Fake celebrity endorsements? Any lawyers here?

[Bill Dozer]

I received a question asking if a player should be scared of a book that steals celebrity images. I said this wasn't a major concern when considering safety of funds but that I didn't know if there were any legal ramifications. Maybe we should look at this closer.

In this country you can sue someone for looking at you the wrong way but what can people with money to burn do about an offshore company?

Books like SportBet use Playboy Playmates. Its actually funny seeing them photo-shop on the headset for the CS pictures and add a Santa hat to the same pic for the holidays. We've all seen the athletes used. Players that cost 10 million for an endorsement are used for free.

[scottric]

Hey Dozer,

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you are concerned with but here's my take. I should preface this with saying I'm not a lawyer yet (waiting for Bar results in 6 weeks) so please don't construe this as official legal advice.

If you are talking about people suing offshore books, it is possible. Offshore websites have been subject to jurisdiction in the U.S. before. The whole idea is that (to not get too technical) the offshore sportsbook is deliberately marketing to the users where that player works and is trying to receive a financial benefit from those players. Therefore, it is likely that a court would find the company has such "minimum contacts" with the U.S. to enable them to be sued.

If you are talking about Playboy suing, then that would probably be a slam dunk case because of Copyright issues, Rights of Publicity for famous people, etc. The question is whether PB would want to waste their time and money going after someone like that. In my opinion, I don't think there would be a Fair Use defense available.

Obviously if there were damages there would be issues in collecting from a foreign offender although if they were American citizens I would think there would be several avenues of recourse.

If you were questioning about whether the player has to fear losing his money at the book if they get in trouble, my gut would say yes. The reputation of books is more of a discussion for the professionals here but I would think that the last people to be taken care of would be the players since the U.S. has such a bad impression of the industry. I would bet that the book would take the money and run just like your average shady retailer.

Don't know if that helps...

[Doug]

A little different case, but CBS-TV somehow forced Costa Rican book CBS ( Casablanca) to change their name to Wagerweb, but Casablanca also borrowed their "eye" symbol, that may have gone to far ! I think WW is a great book.

[Heysosamakeamove]

Anything jake is involved with is fake!

Jake (F MINUS)

100% LIAR

[Doug]

Wagerweb isn't Jake, that's Sportbet !

[Heysosamakeamove]

Wagerweb isn't Jake, that's Sportbet !

whatever :0000010: