In the wake of Fox News‘ humiliating legal confrontation with comedian Al Franken — in which the network’s copyright-infringement suit (over Franken’s use of the phrase “fair and balanced”) got laughed out of court and Franken got rich from the publicity — Naked City wondered about the status of Fox’s threatened legal action against Agitproperties, the Austin activist T-shirt company famous for its “Faux News” parody of Fox’s logo (see “Fox News Fauxs Up,” July 11). Agitproperties designer/marketing director Richard Luckett reports that he has heard nothing from Fox’s lawyers since they sent him a cease-and-desist letter on June 19; Luckett is represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which sent Fox a letter basically telling the network to “get stuffed,” in Luckett’s words. A Fox News spokesman would tell Naked City only, “We have no comment for you.” (National reports suggest that Fox News honchos knew the Franken suit was a really bad idea, but proceeded anyway to appease their star Bill O’Reilly, one of Franken’s juiciest targets. Perhaps they should have just told him to shut up.)
Agitproperties got some free publicity of its own recently when MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann presented Franken with a Faux News shirt. Franken will probably see more of the shirts when he appears at Barnes & Noble’s Arboretum location on Saturday at 7pm. You can buy Agitproperties’ products, including their new “Got Allies?” shirt in United Nations blue, at www.agitproperties.com.
This article appears in September 12 • 2003.