University Of Utah And HBO In "Big Love" Fight

SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah says the HBO series "Big Love" can't use the school's name or logo without its permission.

University officials say they learned an episode of the show displayed a document with the school name and logo. They say the document made it seem like the university is affiliated with the program about a fictitious polygamous family that lives in a Salt Lake City suburb.

University President Michael K. Young says Collegiate Images, the university's agent, has sent a cease-and- desist letter to HBO, demanding the logo be removed from the episode and not be used in the future.

HBO said it was confident that nothing in the program violates anyone's rights and that it "will be responding in due course."

Comments

[moana]

For the millionth time:

The University of Utah = public university. Not owned by the Mormon church. Is funded with tax payers money. It is not a private institution. They actually allow gays! You can even drink alcohol! You can engage in premarital sex!! You don't have to sign and live by a "Honor Code." Katherine Thomson = pretend journalist and does not fact check. It thought this HuffPost wasn't like the rest...yea­h right.

[GuidoVanHorn]

utah....mo­rmons....u­tah....mor­mons....HB­O.....poly­gamy....oh no....the sky ......fall­ling....mu­st report....­.

http://www.utah.edu/portal/site/uuhome/


such an evil place.....

[mcarlsonus]

Guess they had to use that logo as I don't believe the LDS has one!

[WorldGoneWild]

Big Love - The best show on HBO.

[Rolfe Norman]

There is really nothing ever said about the University Of Utah on "Big Love." They usually always say "The U." The University Of Utah is overreacting! I wonder if Arizona State University is upset about being mentioned as well. "Big Love" is a great show, and I can not wait until season four!

[Green-Zanto]

This is not the first time this cult has taken issue with Big Love, which is really a great show by the way. Best current drama on HBO in my opinion, way better than the over the top True Blood.

I think all branches of Christianity are pretty silly (come on...a guy was a son of a God, walked on water, and came back from the dead? It's absurd.), but Mormonism takes it to a whole new level. It's basically the Scientology of the 1800's. It's creator was a known fraud. What possible reason can otherwise rational human beings take such a blatant fiction as real? It's mindboggling.

[pene]

what's the difference between a cult and a religion?

100 years

[moana]

You numbnut. The U of U = public university. Not owned by the Mormon church. Got it?

[marijam]

Ha ha ha ha, too funny! Big Love is a make believe show with make believe characters. That they think it may reflect upon them is idiotic.

[babybird27]

Although the University is not "mormon" per se, many of it's alumni and donors are LDS. Clearly presuure has been put on the school by those individuals to take action so as not to be seen as supporting, condoning, or in any way supporting polygamy. Probably one or two people who only heard about it or saw only that one small part of the show started the bandwagon rolling, as usually happens in these cases. The season ended in March and 4 months later they want it removed? I watch Big Love faithfully and never took any notice of the letter head, but I will now! Just ridiculous.
Funny, they didn't have a problem with the episode in which Bill makes a sizable donation to the school.

[Megara]

Your home page headline that points to the story about the University of Utah protecting its legal trademark says "Mormons V HBO" . Why is that? Did you borrow a page from the Drudge handbook? The UofU is not a Mormon school. I am a graduate. I am not a Mormon. I live in Utah. I am not a Mormon. This is a trademark issue, not a religious one.
What is evident is that HuffPo is no less sensationalistic as the counter-position bloggers and media pundits it regularly scorns.
This time, scorn on you HP. Shoddy effort only undermines bloggers attempts to be categorized as real journalists--you'll do anything for a page view even if it means riling people to vilify each other for no reason. You've had plenty of time to fix this and plenty of people have pointed it out prior to this.

You're just whoring with words, and the wrong words at that.

[CessnaDriver]

This sounds like a standard copyright case. Nothing to see here.

[dcmotoring]

The headline I saw on the main page of HuffPost said "Mormons v. Big Love." However, it could not have been more misleading. As pointed out by other posters, the University of Utah has no affiliation with the LDS Church. Such a headline is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to turn a legal complaint by the University of Utah into another excuse to bash Mormons. It is despicable. I understand that many HuffPost readers have reasons to be upset with the LDS Church due to its position on gay marriage, however, attempting to provoke further, unwarranted animosity toward the church is completely unnecessary. Furthermore, as a graduate of BYU, the association of the LDS Church to the University of Utah Yewts is particularly offensive ;)

Finally, this is not the first time I have seen over-exaggerated, sensationalistic headlines on Huffington Post. I hope in the future Huffington Post exercises some degree of integrity in writing its headlines. It is counter productive in any efforts to establish blogs as a legitimate form of media.

[deckard70]

No formal affiliation, you mean. Besides funding, alumni, board members...

[moana]

Name one public university where funding, alumni and board members do not belong to a religion. ONE.

[Trevr84]

Some of you people have respect, sheesh.

Everyone should be tolerant of each other's opinon, right? Unless of course that opinion is grounded in religion, then of course we can just spit all over it.

Even though the UofU has nothing to do with the LDS church, many people here still try to portray this as a Mormon vs. HBO issue. Please! And even if it were, heaven forbid a church actually stand up for what it believe in! Isn't that the biggest complaint most have against religion? That people and organizations don't practice what they teach? Well as soon a group of people come a long who do practice what they teach and stand up for it, you redicule and demean them. How pathetic.

[Trevr84]

For anyone interested in the truth, here is a link to the LDS church's reaction to "Big Love"

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma

[pene]

"Everyone should be tolerant of each other's opinon, right? Unless of course that opinion is grounded in religion, then of course we can just spit all over it."

religous dogma is not "opinion grounded in religion." It is a belief system and most major religious belief systems have a strong prosletyzing aspect. Which means that religious believers frequently force their beliefs on people who have no interest in their fairy tales.
Heck yeah we "spit "all over it. becuase by spit you mean questiona its validity. Opinions about poverty, equality, mathematics, science, history can be discussed with people who have informed opinions. religious belivers, even those who populate whole states and found their own universities, do not have any facts upon which to base their beliefs and they therefore cannot be reasoned with.
why should religion NOT be questioned? It has a basis only in wishful thinking, not in fact and should be subject to criticism like anything else.

[bragladish]

More like Big Bore!

[stefiz]

thanks for the publicity for this awesome show on HBO... Big Love!!!!

[dynwitch]

The University of Utah is NOT a "Mormon" university, like Brigham Young University. Mormons would laugh at this characterization. In fact, the UofU is viewed as the ANTI-MORMON influence in Utah, the veritable ANTI-CHRIST of educational institutions. Take it from me; I'm a graduate student at the UofU. This is not a religious issue; it's entirely an issue of copyright infringement. The U probably wants to be PAID for the commercial use of its logo. Also, we can probably assume that they do not want to be associated in any way with polygamy OR the Mormons.

[RZoroaster]

As a BYU grad I can verify all of this. I do laugh at the characterization of the U of U as a "mormon university". Our rivals in red are heathens who will most certainly occupy a special place in Hell reserved for football cheaters and people with inferior business programs.

Tongue in cheek of course. In truth there are a fair number of Mormons attending the U but it is a secular state institution, so the link that led to this article was more than a bit misleading. I agree that this was a copyright issue and nothing more.