Yon to sue Michael Moore for copyright infringement

After taking one of the iconic images of the Iraq War, Michael Yon has fought a number of battles to get compensation from mainstream-media outlets for its use.  Thus far, he has not had to sue anyone, but that may change.  Despite months of attempts to get Michael Moore to respond to Yon’s correspondence, Moore has ignored Yon and continued his copyright infringement — until the lawyers came calling:

MICHAEL Moore may wind up in court with a prize-winning journalist who claims the mountain-size moviemaker ripped off his most famous photo to use in a George W. Bush-bashing rant.

Last year, to illustrate one of his anti-administration bombasts, the portly polemicist posted on his michaelmoore.com Web site a heartbreaking photo from Iraq of an American soldier carrying the blood-spattered body of a child. The picture was snapped by acclaimed independent war correspondent Michael Yon, who has been very careful about how his images are distributed and goes out of his way to make sure they aren’t used for demagogic diatribes.

Yon – a Special Forces vet who posts regular dispatches from the front at michaelyon-online.com – is considered by many as the “Ernie Pyle of our time.”

Yon has tried to contact Moore for seven months to discuss his unauthorized use of the poignant snap, but hasn’t heard a word back from the director of “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Now, the fed-up photojournalist has told his lawyer to ready a lawsuit against Moore for copyright infringement.

Yon notes that the silence finally ended yesterday:

We have not yet filed in court, but will very soon if Mr. Moore does not settle the matter immediately.  The court paperwork takes time, though my attorney informed me that Mr. Moore’s attorney, after seven months of delay, called us late yesterday.  Michael Moore’s attorney and mine, Mr. John Mason, are playing phone tag today.

I recall the words of Mark Twain, after a judge ruled against his copyright-infringement lawsuit against the publishers of an unauthorized edition of Huckleberry Finn:

[The judge has allowed the publisher] to sell property which does not belong to him but to me — property which he has not bought and which I have not sold.  Under this same ruling, I am now advertising the judge’s homestead for sale; and if I as good a sum out of it as I expect, I shall go on and sell the rest of his property.

I’d attend a similar Moore garage sale organized by Yon.

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