Serova

Opinion of the Court by Jenkins, J.

Plaintiff Vera Serova purchased Michael, an album of music billed as Michael Jackson’s first posthumous release. The album’s back promised “9 previously unreleased vocal tracks performed by” the pop superstar, but Serova now thinks some of these tracks, the so-called Cascio tracks, feature a Jackson imitator. She asserts Michael’s marketers misled her and violated two California consumer protection laws, the unfair competition law and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, by misrepresenting the vocalist on the Cascio tracks through the album’s packaging and in a promotional video. The question before us is whether Serova’s claims, premised on Michael’s packaging and video, are subject to the album marketers’ motion to strike under California’s anti- SLAPP statute, which calls for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits if they arise from a defendant’s acts in furtherance of free speech rights in connection with a public issue. (Code. Civ. Proc., § 425.16, subd. (b)(1).)1 The Court of Appeal concluded the motion to strike should be granted, reasoning the First Amendment shields the album marketers from liability. Even if the statements about Jackson’s…