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More wrangling in the Michael Jackson hologram case
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 19 September 2014
The dispute over the Michael Jackson ‘hologram’ that starred at the Billboard Music Awards earlier this year continues, with movie industry entrepreneur Alki David scoring a victory, albeit it on a side issue in the case.
As previously reported, David has accused the firm behind the Jackson routine at the Billboard event, Pulse Evolution, of utilising technologies in which he controls the patents. Pulse, for its part, denies the claim, alleging that the company David did a licensing deal with over the technology is defunct, and that the business man clearly doesn’t know anything about how the software works, not least from his description of the effect as a hologram. Which it isn’t.
In a sideshow to the main patent dispute, which is ongoing, Pulse accused David of false advertising for taking part in a CNN interview about the Billboard Awards Jackson routine that implied it had been staged by his company, or at least used his technology. But David’s legal reps have successfully convinced a judge to throw out that aspect of the case, on the basis that David himself made no specific claims during the interview, and that any incorrect insinuation about his involvement came from CNN.
Though Pulse has been given the option to resubmit its case in amended form. The judge agreed that while David could not be liable for CNN’s misleading remarks when the interview first aired, there might be a case to answer for the fact he subsequently uploaded the piece to his own digital channels, which arguably meant he was “adopting the false statements”. Pulse’s original lawsuit didn’t say anything specific about this particular fact, so the company will have to re-file an amended brief if it wants to proceed with the case on those grounds.
