sue

According to Page Six,  a woman in New York has sued Disney and ABC for using the phrase "What's your problem?" in their ads for Boston Legal. The woman, Janet Arnold, has a public access cable show called What's Your Problem and has supposedly trademarked the name (though when she registered the name is not mentioned). Meanwhile, my plan to become wealthy by trademarking the word "the" seems to have been an utter failure. At any rate, it's clear that the only way Disney and ABC are going to avoid any legal entanglements is to change the catchphrase to "What's your problem? (the previous phrase is a registered trademark of Janet Arnold)." Yeah, that'll be sweeping the nation any day now.

An animated Web series created for Channel 101 called "House of Cosbys" has had Bill Cosby and his lawyers fuming for some time now. The series, which, personally, I never found all that amusing, is about a man who creates several clones of the comedian, each one becoming a bit more twisted than the last. When the site received the first cease and desist, they took the show down. Upon consideration, however, they decided the parody had a right to exist and put it back up. That's when another letter was sent to their hosting service, who told Channel 101 to take the show down (again).

What Cosby and his lawyers didn't take into consideration is that this is the internet, and it's next to impossible to contain something once folks have caught wind of it. Several mirror sites now host the series, including Waxy.org, which was also hit with a cease and desist recently. Waxy has refused to remove the show, and has began collecting examples of popular shows that have also parodied Cosby such as SNL, The Simpsons, and Family Guy, none of which have ever faced any kind of legal action from Cosby.

Special note: Speaking of Family Guy, Mike Henry and Patrick Henry, two writers for the show, also created a series for Channel 101 called "Kicked in the Nuts" which was referenced in the episode "The Cleavland-Loretta Quagmire." It was by far the most esoteric reference ever on the show. And yes, Family Guy fans, I know the show isn't a food.

[via Boing Boing]

Most people know that public radio is a huge thing here in Minnesota. We are the home of Lake Wobegon, after all. Recently, Minnesota Public Radio filed a lawsuit against Al Gore's Current TV, claiming that internet users would confuse Gore's independent network with "The Current" a popular MPR-owned music station here in the Twin Cities. The lawsuit claims the radio station had already applied for a trademark of the name "Current" four months before Gore's new venture was changed from "INdTV" to "Current TV." Representatives from Current TV issued a statement noting that over 300 businesses use the word "current" in their name.

It's easy to dismiss this as just a frivolous lawsuit. After all, who's going to confuse a radio station with an independent TV network? What bothers me even more, though, is that public radio should be championing a TV network that eschews corporate news for citizen journalism. I would have expected MPR to support Current TV, not try to bring it down.

Special thanks to Doug Stewart for tipping us off.