Colombian coffee growers to sue over US cartoon

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Jan 7, 1:57 PM EST
Colombian coffee growers to sue over US cartoon

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombian coffee growers are brewing up a lawsuit over a U.S. comic strip joking that violence is so rampant there, maybe "there's a little bit of Juan Valdez in every can" of the country's java.

The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation says it has consulted with U.S. lawyers and will sue "Mother Goose & Grimm" cartoonist Mike Peters "for damage and harm, detriment to intellectual property and defamation."

The suit will be filed Friday and "would not seek any less than $20 million," according to a note on the federation's Web site. It will also demand a retraction from any newspaper that published the Jan. 2 cartoon.

In the offending comic strip, a character says: "Y'know, there's a big crime syndicate in Colombia. So when they say there's a little bit of Juan Valdez in every can, maybe they're not kidding." The joke plays off a former marketing slogan used by the federation.





Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_COLOMBIA_COFFEE_LAWSUIT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-01-07-13-57-38

[Bacchus39]

1. I thought it was pretty funny

although I can see why the coffee growers would be unhappy to be associated with growers and distributers of other types of stimulants. not that there aren't those connections.

[Ian David]

2. We got your back, Mother Goose! n/t

[uppityperson]

3. Here are links to strips

http://www.grimmy.com/comics.php

[Dogmudgeon]

4. They will sue. And they will be laughed out of court.

There's a very strong firewall in the so-called "satire exception". It even allows the use intellectual property for satiric purposes.

The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation is going to have to make a strong case for deliberate defamation to even get the standing to sue.

¡Buena suerte, Sr. Valdez!

--p!

[Rebubula]

5. Once...

...I saw Juan Valdez at a US Open Tennis match (maybe 1993) - course, I was smoking a lot of Colombian back then....

[1monster]

6. Dumb move. Now millions of people (including myself) who hadn't heard of the

cartoon will and will look it up.

Clever bit of political commentary.

Perhaps it hits to close to the bone for the Columbian coffee cartel?

[tomm2thumbs]

7. good point

these idiots are doing something that makes what could have been a 1/2-day story a 3 month story - with the nature of crime, corruption and other issues in Columbia continued to be heard in the news, undermining their product, bringing ill-will from consumers. folks will switch to tea just to get the story to go away

it would be like ford complaining about a fiery pinto-cartoon being run today. suddenly a new generation would say 'ford pinto?' what is that about and voila!

[Ediacara]

9. This is like O'Reilly flipping out about Franken's book "Lies" a few years ago

Nothing like free publicity.....

[Boomerang Diddle]

8. Maybe they chould be drinking decaf?