When we first heard that Paris Hilton was suing Hallmark for using her image on a greeting card, we thought they’d settle out of court. Paris feels that Hallmark have used her identity for commercial purposes and falsely represented her, and violated trademark. Paris registered her trademark phrase ‘That’s hot’ on February 13th of this year.
They’ll probably have to pay damages (the amount being claimed is unspecified), but they aren’t going to go down without a fight. In what I consider to be perhaps the best worded legal motion in history, they’ve responded to Paris’ suit with a motion to dismiss.
The motion says, “Hilton has become a household name, based in large part on her efforts to draw attention to herself. Having done so, she has subjected herself to public scrutiny and the parodist’s pen. The First Amendment does not allow her to respond by welcoming the fawning and flattering, but silencing the critical and comical.”
A Hallmark spokeswoman added this in a statement to news agencies.
“Some of Hallmark’s new humor greeting cards are parodies of today’s most popular celebrities and politicians,” said Hallmark spokeswoman Julie O’Dell in an e-mailed statement.
“These cards take a satirical look at news and gossip surrounding these public figures, including Paris Hilton, and we do not believe Hallmark has violated any of Ms. Hilton’s rights.”
I guess what Paris is trying to say is that it’s not okay to use her image in cards to sell them, unless she’s profiting from it directly.
The good news is that Paris does use her powers for good – The Sun newspaper is reporting that Paris will be fronting a campaign to help drunk elephants. Apparently the elephants get into Indian rice farmers rice beer fermentation vats and injure themselves when intoxicated. No, I’m not making this up. Paris says, rather sensibly, that “It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them.”
Note by Celebitchy: I doubt the drunk elephants story is true. Here is Paris in South Korea at the airport on 11/7/07. She was there to film a FILA commercial. Thanks to WENN for these pictures.
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