New Kids in Court: Fan Phone Lines Spark Suit

The New Kids on the Block pop group filed an unusual lawsuit on Tuesday, accusing USA Today, Star magazine and three other companies of unfairly profiting from the singers by urging fans to pay up to $2 a minute to phone in to voice their opinions on the group.

The lawsuit, which also names promoters Star Talk, Media Promotions and Merry-Go-Round Enterprises as defendants, seeks combined damages of more than $50 million. It alleges that each of the defendants leased 900-prefix lines from the telephone company to earn revenue from toll charges on fans’ incoming calls. The lawsuit also alleges that the 900-prefix telephone service unfairly competed with the New Kids on the Block’s own 900 service lines that have been in operation for several months.

“It’s pure commercial exploitation,” said Philip Heller, the group’s attorney. The group has sold more than 14 million records.

None of the defendants could be reached for comment late Tuesday.

When the 900-prefix information service lines were first introduced by telephone companies in the early 1980s, they were mostly used by news organizations to poll viewers and readers about various current affairs issues.

But in recent years, the telephone numbers have been used by a growing number of entrepreneurs as well as many rap and dance music groups, who use the 900-prefix numbers as marketing devices to build fan support. The service differs from toll-free 800-prefix telephone lines in that callers are usually assessed toll charges of about $2 for the first minute and a $1 or more for each additional minute.

A key legal issue in the dispute will be “to what degree the polls were ‘information gatherers’ as opposed to ‘money generators,’ ” said Lionel S. Sobel, a Loyola Law School professor and editor of the Entertainment Law Reporter in Santa Monica. On the other hand, he said, “The New Kids on the Block get a lot of (free) publicity out of these kinds of things.”