With apologies to Ron House, the following story from the Associated Press comes to us courtesy of Jon Solomon.

CLEVELAND – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has sued the online Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame over alleged trademark infringements of the rock hall™s name.

The lawsuit filed Monday in Cleveland seeks to halt the use of the name Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and award the Cleveland rock hall unspecified damages. The lawsuit claims the rock hall has sold more than $5 million in licensed items in the past 10 years, and the Jewish rock hall jeopardizes that brand.

David Segal, a writer for The Washington Post and one of founders of the Jewish rock hall, said backers plan to launch the new Web site next month. The Jewish rock hall™s site showed a single message Tuesday: Future Home of JewsRock.org.

œThe idea that the public could possibly be confused between a large museum backed by any number of corporations and a Web site run by a couple of Jewish guys is kind of nuts, he said.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for The New Yorker magazine and another Jewish rock hall founder, called the organization œa little Web-based exercise in ethnic pride.

œIt seems to be improbable that these people own ™rock ™n™ roll,™ it™s entirely unlikely they own the phrase ™hall of fame,™ and I know for sure they don™t own the Jews, Goldberg said.

Writes Jon,

I’m pretty upset. Now that I know they are two different places, I am going to have to not visit twice as many locations.

If nothing else, this case calls into question plans on the part of CSTB and its investors to open the Rock’n’Roll Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.


(Rod Carew, Jewish Baseball Hall Of Fame inductee, unavailable for comment on this story)