Judge tosses lawsuit by talk show host against Muslim group
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, July 25, 2008
(07-25) 17:42 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit by conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage against a Muslim-rights group that reprinted his attacks against Islam and called for an advertising boycott.
Savage, who has about 8 million listeners a week on 400 stations for his syndicated "Savage Nation" program, sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations in December for copyright infringement.
The organization had posted four minutes of excerpts from an Oct. 29 broadcast in which he called the Quran a "hateful little book" and a "document of slavery." He said Muslims were "screaming for the blood of Christians or Jews or anyone they hate."
The council cited Savage's remarks in urging advertisers to boycott the program. Its members say Savage has since lost $1 million in advertising.
The broadcaster claimed in his lawsuit that the Muslim-rights group had misappropriated his words and used them for its own fund-raising purposes, damaging the value of his copyrighted material.
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