A copyright on spanking?

I've just been reading one of the QI books of odd facts, and came across this one;

'Asda hold the copyright for bottom-slapping'.

Why and how Asda obtained this copyright, what they use it for, and the penalties for copyright violation were not explained.


Any ideas, anyone?

Intrigued, I looked this up. Not quite as exciting as it first appears, I'm afraid.

Asda (a low-cost supermarket chain in UK) used to run adverts in which a shopper was shown slapping their back pocket to illustrate how much they'd saved at Asda.

UK = Asda
USA = Walmart

I think. . Could be wrong.

There's an example of the ASDA ad at 1:42 in this sequence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EK9xZZhFv0


I think they deserve some credit for making an intensely boring subject slightly less so. Not so entertaining as this Walls Sausage ad, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvjLMc4Bnb8

Well done the EnglishMaster, that is the answer but is not entirely correct.

Copyright is one of the principal varieties of Intellectual Property. The others are Patents, Trade Marks and Design Rights.

Copyright protects the expression of an idea as in a story, a painting, a sculpture and so on. That is the actual words, daubs, shape etc but not the underlying idea.
Patents protect a novel idea "capable of industrial application" of which the best example would be an invention of a machine or part of a machine or a chemical process. Again you can't protect any old idea and you can't invent something that everyone knows--spanking makes girls behave better.
A trademark protects (gives a monopoly right to use to identify goods or services) any sign or indication showing the origin of a trade product--eg Microsoft, Ford, or in the present case a visual depiction of a shopper slapping her own bottom (actually her back pocket) to demonstrate that she is a canny shopper and thus has more money in her back pocket.
A design right protects the appearance or shape of an industrially produced article eg a mass produced statuette of a girl being spanked otk. Again it doesn't protect the underlying concept (heaven forbid).

That is of course an enormous simplification of a very complex subject.

In the present case ASDA will have applied for TradeMark protection of their "sign" which on closer examination would prove not to be "bottom slapping" in general, but the pocket slapping action described above.

Geoffrey Stirling.

First known on-screen example of a spanking dog?

"...you can't invent something that everyone knows--spanking makes girls behave better."

Wise words Geoffrey.

(Sorry btw, I don't know how to embed a quote properly on this forum).

Highlight the words you want, click 'Quote' (in the top right corner of the post you're quoting from) and they'll appear at whatever point the cursor is in 'Your Reply'.

It must be - and he doesn't do a bad job either!

Phew! We can all sleep safely in our beds (on our fronts of course)