-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.
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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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