R. Crumb Lawyer Sues Amazon in Seattle Court

According to news stories via The Globe and Mail and The LA Times (registration required), an accused lawyer by the name of Jules Zalon representing Robert Crumb filed a lawsuit in a Seattle court December 21 against Amazon.com seeking compensation for an older case of copyright infringement whereby the online shopping behemoth allegedly made an unauthorized use of Crumb's keep on truckin' character on its website in 2003.

Seattlest finds lawsuits like these kind of dubious in general, especially given the ubiquitous proliferation of the material in question, but particularly in this case where the amazon character (no example could be found online) was so heavily altered that it bore little resemblance to Crumb's original source, which probably qualifies it for the strong legal precedence of protection under the Fair Use clause of the First Amendment; Imagine Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith suing anybody who ever asked "Are we having fun yet?" Crumb lost a similar lawsuit over Keep on Truckin' material before (which might have been mentioned in Terry Zwigoff's Crumb documentary; its been a few years), but given Amazon's deep pockets and their prior capitulation in removing the material from their site two years ago there may be some Alexander Hamiltons in store for Crumb's legal team.