Detroit, Michigan city officials are heading to court after filing a lawsuit against the promoters of 2000's Up In Smoke rap tour for secretly recording them.
Former police commander Gary Brown and colleagues Paula Bridges and Greg Bowens claim they were filmed as they instructed promoters not to show a video featuring naked women and violence behind performers like Eminem, Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg at the Joe Louis Arena.
The footage of the trio later appeared in a DVD film about the tour, called Detroit Controversy.
Brown claims he was secretly being taped when he made his comments about the video - even though he made an agreement with promoters that the meeting would be private.
State laws in Michigan protect people from being secretly recorded.
The plaintiffs' attorney says, "They recorded the footage of the meeting and used it on this gangster rap DVD. It's vile and it's got everything that you would not want your child to see on it."
But Herschel Fink, the attorney representing the rap promoters, tells ClickOnDetroit.com, "Law enforcement cannot have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy, even if they believe subjectively that they are doing what they're doing in private."
Arguments will begin in Michigan's Supreme Court on Wednesday (19Jan11).