Well, I noticed this week's press release for Diddy's upcoming European tour was very much headlined P Diddy, because, of course, he is not allowed to use the Diddy name in the UK after losing a legal battle over the name with London producer Richard 'Diddy' Dearlove. Issues surrounding that legal battle were back in court this week, with the key issues being discussed now set to go to full trial in October.
As previously reported, Dearlove claimed that Sean 'Diddy' Combs was in breach of the court ruling regarding the use of the Diddy name in the UK because the hip hop mogul's MySpace and YouTube pages use the disputed name. They are, of course, hosted in the US but accessible in the UK. Hearing Dearlove's latest claims, Judge David Kitchen agreed there was a breach, but refused to issue an injunction banning Combs from having the Diddy name on the MySpace and YouTube websites because there is, of course, the issue that Combs himself isn't able to stop his US presence on the social networking and video sharing websites from being accessed in the UK. The issue of control will be discussed when the case gets a full court hearing later this year (if it does, word has it both sides now hope an out of court settlement can be reached before then).
Judge Kitchen did say, however, that Combs was in clear breach by name checking himself in a song released in the UK since the court ruling governing the use of the name (the track is 'The Future' on last year's 'Press Play' album). Diddy's people said they would ensure the line - "mainline this Diddy heroin" - would be removed from the song when performed in the UK.