white house be turned over to the descendants of its builders)
“But you don’t have to take my word for it”
A catchphrase? Not copyrighted by the suers, not invented by them either -- do they want to claim exclusive ownership of the alphabet next?
Busterggi:
Wouldn’t surprise me. As for the “catchphrase”, it’s used all the time, by a lot of people. I use it myself.
busterggi@#2:
claim exclusive ownership of the alphabet
That’s Google’s parent shell corp; be careful how you use their trademark!
or else.
I’m rooting for him, too.
WTF is wrong with you people?!! Don’t you know that 45 invented that catchphrase long before he invented “Believe me!”?
FFS. I, too, am rooting for LeVar.
(Just listened to the fourth story this morning on the way into work.)
They won’t be able to afford lawsuits once they pay up for their wide-ranging use of the verb “to be” in all forms, tenses and languages, which I personally invented around the time when I first started to experiment with speech. Lest you worry, I consider myself a charitable organisation which generally tolerates non-profit usage of its intellectual property. But there are these occasional lapses coinciding with extreme exasperation…
P.S.: I’ve only gotten around to the first story. Perhaps I should accelerate my schedule…
One thing’s for sure -- they don’t dare take this to a jury. LeVar Burton is loved, literally, by generations of people.