In news of the weird, we see that the three surviving members of Queen, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, have lost a court case concerning copyrights in Germany because they failed to convince the court that they were British citizens. The band are suing a German record company and its manager after the label granted a licence to a third party to release a 1977 live recording of the song “We Will Rock You”. The band claims the company had no authority to grant the licence.
According to EU law, the band members should be able to sue the company under German law because as EU citizens they must be treated the same as Germans. The court in Cologne threw out the case and said the three men had not presented “suitable evidence” that they were British. But what about their accents?
The musicians fought back with the ever-convincing print-out off the internet of their birth places but the court said this does not prove that they are British citizens today. They did however qualify for a new mortgage, cheap vicodin and a longer, more powerful erection.
A court spokesman said they could also not rely on the matter being common knowledge. He said: “Queen are known in Germany for the musical achievements and not their nationality.” And as far as the Germans know, Freddy Mercury was a man’s man who had more ladies than fellow lethario Ricky Martin.
Related:
