From http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041211/D86TNG400.html

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), which promotes
itself as a seller of clean music, deceived customers by
stocking compact discs by the rock group Evanescence that
contain the f-word, a lawsuit claims.

The hit group's latest CD and DVD, "Anywhere But Home," don't
carry parental advisory labels alerting potential buyers to the
obscenity. If they did, Wal-Mart wouldn't carry them, according
to the retailer's policy.

But the lawsuit claims Wal-Mart knew about the explicit lyrics
in the song, "Thoughtless," because it censored the word in a
free sample available on its Web site and in its stores.

The complaint, filed Thursday in Washington County Circuit
Court, seeks an order requiring Wal-Mart to either censor or
remove the music from its Maryland stores. It also seeks damages
of up to $74,500 for each of the thousands of people who bought
the music at Wal-Marts in Maryland.

"I don't want any other families to get this, expecting it
to be clean. It needs to be removed from the shelves to
prevent other children from hearing it," said plaintiff Trevin
Skeens of Brownsville.

Skeens said he and his wife, Melanie, let their daughter buy
the music for her 13th birthday and were shocked when they
played it in their car while driving home.

Wal-Mart, of Bentonville, Ark., has no immediate plans to
pull the CDs from its shelves, spokesman Guy Whitcomb told The
(Hagerstown) Herald-Mail. He said the company will investigate
the allegations. No hearing dates have been set.

"While Wal-Mart sets high standards, it would not be possible
to eliminate every image, word or topic that an individual
might find objectionable," Whitcomb told the newspaper.

He told the Herald-Mail that the song sample online was
censored by Walmart.com, a separate division of Wal-Mart.

Whitcomb didn't return telephone calls Friday from The Associated
Press.

The lawsuit also names as defendants Wind-up Records LLC,
the New York-based company that recorded the music and decided
not to apply parental-advisory stickers; and distributor BMG
Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony BMG Music Entertainment,
of New York.

Sony BMG declined to comment on the lawsuit. Wind-up didn't
return calls from the AP.

The Skeens' lawyer, Jon D. Pels of Bethesda, said he aims to
"take this case national, even if that means going state by
state."

He dismissed Whitcomb's suggestion that Wal-Mart stores didn't
know about the censored version of the song. "They are a
multimillion-dollar corporation and they certainly can communicate
among their various entities," he said.

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