Microsoft lawyers threaten Mike Rowe age 17

This made me laugh today :-

http://www.theregister.com/content/6/34955.html

Quote "Microsoft has unleashed the full fury of its lawyers on 17-year-old Canadian high-school student, Mike Rowe, demanding the handover of his Internet domain.

The domain? MikeRoweSoft.com. No, seriously."

Tones any comments ?

 

:ffrc:

 

haha lets hope the poor lad gets to keep it. I can't see anything wrong with the domain name, it may sound similar but its splet totaly different. I have always heared that in order to legaly make a case the domain name has to be spelt very similar or the same. For example if I was to make a site www.zerogain.co.uk Micheal could possibly sue me. But if it was nerogain.co.uk he couldn't.

 

more American stoopidity ??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/3412123.stm

 

I have to agree with the "authorities" on this one. It's made quite clear that even joking about bombs in your luggage at airports will be treated as severely as if you actually had one. And that was before Sept. 11th.

I regard it as bad as phoning in IRA bomb threat hoaxes. It's a waste of police/security staff time that takes them away from what they should be doing.

The girl deserves everything she gets and shouldn't have been such a stupid idiot

Michael.

 

I'm with Michael - if this keeps some dappy bint out of the gene pool for a while it can only be good for society.

Bombs aren't funny - she can stay there for the duration.

That said, if they did their job more thoroughly in the first place 9/11 wouldn't have happened - it's not exactly like bombs on planes are a new idea is it?

 

Maybe she was daft, ok vbery stupid
but seems an OTT re-action to me.

 

I agree with Michaela B (sorry Michael, couldn't resist). If someone says they have a bomb, it has to be taken seriously, which means a major security alert in a public place. If it turns out to be a joke, I see no problem with dealing with the joker relatively severely. This has been the policy for years.

-- Ian

 

From what I heard on the news she was asked three times.
All three times she said she had a bomb in her bag.
IMO that goes beyond a joke and she should be treated the same as anyone who calls in with a bomb threat.

 

If he chose it legitimately, i.e., without intention to inconvenience Microsoft or to trade on Microsoft's reputation or lack thereof, I don't think there's a thing Billygoat, er, gates can do about it. Domain names law works differently from trade marks law in his regard; in the latter, deceptive similarity is forbidden, so MIKEROWESOFT could never be registered because of possible deception (e.g., ordering over the telephone). However, a domain name is merely a word that represents a web address, and no computer yet made is going to say, "Hmmm, now does he want Microsoft or does he want MikeRoweSoft? They sound the same, y'know." Absolute identity is usually required of domain names.

Microsoft's best bet is to show that Mike was deliberately trying to cash in on Microsoft's name. There are precedents in trade marks law - Kodak once prevented a trader with the real name of Koodak from using his name in a deceptive manner that suggested a connection in the course of trade with Kodak. His money demand was a BIG blunder, because it then looks like a classic case of cybersquatting à la Madonna.

 

He is running a business and he did add "Soft" at the end of his domain name, but I think this is just healthy 17-year old humour. You'd have to be pretty dumb to confound his site for the *other* one. After their initial threat, Microsoft's Lawyers offered him $10 for his out of pocket expenses - which is taking the billy I feel. Of course he then replied that the domain was worth $10K. Also an exaggeration, clearly.
I wouldn't think (hope!) the Great Stan of Software has a cloven hoof to stand on. But I have a feeling they will make hay with his demands for money in exchange for the domain.

 

It sounds ridiculous, but there's a few things that work against the guy. One of the worst:

He *wanted* it to sound the same. Gotta think MS will win this -- probably out of court.

~ ~ Dave

 

I see from the local rag that Microsoft has tacitly admitted that it overreacted - the bad publicity has given Billygoat pause for thought. In translation, the statement reads:

"We recognise that Mike Rowe as a young entrepreneur chose a creative domain name. We always take our trade marks very seriously, but in this case, perhaps too seriously".

Out-of-court settlement coming up, I'd say.

 

The little bastard still wins though.

I wish I was that clever!

 

...or had a different name...

 

And it all ends happily ever after...ahhhhhhhh

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3429485.stm

..instead of a tenner, he accepted an Xbox and a subscription to the Microsoft Developer network. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated

Michael.

 

xbox and msdn? You have to be kidding -- my bet is he made a deal for a summer job, or even a job afterwards.

~ ~ Dave

 

i';m sorry but a possible 15 years in prison for making a joke is just ridiculous. yet another example of the americans taking themselves far too seriously and living up to the stereotype that they have a very undeveloped sense of humor. yes the girl was a bit of a div to say it (and 3 times at that) but the bag went through an x-ray machine and i've not heard anything about a controlled detonation of said bag in any of the (admittedly few) reports i've heard, so the authoroties couldn;t have been taking it that seriously. yes she should have got a slap on the wrist or a hefty fine but being put on bail and going to trial in that god forsaken cultural void is taking the piss.
cheers


julian

 

America, the world's biggest open-air asylum

 

no chris, the world is one big open air asylum, america is where they put those violent offenders who in a hanibal lector like frenzy would chew your face off and eat your liver without a second thought if it put some extra cash in their pocket.
cheers


julian