Daily Show Highlights Seal Team 6 Trademark & FCC Commish Joining Comcast

from the that-was-fast dept

Wed, May 18th 2011 6:38am — Mike Masnick

It's always nice when either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report touch on stories that we regularly cover, so it was cool on Monday that TDS did a single segment, beautifully named "Well, That Was Fast" to cover both the story of Disney trademarking "Seal Team 6," just two days after Osama bin Laden was killed by SEAL Team 6, and the story of FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker joining Comcast as a lobbyist just a few months after helping to get their deal with NBC Universal approved. While these may just seem like fun little stories, they're important in showing the problems with the existing system, and it's good to see them getting mainstream attention:

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Filed Under: corruption, daily show, jon stewart, lobbying, meredith attwell baker, seal team 6, trademark
Companies: comcast, disney, nbc universal

20 Comments

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Anonymous Poster, 18 May 2011 @ 6:59am

Listen to those boos.

That can't be good for PR.
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DCX2, 18 May 2011 @ 7:03am

In before the lobbyist apologists!
"blahblah there was nothing improper about Baker joining comcast blahblah"

Yes, there is. It shows elected officials that if they do nice things for corporations, those corporations might do nice things back. It doesn't have to be agreed to before-hand.

Do you think Comcast would have offered a job to Michael Copps?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2011 @ 7:09am

Ironic
It's ironic that a satirical video about IP is region restricted.

"Dear Ireland,
We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. But consider yourselves lucky! You CAN get your headlines on Channel 4."

Not sure that I consider restricting content because of where I live "lucky".
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Michial Thompson, 18 May 2011 @ 7:10am

Seal Team Six
I agree that Disney's application was poorly timed, but to be honest it would have happened from one of the movie companies eventually...

It's pretty much a given that a big budget movie is destined to come to theaters about what may be arguably the most significant event to take place to date in the "War On Freedom" oh wait, I mean the war on terrorism.

There are dozens of Trademarks on Movie Titles that also have names that are significant in the world. Did anyone ever fight those or make comedy skits about the applications?

As for the scope of the trademark, merchandise is a given these days with big movie titles, so even that is somewhat expected.

But at the same time, it's nice that this is getting the press that it is. Maybe finally the common person who normally doesn't really care much about IP Laws will start to see how exessively they are being pushed.
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Comboman (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 7:18am

Damn you Jon Stewart!!!!
The Daily Show totally stole my joke! If only I had thought to trademark it.

(BTW, yes I know I gave Army ranks to a Seal Team, that's ...ah...part of the joke. Yeah, it's a comment on Hollywood's lack of attention to detail...yeah, that's the ticket)
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Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2011 @ 7:33am

Re: Seal Team Six
that doesn't mean the movie studio should own the rights to it.
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Capitalist Lion Tamer (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 7:37am

Re: Ironic
You're Irish. I thought everything was "lucky" over there.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 7:45am

Re: Re: Ironic
It just seems that way when you're completely blitzed throughout the day.

Trust me....
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Mr Claypole (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 8:07am

Anyone have a link that is not region-restricted?
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AJ, 18 May 2011 @ 8:08am

NUTZ!
I don't understand how anyone could trademark something that doesn't belong to them in the first place. How do they get away with it? What about all the different books and video games that have a reference to seal team 6? What about Demo Dick, the guy that put the team together, if anyone had a right to trademark anything i would think it would be him! How arrogant is Disney to think they can trademark part of our Armed Forces? What, will the Navy have to get "approval" from Disney when they want to create a training video that includes this Seal Team?
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ethorad (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 8:17am

Re: Re: Ironic
I think the "lucky" is indeed a reference to Irish luck.

I'm in England and my message is:
"Dear GB,
We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. But please don't send any Red Coats in retaliation at this time, as you CAN get your headlines on Channel 4."

Quite why they think I'd send over some children's entertainers I don't know ...

What messages do other non-US countries get?

(Also - not available? Yes they are. Just not in my country, wish they'd been honest about that)
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Cowardly Anon, 18 May 2011 @ 8:21am

I'm sad that b/c I'm in Canada, I can't view your video. I have to link though to the Canadian site and it takes me to another video (I think).

Just another stupid example of how companies don't understand the internet.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 8:24am

Re: Re: Re: Ironic
"What messages do other non-US countries get?"

Pakistan: We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. But hey, why don't you just send out a courier to go pick up the headlines on Channel 4 and then claim you had no idea he was in your country?"

South Africa: We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. But lord knows you wouldn't be able to hear the audio over the sound of those god-awful vuvuzelas anyway."

Canada: We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. Instead, here's a bunch of repeat episodes of South Park featuring the Terrance and Phillip characters. We know you hossers like that stuff, eh?

France: We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. We'd offer another way to get your headlines, but lord knows we can't because we're laughing at the way you ran off as soon as this popup message showed up.

Brazil: We're sorry, but full episodes and video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are not available. And why are you watching this bullshit anyway? You're in BRAZIL for christ's sake. Why aren't you at the beach taking a long gander at all the ridiculous beaver-tail walking around?
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NullOp, 18 May 2011 @ 8:54am

Greed
Now how many of you still doubt businesses are motivated by greed? Still think congress and big business aren't in bed together?

Time for a new revolution...I think so!
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Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2011 @ 8:55am

I get Dear Great Britain
You cannot watch this because of some Bullshit, go pirate it, its so much easier, plus you get the whole show.
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charliebrown (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 9:04am

Re: Re: Re: Ironic
Here in Australia I got.... the clip! Holy sh*t! The ABC and Foxtel didn't get it blocked? Granted, the ad before it (featuring an English accent) was TEN TIMES* louder than the clip itself (I know ads are always louder but this was an extreme case) but I still got the clip! :)

*To hear the ad, I dropped the volume to 1 but to hear the clip I had to raise it back up to full. Yes, I could have dropped the volume to zero for the ad but I didn't wanna miss any of the clip
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charliebrown (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 9:06am

Re:
I heard the audience booing and thought "Oh, yeah!" >:)
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Art Dreyer, 18 May 2011 @ 9:30am

Re: In before the lobbyist apologists!
What can JQ Public do about this kind of crap as it has been and will always be?? Pisses me off.
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harbingerofdoom (profile), 18 May 2011 @ 11:58am

ya know... i tend to not watch stewart or colbert (mostly because when they can be successful comedians lampooning politics using the format they are and everything they say is actually 100% correct, it just kinda depresses me)....

but i will say that i did enjoy that clip quite a bit.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2011 @ 4:45pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Ironic
the view from Canada

http://imgur.com/Kkq8T

it's really great when something is embedded, and the simply direct you to the home page of a different site and say 'go search'.
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