Michael Savage Threatening Sites That Connect Him To Rockstar Energy Drinks?

from the too-many-lawyers dept

Controversial "shock jock" DJ Michael Savage (real name: Michael Weiner) last year made some news for threatening critics with copyright infringement for posting a segment of his radio show and providing commentary on it (while also suggesting his advertisers drop their sponsorship). A court eventually explained fair use to Savage, though it didn't stop his representatives from continuing to threaten others over nearly identical situations.

Now, a bunch of folks have been sending in the story from Consumerist about how Savage's lawyers are apparently sending legal nastygrams to a variety of sites that have noted Savage's connection to the popular "Rockstar Energy Drink." Apparently, the company was founded by Savage's son, and Savage's wife is a director of the company -- as she is for Savage's company, Savage Productions. Both companies share the same address as well. That allowed a few sites to point out these connections, suggesting that Savage was also involved in Rockstar, which brought out the legal nastygrams, leading to a deleted Facebook group and a "retraction" from another site. The specific claim is that despite the family connections, Michael Savage himself has nothing to do with the drink company.

Of course, it's difficult to see the reasoning here. If Savage is not connected to Rockstar, that's fine, but why send out threatening legal nastygrams? A simple note explaining that the companies are separate would seem to suffice. One possible reason to lawyer up so quickly is that Savage wants the close connections (if not a direct connection) kept entirely secret -- except, of course, that's now backfired in a big way, since the threats themselves are making a lot more news than the original claims ever did.

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