Hip-hop group go back to court

Parks, now 88, says the song could taint her legacy

American civil rights icon Rosa Parks is appealing against a ruling that saw hip-hop act OutKast cleared of illegally using her name.

The Atlanta-based band's song Rosa Parks did not violate her right to publicity, A Detroit juge ruled in 1999.

The appeal will be heard by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati on 11 May.

A reversal of the decision below would produce a chaotic situation

Joseph Beck
OutKast lawyer

Ms Parks, 88, is credited with launching the civil rights movement after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Alabama in 1955.

OutKast's song was nominated for a Grammy award in 1999 and includes the lyrics: "Hush that fuss, everybody move to the back of the bus."

Ms Parks accuses the band of defaming her by implying she approved of it.

She also said the album's ''profanity, racial slurs and derogatory language directed at women'' handicapped her future business dealings, caused emotional distress and tainted her legacy.

But US District Court Judge Barbara Hackett rejected those claims during the original case.

OutKast's Aquemini has sold 2.5 million copies

She said: ''The right of publicity... does not authorise a celebrity to prevent the use of her name in an expressive work protected by the First Amendment.''

The defamation claim failed, she found, because the song's references to her were metaphorical rather than factual.

Ms Parks is being represented by Johnnie Cochran, who represented OJ Simpson and Puff Daddy in their criminal trials.

Cochrane says the band, its label LaFace Records and its corporate parent BMG Entertainment violated Ms Parks's common law right of publicity.

OutKast are being represented by Joseph Beck, who is also involved in the copyright case pitting literary parody The Wind Done Gone against Gone With The Wind author Margaret Mitchell's estate.

'Flood'

''I think a reversal of the decision below would produce a chaotic situation,'' Beck told Inside.com.

''The First Amendment guarantees an artist... the right to use celebrity names as part of their act or writing or song so long as they don't do so in a defamatory way.

He warned of a "flood" of similar lawsuits if the ruling was overturned.

The songs is taken from the band's 1998 Aquemini album, which has sold 2.5 million copies.

Ms Parks's 1955 arrest for failing to give up her seat triggered a 381-day bus boycott that first brought the Rev Martin Luther King Jr to national attention.