American Dad: A half-baked effort to rip off Seth MacFarlane, done by...Seth MacFarlane? Holy crap!
Posted on 04/27/2006 11:07:37 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Peter Demers says growing a business is tough enough “without being trampled over by a media giant.”
Demers publishes the AmericanDad.com Web magazine out of a small office in the South End. The site, described as “an online resource for guys with kids” has offered parenting tips, advice on academics, ideas for hobbies and activities for children and other resources for dads since August 2003.
It’s a small operation. The site gets about 1,800 to 2,000 visits a day. Demers says AmericanDad is trying to create a brand and community around fatherhood, and has ramped up marketing efforts recently to drive traffic to the site.
But if you do a Google search using the words American and Dad, you’ll pull up a Fox Broadcasting Co. site devoted to the risque animated show “American Dad” long before you find Demers’ parenting site.
I don’t watch “American Dad” personally. But a colleague tells me it’s about a bumbling, gun-toting CIA operative, his dysfunctional family, a talking fish and a pet alien who delivers one-liners.
All of this was not a huge problem, Demers says, because “the show isn’t all that popular to begin with.” But that changed when Fox sought to register the American Dad trademark for goods and services.
AmericanDad.com Inc., the Boston outfit, had planned to do its own merchandising, selling things like T-shirts and coffee mugs on its site.
“That basically kills the opportunity for us to make money off of our site,” Demers said. “Unless you’re a huge site, you can’t make a living on advertising. You have to have other ways to make money.”
Demers says he has a trademark on American Dad, sort of. The two words are too common to get the full trademark. But he says his company does own the trademark on the supplemental register, which is supposed to tell companies like Fox that someone else already has the name.
Demers’ company yesterday said it filed a series of oppositions with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office against Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., producer of the cartoon show, which debuted in February of last year. He’s asking the patent office to block Fox’s effort to register the name for merchandising, and saying Fox’s use of it would “overpower” any of his own product development and marketing efforts.
A Fox spokesman declined comment.
Demers is working the obvious David vs. Goliath plotline.
“Here’s this huge mega giant squashing any opportunities for a business that had been in business before they even thought of the name,” he said. “What we’re hoping to do is get them to back off a bit.”
You should have thought of all of this before, i.e. the mugs and shirts and stuff.
American Dad is a funny show. The makers have every right to put out merchandise. The show may not be very popular, so this guy should be wanting to change the name of his little group so it's not associated with such a flop.
I think the organization had the name first...And from what I gather, whatever T-shirt sales, etc., they do is probably just to help offset operational costs.
Can't they both exist? American Dad the TV-show, American
Dad the website. Just as there is LIFE cereal, magazine,
the board game, etc.
...Then there's the little squabble over a British record
label (owned by a group that split up 26 years ago this month) and a computer manufacturer...
oops--36! my how time flies. 1970 + _36_... :)
Yes, but the guy should have copyrighted the name if he intended to have products. NOW he comes out whining about it, when the show has been on for quite awhile?
Unfortunately, LIFE and APPLE are words, while American Dad is a phrase, so it may be impossible to share.
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