Public Airwave Cage Match!!

The Star Tribune reports that Minnesota Public Broadcasting is suing over the "The Current" radio station. Seems they have a trademark infringement beef with Current TV's name.

Current TV, which was co-founded by Al Gore, is a cable/satellite channel and website featuring alternative news and "citizen journalism" by amateurs who send in their news and videos. Both entities routinely use only "current" as an identifier.

Why should we care? We really shouldn't, other than both are great and hopefully these public paragons don't tear each other down (whoa ... for a second there I thought I was talking about the convention endorsement battles). While not entirely frivolous I don't see this working out for MPR. I base this on the Fox network empire never suing anyone over the use of the word "Fox", especially considering all the radio stations who call themselves "the fox" (thus setting up a similar media vs. media comparison). And after the whole "fair and balanced" fiasco they had with Al Franken, you know they probably tried.

This cartoon off of Current TV cracked me up (the others in the series aren't that great)

Prognosis Boring - Judge throws out the suit.
Prognosis Extreme - Current TV forced to change name back to original INdTV and pay court fees back to MPR.
Prognosis Ludicrous - Current TV counter-sues and wins. Judge awards plaintiff both the public radio station and half of Bemidji as settlement.
Prognosis Progressive - Just listen/watch and all will be well.