[August 12, 2011] Legal fight over Woodward Dream Cruise broadcasting quiets as radio station backs off Tweet Aug 12, 2011 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The big part of a legal headache for the Woodward Dream Cruise communities and their media partners went away today. The headache struck earlier this week when several independent broadcasters said they'd challenge the exclusive contracts of the Dream Cruise's media partners --WXYZ-TV Channel 7 and WOMC-FM radio (104.3). The independent broadcasters pay for weekly broadcast time on the Farmington Hills-based radio station WDTW-AM (1310). But today, WDTW said it decided not to broadcast any of the independents' planned live coverage of the Dream Cruise. "We don't want a legal battle," WDTW marketing and program director Michael Gersin said. "Corporate didn't feel it was necessary for us to challenge the Dream Cruise people," Gersin said. Channel 7 and WOMC have contracts that promise them media exclusivity for live coverage of the Dream Cruise each year -- which this year is to be next Saturday, on Aug. 20. To defend those contracts, the nonprofit Woodward Dream Cruise operating board threatened to file a lawsuit when the independent broadcasters announced they would broadcast live audio coverage via the WDTW radio station. The board is comprised of seven communities along Woodward in Oakland County -- all of the towns with frontage on Woodward Avenue, that is, except Birmingham, which withdrew from the board several years ago. With radio station WDTW no longer a concern, the Dream Cruise media partners still might have confronted the independents' plan to stream live coverage to the Internet. Now, that concern as well is partly gone, but partly not. After receiving an e-mail from the Dream Cruise board's general counsel Sean Cook, independent broadcaster Steve Greene of Lyon Township said today he dropped his offending Internet domain name --dreamcruiselive.com -- which Dream Cruise officials said infringed on the big event's trademarked name. Greene said he'd switch to dreamdrivelive.com for his live videocast and audio talk on the cruise, as well as for his weekly noon-1 p.m. Saturday radio show called "The Medical Marijuana Radio Show." But Greene's sidekick, Brian Jones of Novi, said he was still was committed to broadcast during the Dream Cruise, now on a new domain he controlled: dreamcruiselive.net, which also seemed to violate the trademark. "I don't care. I'm not worried about them," Jones said, referring to the Dream Cruise board. On Dream Cruise day, Jones said, "I'm going to be there," streaming live video and audio to the Internet from the Valvoline Instant Oil Change outlet on Woodward in Pleasant Ridge Cook, the Dream Cruise board's general counsel and an attorney with the Butzel Long firm in Bloomfield Hills, declined today to comment or say whether the board would sue Jones. In the past, other stations have broadcast short snippets and news updates from the Dream Cruise, apparently without violating the contracts, with some even calling it "the big cruise" and not using the term "Woodward Dream Cruise." But according to Dream Cruise officials, none has done long-form broadcasting -- the uninterrupted live coverage that Channel 7 and WOMC say are their exclusive right, obtained in return for promoting and otherwise supporting the Dream Cruise. Among other services it provides, Channel 7 is scheduled Monday to host its annual Dream Cruise partners' breakfast at its Southfield studios for mayors, police chiefs, car clubs and corporate partners that support the Dream Cruise with donations, Dream Cruise founding president Jean Chamberlain said. "We really couldn't make this event work, and keep it free to everybody, without Channel 7 and WOMC," Chamberlain said. Contact BILL LAITNER: 586-826-7264 or [email protected]. To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com Copyright (c) 2011, Detroit Free Press Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]