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MST3K Rightsholders Sue Over Theater Commentary

Posted by timothy on from the no-that-is-not-your-style-because-it-is-ours dept.

An anonymous reader writes "How can people who parody people sue people who parody them? Mr. Sinus is being sued by Best Brains Inc. the owners of the rights to Mystery Science Theatre 3000 because they are using a name/format that is too similar to their own. Here is the story." Evil thought: Apple should include a "three silhouettes yakking on merged soundtrack" mode in iMovie.

5 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. How many people are going to read the article? by chuckgrosvenor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Probably none, including the person who posted the article, and the people who approved it.

    They deliberately used the name of the show (the acronym) and approached the owners for the rights. They weren't doing a parody of the show format, they were attempting to capitalize on it.

    Not the same thing as just doing a commentary, or even a Rocky Horror Picture Show type presentation (which let's face it, is what MST3K rips off in the first place to some extent).

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    ChuckyG
  2. jeez by veritron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mr. Sinus and Mystery Science are one syllable and a slight intonation apart from each other - pronounce both names out loud, the names of the groups are almost identical. If you're going to almost exactly steal someone's idea, don't do it like these guys did. If the guys who made Mister Sinus don't get their asses kicked in court, something's wrong with copyright law.

  3. Best Brains Inc. - Hardly a Major Corporation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For those who gripe about this being another big corporation squelching the little guy, you should know that last I heard, Best Brains was Jim Mallon (the producer of the show) and some office staff. They are the littlest of guys, and because of rights issues (which they respect), they can't distribute a good chunk of their own show's run. So protecting what little they have doesn't seem out of hand to me.

  4. I wish people would actualy read the artical... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    its fun!

    MST3k isnt suing because they are using the format, they are suing because they practicaly used the same name and then tried to make money. They knew exaclty what they were doing because they actualy tried to obtain licensing and mst3k rejected it because they did not like the way that mst3k would be portrayed. This isnt a parody of mst3k, its somone stealing the mst3k format and using it to make money.

  5. Re:For Free Publicity? by strictfoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The /. article was of course poorly written, making it seem like Best Brains was doing something evil when in fact they are totally in the right.

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    I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.