Freeman v. Rucinsky [1]

In April 2009, Danyelle Freeman, an author and restaurant critic for the New York Daily News who runs the Restaurant Girl Blog [2], had her lawyers send a cease-and-desist letter [3] to Adam Robb Rucinsky, the operator of an unflattering parody blog and Twitter feed.

Rucinsky writes the Gourmet Glossary Blog [4] and the restaurantgirl [5] Twitter feed in the guise of a faux-Freeman, lampooning both her conversational writing style and her (alleged) lack of expertise.  In Rucinsky's words [6], the character is “a sweet but inept restaurant critic who loves food but has no idea how to express it.”

In the cease-and-desist letter, Freeman's counsel asserted that Rucinsky's publishing activities infringe her trademark in "Restaurant Girl" and violate her right of publicity.  It also suggested that using Freedman's name and likeness in connection with false statements "may constitute defamation."

According to the New York Times [7], Rucinsky "has been talking to his own lawyers and doesn’t plan to budge."