{"id":2100,"date":"2026-06-28T15:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T15:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2100"},"modified":"2026-06-28T15:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T15:42:39","slug":"will-paramount-object-to-abdul-el-sayeds-apparent-blues-clues-copyright-violation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2100","title":{"rendered":"Will Paramount object to Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s apparent Blue\u2019s Clues copyright violation?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the great innovations of the modern world is the ability to copyright or trademark intellectual property, thereby incentivizing creative ideas. However, if you\u2019re a Democrat candidate, which nowadays pretty much means a socialist, little things like private property, including intellectual property, may not mean a lot to you.<\/p>

Read more Becerra for governor? The disqualifier you didn\u2019t know about<\/a><\/p>\n

That could help explain why Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in Michigan to take a seat in the U.S. Senate, seems to have had no compunction about blatantly coopting Nickelodeon\u2019s\/Paramount\u2019s Blue\u2019s Clues to encourage mail-in voting, complete with an \u201cAbdul for US Senate\u201d promo at the end. What disturbs me most is Paramount\u2019s complete silence (so far) in the face of what I\u2019m pretty sure is classic copyright violation.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, exceptions to copyright laws. One of those is the \u201cfair use\u201d exception. It allows people to make limited use<\/em> of copyrighted material without permission for a legitimate commentary purpose.<\/p>\n

For example, at American Thinker, we routinely include short passages from longer news and commentary articles as a starting point for our political commentary. We carefully attribute them to the original source, make no changes to them (other than ellipses), and invariably use only the smallest snippet necessary to make our point. This is classic \u201cfair use.\u201d You can see an example of this in my screen grab for this post, which I\u2019m using to make a point about El-Sayed\u2019s apparent copyright violation.<\/p>\n

One of the other exceptions, which is actually a subset of \u201cfair use,\u201d is to parody something. However, that parody must be directed at a person, company, or product associated with the copyrighted item itself. For example, if I felt that the Blue\u2019s Clues show was improperly advocating for euthanizing all blue dogs, I could create a short video with a sad pup who looks like Blue begging not to die.<\/p>\n

What I cannot do, however, is use Blue, even a joking, parody version of Blue, to sell my cool blue toilet bowl cleaner. This is a very bright red (or perhaps blue) line in the law.<\/p>\n

And that gets us to El-Sayed. He is an unsavory candidate, at least from my perspective. Although American-born, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed doesn\u2019t seem to like America very much. He\u2019s a radical leftist (Bernie Sanders endorsed him). His buddies are Linda Sarour, the pro-Gaza activist who kicked Jews out of the women\u2019s march, and Hasan Piker, the Turkish-raised podcaster who hates America, capitalism, Jews, Israel, etc., and thinks Hezbollah, Hamas, and Mao are kind of cool.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the things El-Sayed likes: socialized medicine, Gaza (by which I mean Hamas, which controls Gaza), public sector unions, and big taxes. Here are some of the things he hates: Israel, the United States military, ICE, and a secure border.<\/p>

Read more What\u2019s going on in blue Maryland?<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019<\/span>s no mystery\u00a0why I dislike him.<\/p>\n

But even if I liked El-Sayed, I would probably find troubling what appears to be pure intellectual theft from Blue\u2019s Clues, the Nickelodeon (now Paramount) children\u2019s show. In it, a dorky man works with a blue cartoon dog to solve little puzzles aimed at the preschool set. The original man, Steve (seen in the clip below), has since been replaced by Josh, who\u2019s hidden behind more copyright layers, so I couldn\u2019t find a video of him. That\u2019s important because, unlike Steve, who wears green, Josh wears blue:<\/p>\n