GNR Sued

[D-GenerationX]

OK I just read the whole thing on the Rolling Stone article, there is clearly sexual aggression(s)

it changes everything.

Oh yeah.  Not a good read for Fernando here.

Going to be tough to put a good face on some of that.  And "she just misunderstood" is a near impossible sell for trying to force your way into her hotel room at 6 AM and haranguing her for 10 minutes when she is clearly not interested.

Team Brazil going to have to write a check here.  Discovery will not be their friend.

[cineater]

Hold on another story says Jarmo wasn't treated the same way.

Correct.  Per the plaintiff's filing:
"1122. Lebeis’s discriminatory intent- manifested through his habitual
stonewalling of Plaintiff to deny utilization of written contracts and his use of
photo credit as means to sexually extort Plaintiff-is further buttressed by the fact
that another photographer, named Jarmo, a male Finnish photographer who also
worked with GNR/GUNDAM/TEAM BRAZIL was not treated in the same regard
as Benzova and was allowed credit for his photographs."

True. I didn't travel with the band most of the time or stay in their hotels.

Never have I considered myself GN'R's tour photographer either. I took photos for fun.





/jarmo

Sorry your name got dragged into this.

[kyrie]

This sort of he-said, she-said is best left to the courts. There's a tendency to rush to judgment because of "me too" that at this point has made it all too easy for those with axes to grind and ulterior motives to hijack the legal system. Not saying that's the case here, but it's concerning that this lawsuit wasn't brought until GN'R had apparently launched their own suit against her.

"The lawsuit comes several weeks after Guns N' Roses filed its own lawsuit against Benzova, alleging that she “improperly registered” her photos of the band with the Copyright Office."

Will reserve judgment until more facts are known.

[DeN]

OK I just read the whole thing on the Rolling Stone article, there is clearly sexual aggression(s)

it changes everything.

Oh yeah.  Not a good read for Fernando here.

Going to be tough to put a good face on some of that.  And "she just misunderstood" is a near impossible sell for trying to force your way into her hotel room at 6 AM and haranguing her for 10 minutes when she is clearly not interested.

Team Brazil going to have to write a check here.  Discovery will not be their friend.

I wonder how the rest of the band will react at that...
Richard was in a relationship with her at some point right?

if he didn't already know and just found out...if no action is taken against Fernando...
I wonder what his reaction will be...

plus I don't think Duff & Slash won't look away about something that can tarnish their names, even in an indirect way
there's too much to lose in a time where cancel culture is sometimes out of control

[cineater]

It's not going to sit well with Duff.

[MrMojoRa]

A suit of this magnitude would be a waste of time if she didn't support her claims with digital evidence.

[PermissionToLand]

This sort of he-said, she-said is best left to the courts. There's a tendency to rush to judgment because of "me too" that at this point has made it all too easy for those with axes to grind and ulterior motives to hijack the legal system. Not saying that's the case here, but it's concerning that this lawsuit wasn't brought until GN'R had apparently launched their own suit against her

Spoken like somebody with an axe to grind...

Do we have any examples of the legal system being "hijacked"?

[faldor]

This sort of he-said, she-said is best left to the courts. There's a tendency to rush to judgment because of "me too" that at this point has made it all too easy for those with axes to grind and ulterior motives to hijack the legal system. Not saying that's the case here, but it's concerning that this lawsuit wasn't brought until GN'R had apparently launched their own suit against her

Spoken like somebody with an axe to grind...

Do we have any examples of the legal system being "hijacked"?

Not that this is an equal comparison, but the Duke University lacrosse players were accused of raping an exotic dancer. They were assumed guilty by the masses, lives ruined. But the whole story was made up, never happened. It was fabricated by the DA. Luckily in the end justice prevailed and the players were vindicated. But their lives were forever changed. In fact, the exotic dancer who was used as a pawn in this case, later killed her boyfriend. So even more lives were ruined as a result. False claims are made. Not saying that’s necessarily the case here, but it does happen.

[kyrie]

This sort of he-said, she-said is best left to the courts. There's a tendency to rush to judgment because of "me too" that at this point has made it all too easy for those with axes to grind and ulterior motives to hijack the legal system. Not saying that's the case here, but it's concerning that this lawsuit wasn't brought until GN'R had apparently launched their own suit against her

Spoken like somebody with an axe to grind...

Do we have any examples of the legal system being "hijacked"?

Spoken with a certain naiveté. The point remains this is a he-said, she-said case that was filed only after GN'R sued Kat. Those are facts. If you can contradict those facts, I'm all ears. The rest will come out with disclosure and eventual court dates and whatever info is made public.

As for your question, hundreds. It's not hard to find examples when the court system (in multiple countries really) is inundated with cases like these. But let's pick one from yesterday (hit the wire yesterday, ruling was earlier this month). Commonwealth v. Krankowski. You can look it up in the PA court system. A waste of a year of court resources because someone had an axe to grind and made a bogus allegation of child abuse. The fact they were eventually charged is in itself a rarity.

Or, you know, historically, Eleanor Williams, The Central Park 5 case, Jennifer Gries, Renee Skoglund, the Saifullah Khan case, the Matt Araiza case — but I'm not going to get drawn into a game of "well that's just a few cases" and have to keep citing examples. Do your homework. Having spoken to people in law enforcement directly (because my job sometimes involves dealing with production orders/subpoenas), there's a lot of this stuff going on. Police no longer investigate, they just take statements, do the appropriate paperwork, and let the court system sort it out. I've heard some serious horror stories from attorneys too. Your locale may be different, but our court system is backlogged.

[ITARocker]

Guys don't be naive... Women these days are playing with all of this stuff of sexual harassment and so on. I mean, again, it happened allegedely in 2016 and she sued gnr after they her job was over...Cmon now... I mean, it's very easy to made up stuff nowadays and being convicted in any case, or forced to settle things even when you're not guilty. True or not, she used the sexual harrasment to strengthen the accusation in order to have the money for her job... She didn't sue fernando, is more of a collateral blackmail to play the victim role, being bullied in every possibile way. I didn't read anywhere she sued fernando in those terms.Maybe she will. Until then to me it's just bs.

[DeN]

so even among GNR fans there's some people to take sexual assaulters side.
a reminder, false allegations is around 5% .

95% of the time, it's true.

maybe it's time for these people to listen women.

[ITARocker]

so even among GNR fans there's some people to take sexual assaulters side.
a reminder, false allegations is around 5% .

95% of the time, it's true.
 
maybe it's time for these people to listen women.

she has to sue Fernando for that. Why bring this up in order to ask for money to gnr? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not about siding with someone , it’s about common sense. If she sues Fernando, and maybe she already did, it would be another animal. till now, she just asks for money for other reasons for what we know… So Stop reading what you want between the lines. I can even believe they didn’t pay her for some reason (it happened with pitman imagine with a photographer) but I don’t believe in throwing other stuff in in order to make more believable your issues. Imagine you owe me some money and I go ‘ this guy owe me 100 k.. I,ve should have known better when he caressed my little daughter’ . Why should I bring that up in that particular moment instead of punching you when you caressed my little girl? It’s easy math to me. But maybe it’s just me, I don’t know how it works in the us so enlighten me. 

[faldor]

so even among GNR fans there's some people to take sexual assaulters side.
a reminder, false allegations is around 5% .

95% of the time, it's true.

maybe it's time for these people to listen women.

It’s not about taking sides. And I’m not saying I don’t believe her. I’m just saying everyone should let the legal system play out. If he did what she claims, then he deserves severe punishment. It doesn’t look great for him, but let’s see where it goes.

[Mysteron]

so even among GNR fans there's some people to take sexual assaulters side.
a reminder, false allegations is around 5% .

95% of the time, it's true.
 
maybe it's time for these people to listen women.

she has to sue Fernando for that. Why bring this up in order to ask for money to gnr? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not about siding with someone , it’s about common sense. If she sues Fernando, and maybe she already did, it would be another animal. till now, she just asks for money for other reasons for what we know… So Stop reading what you want between the lines. I can even believe they didn’t pay her for some reason (it happened with pitman imagine with a photographer) but I don’t believe in throwing other stuff in in order to make more believable your issues. Imagine you owe me some money and I go ‘ this guy owe me 100 k.. I,ve should have known better when he caressed my little daughter’ . Why should I bring that up in that particular moment instead of punching you when you caressed my little girl? It’s easy math to me.

That's the one thing I couldn't understand about it  The photos are one issue. The, alleged, sexual harassment is something else. Surely they are two individual issues. The photos would be about written contracts, and that's it.

[Bodhi]

so even among GNR fans there's some people to take sexual assaulters side.
a reminder, false allegations is around 5% .

95% of the time, it's true.

maybe it's time for these people to listen women.

I don’t think anyone is “taking sides” here.  They are simply saying an allegation is not an automatic conviction, although the two have become synonymous at times these days especially on social media.  Also 95% assuming that number is accurate is still not 100% is it?   Let the courts and lawyers do their jobs.

[Bodhi]

Pretty shocking actually

Is it? Fernando was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and never knew the meaning of the word "no".

 No, THIS is spoken like “somebody with an axe to grind.”  Do you know this person personally or have any evidence to back up that statement?  Seems like a strange thing to say with such confidence  if you don’t know the person personally, or witnessed any wrongdoing.
 
And again to be clear , some would take what I am saying as “defending “ the accused.  I don’t know him or anyone in this case, I have no idea what happened on the tour.  In reality I am defending due process , I’m a big fan of that one.   

[slashsbaconpit]

This sort of he-said, she-said is best left to the courts. There's a tendency to rush to judgment because of "me too" that at this point has made it all too easy for those with axes to grind and ulterior motives to hijack the legal system. Not saying that's the case here, but it's concerning that this lawsuit wasn't brought until GN'R had apparently launched their own suit against her.

"The lawsuit comes several weeks after Guns N' Roses filed its own lawsuit against Benzova, alleging that she “improperly registered” her photos of the band with the Copyright Office."

Will reserve judgment until more facts are known.

True. I know a guy who lost his career, marriage and home over an allegation that was later recanted. Just cuz someone says something doesn’t make it so. Also, the timing of the lawsuit is a bit suspect. Let the courts sort it out!

[pilferk]

I had not heard this before, so throwing it out there in case others like me had not...
The filing states Guns N' Roses is Duff, Axl and Slash.  I'm a little confused.  I thought Axl owned "Guns N' Roses" pre-reunion.  I assumed--without any logical reason--that once Duff and Slash rejoined, GNR became a band.  Now it makes more sense that a lot of promotional stuff is weirdly just Axl, Duff and Slash--not the whole crew.  In other words, maybe Guns N Roses is not just Axl, but is only the three guys.  Everyone else is hired help indefinitely, like Gilby?

Like with all things, it's complicated.  And the article doesn't do a great job of differentiating the details (and maybe that's because they're not really relevant to the article?).

As I understand it, there are 4 different entities in play, here:

There's Guns n Roses, the legal name of the band.

There's Guns n Roses, the limited partnership that has existed, and controlled publishing rights, since the early days of GnR, formed prior to the publishing of AFD.  This is why song credits on AFD are the way they are.

There's Guns n Roses, the actual performing artist/band.

There's Gun n Roses, the publishing entity (controlled by the limited partnership).

The limited partnership is, at this point (I believe) Axl, Slash, and Duff.  They have wider control over who can acutally use the material credited to the publishing entity. That was pretty much it's only function for a VERY long time (post initial break up...and, really, even post Izzy departure). This may have been reformed/reworked with the reunion to control more things (like tour revenue splits, etc), but we haven't seen much evidence of that, at this point.

The publishing entity, as named in AFD, is still Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy, and Adler.  That's who gets the royalties.

The "TM" Guns n Roses, aka the actual legal band name, is owned by Axl.  Now, it's possible this has been renegotiated as part of the reunion, but all we have at this point is the original agreement which granted rights to the name to Axl.

The current band is, as you all know, Axl, Slash, Duff, Richard, Melissa, Dizzy, and Frank.

[pilferk]

looks real bad... wonder how Slash and Duff are gonna respond to this

It reads really bad for the band. 

But a lot of filed lawsuits read like that, initially.  The aggrieved party makes it seem like they were treated like total dogshit.  The defendant tends to come back with a version of events where the plaintiff is totally and completely full of crap and lying.

The contract stuff on the photos seems cut and dried.  That's on paper.  The sexual harassment stuff is a bad look in 2023.  It just is.

As to Slash and Duff, I think it all comes down to how they see the Lebeis family.  As a part of the band operation?  Or do they still see them as, "hey Axl, these are YOUR people, not ours."


Just don't know.  Lot of speculation at this point.

One thing to keep in mind: Legal filings like this are only from the plantiffs perspective, they are necessarily perjorative to get the case taken up, and they don't give the defendent any chance to respond.  And sometimes....and I'm not saying thats the case here...they're filed specifically to encourage a settlement rather than litigation.  They can be sensentionalistic to get a very specific reaction.  Again, maybe not here, but the way this reads...if I were going to hold up an example of a text book filing designed to prompt settlement...this would be a pretty close to perfect one.

I'm 100% not taking sides.  I'm just presenting BOTH sides.  The truth is: we don't know.

[pilferk]

so even among GNR fans there's some people to take sexual assaulters side.
a reminder, false allegations is around 5% .

95% of the time, it's true.

maybe it's time for these people to listen women.

It’s not about taking sides. And I’m not saying I don’t believe her. I’m just saying everyone should let the legal system play out. If he did what she claims, then he deserves severe punishment. It doesn’t look great for him, but let’s see where it goes.

This.

Because 5% is 5%.

And the suit was filed after GnR sued for copyright infringement.

Maybe it all happened exactly the way she said, and she was just going to keep quiet about it until they tried to sue her.

Maybe not.

This is why there is a legal system, and allegations are just that: allegations.  Jumping to judgement does the entire process a disservice.

If the allegations are true, Fernando should be held accountable.

If she reported these actions up the food chain to someone in the band, or in a way they should have been expected to take action ,the band should be held responsible.

If she violated copyrights, she should be held responsible.

But we should all verify that those things actually happened before we start condemning people.

Though honestly, I expect both cases to be settled before they get all that far into the process.  We'll see.