Former U-S representative Steve King will not have to pay any fines for using a meme without permission in a campaign fundraising ad.
The owner of the viral “Success Kid” photo, Laney Giner, filed a lawsuit against King after his campaign used the meme to fundraise for his 2020 reelection run. King faced a federal jury this week in Sioux City.
Griner sought at least 750 thousand dollars in damages. But the jury decided that King was not personally liable for copyright infringement – owing nothing. The jury did rule that the campaign team, King for Congress, unknowingly infringed on copyright claims. It will have to pay 750 dollars to Griner. That’s after a year and a half of litigation.
King represented Iowa’s fourth congressional district for nine terms, before losing the primary to current Representative Randy Feenstra.
The jurors left the Sioux City federal courtroom at 11:40 a.m. to begin deliberations. They could award up to $150,000 in damages if they find King and his campaign willfully infringed on Griner’s copyright.
Griner says she has no problem with people using the photo of the Success Kid as a fun meme, but she says she draws the line if people are trying to use it to make money.
Iowa’s unemployment rate ticked up slightly in October to 2.9 percent from 2.7 percent in September. Iowa Workforce Development spokesperson Jesse Dougherty says there are positive signs despite the increase, and more Iowans are entering the labor force.
Northwest Iowa farmland prices continue to rise. The sale of 73 acres of farmland near Sheldon in Sioux Cicounty appears have set the record price for Iowa agland of 30,000 per acre. A month ago, 53 acres of Plymouth County farm ground between Marcus and Remsen sold for over $26,000 an acre.
Iowa’s 2023 Drug Control Strategy report found opioid overdose deaths reached a record high in Iowa last year, according to an annual report from the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy
258 Iowans died in 2021. That’s up 64 percent compared to 2019.
Doug Woolery, the director of the Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy, says illicit fentanyl was involved in 83 percent of opioid-related deaths in Iowa.
He says the state’s new drug overdose action plan will focus on prevention, intervention, increasing access to treatment and interrupting illicit drug trafficking pathways.
Harvard University’s Peabody Museum intends to return to tribal officials and communities hundreds of Native American hair clippings that have been in the museum’s collections for decades.
The Omaha World Herald reports that the hair clippings were taken from about 700 Native American children who attended federally funded boarding schools that spread across the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Six hair samples were taken from children at the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School in Nebraska.
The annual Cy-Hawk football game will continue over the next few years.
The series will live through at least 2027, according to simultaneous announcements Thursday from Iowa State and Iowa athletics departments.
The two-year extension starts after the existing contract ends in 2025. The 2026 game will be played at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, and the 2027 game will be at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames.
The 2023 game is in Ames.
Thursday's announcement should put to rest concerns about the series' continuation, at least in the short term. That's something that had been up in the air, considering the realignment going on in every major conference.
