It was a national embarrassment when Michigan State University last October flashed a picture of Adolph Hitler on pre-game video screens at the Spartan's football stadium where the team hosted the University of Michigan.
It was part of a pregame trivia segment. In this case, fans were asked Hitler's country of birth.
Now, a federal lawsuit has been filed by Floris van Pallandt, who has alleged that MSU used his quiz platform without his permission.
Robert Snell of the Detroit News reports:
Floris van Pallandt, creator of The Quiz Channel, sued MSU's Board of Regents for copyright infringement and invasion of privacy — false light — and wants at least $150,000.
The lawsuit accuses MSU officials of trying to blame van Pallandt and his company, Carsilius Media, BV, saying the video was "inappropriate content from a third-party source." In reality, MSU athletic officials knowingly and illegally infringed on the copyright and lied about it to the media, van Pallandt alleges.
The suit was filed in federal court in the Western District of Michigan, which includes East Lansing.
MSU did not immediately respond to the Detroit News for comment.
The suit states:
Given the timing of the football game, approximately two weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, the inclusion of a question regarding Adolph Hitler during the Michigan-Michigan State football game garnered an extremely high degree of attention, most of it negative.
This unauthorized use of Plaintiffs’ quiz came to Plaintiffs’ attention at
roughly the same time it came to the attention of most of the rest of the country, and indeed, a large section of the world, when the news media began to report that someone at Michigan State was including pictures of Adolph Hitler on the scoreboard at Spartan Stadium as part of a quiz.Once this story became national and international news, Michigan State
University’s first response was to attempt to place the blame on Plaintiffs, stating that the use of Hitler in the quiz was the fault of the company who created the quiz.
The suit acknowledges that the creator of the program, van Pallandt, did include a question about Adolph Hitler, but noted that the quiz was created as a general knowledge quiz on The Quiz Channel on YouTube.
The suit says the quiz was used without his permission and the question was not meant for a mass market, particularly in light of the current events, meaning the Israel-Gaza war that began two weeks before.
After the incident, this was posted on X:
Michigan State has issued an apology after asking a trivia question about Hitler’s birth country at its game tonight:
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) October 22, 2023
"MSU will not be using the third-party source going forward and will implement stronger screening and approval procedures" pic.twitter.com/JYUJfYoM0U
