Sollus sent me an email today with details of the first hearing in regards to Tool‘s lawsuit. I’m no legal expert, but it appears they have got off to a good start with a minor victory:
Law360, Los Angeles (December 05, 2014, 7:47 PM ET) — A California judge has refused to find that Clarendon National Insurance Co. doesn’t have a duty to indemnify the rock band Tool in a graphic designer’s suit claiming copyright infringement and defamation, ruling that the insurer failed to show that any of the exclusions in its commercial general liability policy bar coverage.
In a ruling adopted Wednesday, Judge Deirdre Hill denied Clarendon’s motion for summary adjudication, concluding that factual disputes still exist in the insurer’s feud with Tool over coverage for graphic designer Cameron de Leon’s now-settled suit against the band. The judge also declined to rule that Clarendon is entitled to reimbursement for the $450,000 it paid to settle the de Leon action.
Judge Hill agreed with Tool that some of the arguments in Clarendon’s motion have already been rejected by the trial court or a state appellate court.
There’s plenty of water still to go under this bridge, and the trial is set to continue on January 22nd.
A full report of the court case can be found here, however you’ll need to pay for it.
i was just reading the newsletter and read a part about the messageboards. do they still work for some people?
Nope, though I believe there is still some extremely limited functionality in the live reviews section, but not enough is working to make it worth bothering.
They do not.
Phoenix Wright for the win
This information regarding the legal issues is just bizarre to me. I had a look at this Cameron De Leon fellow’s website, and I see he designed 3 key pieces of art for Tool. The Aenima album cover, the ‘eye’ image contained in the Aenima sleeve, and the Salival album cover. If Tool have settled out of court and paid this guy 450k, that is an ASTONISHING amount of money to pay out someone. What I’m getting at is, what kind of incompetent personnel/management did Tool have back in those days? Was there no contract drawn up for this guy’s… Read more »
They made a mistake, that’s for sure. Not sure that I feel I can begrudge them for attempting to live in a better place where a handshake actually meant something.
Maynerd – Adam and Cam were old, close friends. He stated this in an interview years ago – wish I could remember the source. The two men had a spoken agreement, but neither of them had any idea how big Tool was going to become. $$$ started raining in, and as is too often the case, soured relations.
I should also add that De Leon also designed the Tool Wrench logo, which was used extensively for years.
Ya, Maynerd, its true, there is more to the Adam/Cam thing with his work then just a few piecies. he also designed Salival. that was his last artwork thing on a release like that im pretty sure. he did have some of his painting aspects brought to life in the Schism video. the wall with the black x thing on it. thats a painting of Cams. u can find it on his site if u look around enough. Didnt Cam also design the Opiate priest ? or was it him and adam or just adam? i cant recall but from… Read more »
Yeah I disliked the Alex Grey 10,000 days album cover so much.
the last Cam thing i ever saw was a limited edition long sleeve t shirt at a 2002 tool show in Erie,PA. .i think that was the last cam/tool related thing i ever saw. look at his non toolish work as well. he can get really detailed with lots of colour…hes pretty amazing actually and i like his style,. its too bad money ruined their connection/friendship…suux!!
yep. all good info from you fellas.
Was all of his design work worth 450k? Fuck no.
A mistake the members of Tool will never make again.
According to Tool guitarist Adam Jones in Revolver Magazine Presents Tool, “Contractually, the record label was supposed to talk to us about any sort of publicity stunt they pulled on our behalf, especially with us paying for part of it. But without telling us, they made little kid T-shirts for the single ‘Prison Sex’ with our Tool wrench logo on there, which is actually a phallic symbol. So the label was going to send the shirt to all the radio stations because Nirvana did that with one of their songs. And we’re going, ‘Well, first off, you didn’t even talk… Read more »
That’s not relevant to this discussion.
haha. i read that last message and thought the same thing but it was interesting and i forgot about it till i read it just now. i dont know if Cam deserves the 450k or not. being his artwork was in/on Aenema and some videos plus a lot of t-shirts they put out had his sketches on them. the only quote i remember coming from Cam was the album cover for Aenema which he stated as being ”the slogan for their concert tour” (plus the obvious of it being on the album cover) he obvoiulsy fees like he got left… Read more »
450k is what he has been paid as an out of court settlement.