Willer v. Osbourne

Parents of a young man who committed suicide brought suit against Ozzy Osbourne, claiming that his song "Suicide Solution" endorsed suicide, used subliminal messaging to encourage listeners to commit suicide, and was the proximate cause of their son's suicide. The court found no evidence of subliminal messaging and found and that Osbourne's lyrics contained at most a philosophical reflection on the merits of suicide--that the lyrics did not encourage listeners to commit suicide, were unlikely to cause lawless activity such as suicide, and thus were protected by the constitution. They also expressed the view that imposing liability on protected speech would create "chill the flow of protected speech." This case is interesting in that it gets into the conditions under which speech is no longer constitutionally protected, bringing up the Brandenburg test.