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MST3K Rightsholders Sue Over Theater Commentary
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.
How can people who parody people sue people who parody them?
Can we parody people who sue us? It might be fun to get a group together and taunt lawyers in court. It would probably make jury duty more fun, too.
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).
ChuckyG
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.
Now, can we get back to feeling sorry for people that steal music please?
I know what you mean! My cousin downloaded the mp3s for Metallica's latest album, and now nobody else can listen to it.
This isn't such a clear cut case - are they really trying to parody Mystery Science Theater 3000 or are they trying to sell tickets to their live show which uses a similar format and trade off of the MS3TK brand name?
So as far as I can tell, as long as they don't use a name that is deceptively similar to "Mystery Science Theater 3000" or "MST3K" they are probably fine. "Mister Sinus" or "Mister Sinus Theater" is probably still deceptively similar. Nobody is trying to stop them from doing their show under some other name. So... they would have to convince a judge that they are really making a parody of MST3K itself, AND that what they do does not carry a substantial chance of being confused with the original (i.e. something endorsed by the original company), AND that their use of adult material does not run a substantial risk of harming the business of the MST3K people.
Alright, now back to our normal business of feeling sorry for people who steal music.
Mr. Sinus vaguely follows the format of 3 individuals making fun of a movie. Making fun of movies in public has been done since, what, probably the 1890s? Another poster mentioned Rocky Horror.
Mr. Sinus uses no characters from MST3K. If MST3K thought the idea of making fun of movies was original, they should have filed a business method patent. So, MST3K's only real problem is a possible confusion of names, thus, Mr. Sinus' dropping the "Theatre 3000". Consequently, while Mr. Sinus is a partial tribute to MST3K, as is evident from their theme song, it doesn't violate any of MST3K's rights.
Frankly, I'm highly disappointed in Best Brains, Inc. Apparently, they're not using their namesake.
-l
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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.
No, dumbass, instead no one can:
1) Go ask to be licensed by some guys to do the same thing they were doing *and* doing it in the same way *and* use almost the exact same way
2) get turned down
3) go ahead and do it anyway and just hope no one will notice.
IF you were to *read* the (brief!) article, you would note the plantiffs just want the Mister Sinus guys to not use the Mister Sinus 3000 style name. It doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.
People can still make fun of movies all they want--just don't call yourself MST3K without permission. (Unless, perhaps if you really *are* parodying them... which is not what the Mister Sinus guys are doing (apparently... although perhaps they'll claim different in court, if it gets to court).)
Yes. I *am* an anonymous coward.
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.
My cousin downloaded the mp3s for Metallica's latest album, and now nobody else can listen to it.
Please thank your cousin on my behalf. The world is a better place because of him.
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.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Did you even RTFA? The MST3K owners don't even want them to stop doing the show - they just want them to use a different name, one that isn't so close to the original!
This isn't about copyright AT ALL - it's about trademark infringement, which is a wholly different beast!