1. Spike Lee may have slowed down a touch, but once upon a time he could've given even Madonna [now well on the way out to pasture herself] a lesson or two in how to create controversy and spin it for maximum marketing impact. He's done it better before, but no one can deny that this preposterous lawsuit [later settled quietly with Viacom, a company that sells Lee's wares even as they own Spike TV] generated a lot of talk. While there are other elements to the suit suggesting it might be of some legal merit [like Viacom president Albie Hecht's own admission that Lee was one of the cultural touchstones that inspired their name choice], Spike's hunger for good old-fashioned media buzz is most likely at the heart of it.
2. As proven time and time again by inumerable dismissed lawsuits, titles are not protected by copyright. And while Smart had at one point applied to copyright his sporting moniker, the US copyright office says "copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases." While the footballer can seek trademark protection for the phrase, a film title using similar wording to Smart's nickname would not be a copyright infringement -- just as Hollywood types would be free to call a movie, say, "The Rock".
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