almighty thor

Syfy’s Upcoming ‘American Warships’ And Why Syfy Is Fading From My Schedule

by Bruce Simmons on May 15, 2012

This upcoming Saturday night, Syfy will be airing the movie, American Warships as their Saturday Night Original movie. In case you’re wondering, this movie, up until a few weeks ago, was titled “American Battleship” and it airs on the same weekend that Universal’s Battleship premieres in movie theaters. They both have a similar tagline to their story. Go figure. American Warships tagline goes as follows:

“a single military ship must save the world from an alien attack.“

This was the movie that Universal sued Asylum for, because it appeared to be a blatant rip off of Battleship… like many of Asylum’s products seem to be like. Universal said that Asylum’s products are

“intended to and does confuse consumers as to the source or origin of Global Asylum’s productions by causing consumers to believe they are the same as or associated with contemporaneously released blockbuster films from major motion picture studios.”

Asylum quickly produced this beast and got it to premiere on the same weekend of the like-minded movie it’s mimicking. Much like when they released some of their other “products,” like Almighty Thor or Battle of Los Angeles.

What’s whacky to me is that Asylum knows what it’s doing and does it intentionally and then Comcast/NBC/Syfy goes along with the plan by airing the alleged rip-offs in time with the real movies they mock. And the combination of the two components is driving me away from the net faster than I had anticipated.

What’s confusing me even more is that even though Universal is (or maybe was) suing Asylum, the NBCUniversal controlled net Syfy, is airing this knock off. Whad up with that? And thus, my long-time viewing relationship with the net has started to erode. (Or, in plain English, I’ve had enough!)

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Asylum Being Taken To Court by Universal Over ‘Battleship’

by Bruce Simmons on April 28, 2012

in Entertainment

-Universal is taking Asylum to court for false advertising, copyright infringement and unfair competition. And I say it’s about time.

Universal is suing Global Asylum because Asylum has done it again. It’s gone off and made a quickie knockoff movie to capitalize on a mainstream movie coming to theaters. In this case, Asylum’s big mistake was making a knockoff of Battleship and called it American Battleship, and you’ll never guess what it’s about, as it stars Mario (I need a job) Van Peebles and Carl (desperately needs a job) Weathers. (I mean why do these movies unless some of the cast is under some kind of contractual requirement.)

“When a fleet of mysterious ships wage war against the Earth, only the crew of the USS Iowa, the last American battleship, can prevent global Armageddon.”

Universal’s lawsuit quotes trademark confusion, saying that these “mockblusters” confuse trademarked images and relationships, plus it can diminish the millions that the larger studios put into their products. Asylum on the other hand, admits to going after and mocking big studio titles because “They have the most audience awareness‘”

Plus one of the tricks in their “bag” of tricks is that when Syfy aired their copycat movies, they’d premiere them on TV the same weekend that the real movie would premiere in the real world.

Universal also made the observation that because of the closeness of titles, that consumers are fooled by these look-alikes.

“is intended to and does confuse consumers as to the source or origin of Global Asylum’s productions by causing consumers to believe they are the same as or associated with contemporaneously released blockbuster films from major motion picture studios.”

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