Dovale Glickman plans to sue the Golden Globe-award winning comedian for copyright infringement...
The Israeli comedian coined the phrase ["wa wa wee wa"] 16 years ago, for a character on the hit Israeli comedy show "Zehu Zeh." Glickman further popularized the expression in a series of TV commercials for the Israeli yellow pages. It caught on and is still commonly heard on the street in Israel.
Copyright infringement for a 4-syllable exclamation? Wa wa wee wa! Oops, now I'm in trouble!
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3 comments:
Copyright wouldn't work in this country because we are talking a short phrase, but trademark might work. Other countries have different copyright laws. The problem is that we, and I think most other country, including the Britts, allow judgments from other countries to be levied upon our citizens in many cases. It requires service through the Hague Convention, which makes it a pain, but it can be done.
The Israeli comedian
How ironic, consider Sacha Baron Cohen spends almost all his summers in Israel, where a goodly portion of his family live (including his aged grandmother, a famous ballerina from Berlin, pre-WWII).
I mean, chances are he must've heard it, and should have known that if it were an hommage of some kind, at least contact Glickman to aprise him of the fact to avoid potential brouhaha.
It might all be a bit silly, but it just goes to show, everyone wants in on the Borat gravy train.
Cheers,
Victoria
I've been trying to figure out whether this comedian has a legal case against Borat (Sascha Baron Cohen, that is) and see some good comments here about that.
Personally I don't think you can trademark a catch phrase that seems SO popular in Israel - according to the articles I've seen - otherwise Gary "whachu talkin' about Willis" Coleman would be rich. :)
BTW if you want to see a picture of this Israeli comedian (one from about 1990 when he supposedly coined this phrase and a more recent one), they're in an article on the electronic news network. Link is long so follow the link on the main Borat page at the top: "Israeli Comedian Threatens Borat Lawsuit":
http://celebs.electronicnewsnetwork.com/sacha-cohen/
Bye! :)
- Courtney -
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