The Inquisitr » college humor

When Home Alone Meets Saw

Duncan Riley — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:58:02 +0000

The team at College Humor are back with the ultimate mashup: when Home Alone meets Saw.

Nintendo threatens websites that wrote about College Humor’s Mario and Princess sex tape spoof

Duncan Riley — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:26:34 +0000

Nintendo of America is threatening sites that wrote about College Humor’s Mario and Princess sex tape spoof on the grounds of trademark infringement.

In a letter sent to The Inquisitr from Nintendo representatives Cyveillance, the firm states that they were writing to ask us to “stop using the Nintendo properties in the hidden text/visible text/meta tags and/or title and/or links of the above-referenced sexually explicit Web site.” The firm goes on to state that “Nintendo’s customers include many children and their parents. Unauthorized use of Nintendo trademark(s)/work(s) is harmful to those customers and will tarnish Nintendo’s reputation.”

First and foremost, the video from College Humor was clearly satire and heavily branded by College Humor itself, so the idea that it may damage Nintendo’s reputation is bizarre to say the least. But satire, and the reporting of news by others (which is what we did when we wrote about the video) is protected free speech in both the United States and Australia. Part of my response as follows:

We read your interest your claims that the reporting of a satirical item on the College Humor website in any way infringes Nintendo’s trademarks. The post in question details the factual matter of a “spoof” video created by and posted by the site College Humor, and we do not see how reporting the item is in any shape or form infringing on Nintendo’s trademarks in any way differently to any other Nintendo news or related news we write about.

As you would be aware, the reporting of news, including news that may not be favorable speech is protected speech in both the United States and Australia. We have a legal right to write about such matters, and it is a right as a small media startup we exercise many, many times each day. That you don’t like what we write is irrelevant to the subject: unless it is defamatory, or unless we are claiming your trademarks as our own, it is legal speech.

Now I’m a loyal Nintendo customer, and we own so many Wii titles that we could have used the money spent on them to bankroll a small country. But to open your inbox and to find a claim from Nintendo that their trademarks extend over our reporting of matters related to them directly or indirectly not only ignores established law, it’s down right offensive.

What next: we have to scrub our coverage of every Wii release that comes out? I wonder how many other sites, many of who are contacted directly and work with Nintendo PR received one of these as well?

Video: The internet’s first musical…

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:43:12 +0000

If Tony and Maria met in the internet era.

Ringo Wants to Sing More

Duncan Riley — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:57:35 +0000

College Humor continues to get more creative with their originals, this time aiming for the Beatles.

In “Ringo Wants to Sing More” Ringo Starr plays the signing card in a clip that does the full time frame of Beatles songs, and the vocals are spot on.

Enjoy:

Duck Tales Theme gone horribly wrong

Duncan Riley — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:07:53 +0000

If you’re a Duck Tales fan, you probably shouldn’t watch the latest from College Humor. Given how easy Disney are on the lawyer button, I wonder if they’ll go down the DMCA path?

ShamWow Guy in Jail: the new sales pitch

Duncan Riley — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:00:23 +0000

With Shamwow guy Vince Shlomi possibly facing jail time after he was arrested in March for beating a hooker, the team at College Humor considered what would Shlomi in jail be like?

Restricted to offering porn, cigarettes, drugs and little more, the Shamwow Guy tries his best:

Watch ShamWow Guy in Jail on CollegeHumor

Simply Brilliant: College Humor sings We Didn’t Start The Flame War

Duncan Riley — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:28:01 +0000

College Humor’s Zaid Rasheed, who can be prone to exaggeration in the emails he sends out to sites (including us) pitching College Humor videos, wrote that “This is quite possibly the greatest CollegeHumor original of all time!.”

This time he wasn’t exaggerating. Zaid again: “Ever wonder how our content goes viral or why commenters can be so nasty? Check out the Internet video that YOU helped to write.”

Language warning, but sit back and enjoy, until the sequel comes out, because they’ll have to follow this one up:

College Humor acquires Sportspickle.com

Duncan Riley — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:34:14 +0000

The IAC owned College Humor has acquired satirical sports website Sportspickle.com for an undisclosed sum.

Sportspickle was established in 2001, and a book based on the fake columns was published in 2007. Content from the site has also been syndicated by ESPN, reports Paid Content.

Two things College Humor didn’t buy the site for: traffic and looks. Cough***OMG that’s ugly***Cough, and a traffic spread of Compete 8,700 people per month, Quantcast 11,000 and an Alexa rank of 444,000th.

Viral Video Pet Store

Duncan Riley — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:38:18 +0000

College Humor nails internet memes again with a new video: viral video pet store. Getting a pet these days isn’t simply for championship, it’s about what they can do on YouTube

Behind the scenes at College Humor

Duncan Riley — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:52:30 +0000

When one excellent site meets another: NewTeeVee’s Liz Gannes went behind the scenes of College Humor’s latest video, the Sarah Palin meets Disney hit “Head of Skate.”

As Gannes notes in the post, College Humor is profitable because it continues to deliver great content, and she’s dead right, which is why we regularly embed College Humor originals here at The Inquisitr. The video above is an interesting look at College Humor we don’t normally get to see.

College Humor Nails Wikipedia

Duncan Riley — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:02:35 +0000

The College Humor team takes on Wikipedia through a practical demonstration of Wikipedia in the class room. Genius.