SHARK wins a round in court re use rodeo videos

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
CHEYENNE–U.S. District Judge William Downes on July 29, 2008
dismissed a lawsuit filed by Romeo Entertainment Group Inc. against
Show-ing Animals Respect & Kindness, better known as SHARK.
The case alleged that SHARK used “false and misleading
information” and “threats of negative publicity” to influence singer
Carrie Underwood and the band Matchbox 20 to cancel shows at the
Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo in 2006 and 2008.
Downes ruled that while the case could not be pursued in
Wyoming, due to lack of jurisdiction, it could be refiled in either
Illinois or Oklahoma. Romeo Entertainment attorney J. Kent Rutledge
told Associated Press writer Bob Moen that either the ruling would be
appealed or the case would be refiled in another state.

SHARK founder Steve Hindi sent videos of animals being
electro-shocked and otherwise injured at past Cheyenne Frontier Days
rodeos to Underwood and Matchbox 20. The Romeo lawsuit was filed
nine days before Cheyenne Frontier Days banned the use of the
hand-held electric prods shown in the SHARK videos “except in
emergency situations.”
The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Associ-ation meanwhile pressured
YouTube into removing 13 SHARK videos and canceling the SHARK
account–but the videos were soon back online, along with new videos
from rodeos more recently monitored by SHARK. The Electronic
Frontiers Foundation, founded in 1990 to protect freedom of
communication, in June 2008 sued the PCRA on behalf of SHARK.