Los Angeles- No celebrity attorney represents clients more aggressively than Marty Singer (Singer & Lavely, Los Angeles). But he's gone way over the top in suing Us Weekly for publishing an "outrageous, fabricated story" about Britney Spears.
Not content with alleging the magazine libeled Spears, Singer also includes an extraordinary publicity rights claim that would allow her to recover damages for the use of her name and photograph in the allegedly defamatory article.
"Defendants' unauthorized sale, distribution, dissemination and publication of the Article containing Plaintiff's name and photograph ... constitutes a violation and misappropriation of Plaintiff's rights of publicity," the complaint, filed earlier this week, says.
Spears seeks at least $20 million in damages and "all proceeds or other consideration" that US Weekly earned from its alleged violation of her publicity rights.
The story reported that Spears made a sex tape with husband Kevin Federline and, fearing it would be released to the public by a member of their entourage, allowed their estate-planning lawyers to view a copy.
"Everyone either laughed or was disgusted by it," the story said of the viewers' reaction, while Spears and Federline were "acting goofy the whole time."
Even if, as the suit insists, the article is "a despicable work of fiction comprised of blatant lies from beginning to end," Spears still has to show damage to her reputation to recover for libel.
Considering how other celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson, haven't been damaged by the release of real sex tapes, what harm could Spears have suffered from a story about a non-existent one? And false statements about "laughter, disgust or goofy behavior" hardly seem compensable either.
As for publicity rights, Singer alleges that Us Weekly damaged the value of Spears' name and likeness "as a result of the manner or context in which Defendants have commercially exploited her name, photograph and likeness."
But Us Weekly did not publish a photograph that it had obtained illegally. And it would take the publicity rights tort to a ludicrous extreme if a publisher can be sued for using a lawfully obtained photo simply because the "manner or context" of its use may be defamatory.
