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Samba Runs Into Naming Problems In Germany
roadrunner2000 writes: "Some German company claims to have the right on the brandname "samba", so they try to sue everyone in Germany which uses
the open source project "Samba". Get more information from
Heise Online" From the Fish Translation, it seems that the acronym SAMBA stands for something else in German. If you can add more information, post it below.
well, what's really weird about this whole thing is that Volker registered a trademark for the samba logo, but not for the word samba... also, the trademarks are in two different categories, and I don't think anybody would ever confuse banking software with networking software.
I think it is interesting to see that finally lawyers come to an understanding what the net and information techonlogy can mean to them: a wonderful playground where they can find easy prey. I sure hope they try to sue every company that is offering samba support, because I could imagine that IBM and HP could get seriously annoyed by this and get their lawyer amanda to squash their opponents... or else samba has to be renamed... or stopped. I wouldn't mind, I never saw the need for windows connectivity anyways... hehe...
TM and (C) are not the same thing...
If your name happens to be Elton John Smith, and you play piano, you don't have to give up your career... and you can even mislead people (to some degree) legally. A great world.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
However, so far as I understand trademark law, it only applies to the "owners" of a conflicting product who profit directly from its sale or distribution. Since open source software is not (usually) sold, including in the case of Samba, there should be no one to sue here.
The users of the software are not selling it as their own product, even if they use it in a business setting, and the "owner" of the software is not profiting monetarily from its sale. This should be thrown out, regardless of whether the trademarks conflict.
Worst case, the Samba maintainers should be allowed to change the name of the package, not penalized for something from which they did not derive a profit.
Exactly right.
s tupid-fucking-banking-piece-of-shit-closed -source-worthless-fucking-product-that-can-only-ma ke-money-by-terrorizing-german-users-of- free-software.
Rename the "German Release" of Samba to:
In-germany-this-is-freeware-SMB-not-samba-that-
Call it "Samba" for short.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I bet these kind of petty things will force companies to start naming products and themselves to sets of dictionary words. Same reason grocery stores have cameras in every isle, not to catch thieves, but to watch people pulling dog food bags on top of themselves to get a lawsuit. This is really horrid considering that all domains based on dictionary words have been bought by people waiting for companies to name themselves or their products after them. The simple solution then I guess would to start filing naming things numbers.
"Hi, welcome to 1349736. We provide simple solutions for getting your 298301 up and running in a 73947 environment."
I wish more people would be willing to do an honest day's work to earn a buck.
-Effendi
-Effendi
This is a fairly normal thing - the same would happen in the US if, say, I created a mySQL spin-off and called my new database 'Oracle' or 'Interbase', I'd be in a lot of trouble for trademark infringement.
:-)
Um, no. It's more like if Oracle sued you for making a cheese pizza or car called "Oracle". Trademarks do not apply across different domains; there can be an ACME furniture and an ACME widgets at the same time. For a fun experiment, look at the phone book under 'ACME'. It's the John Smith of corporations
--
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Check out http://www.urbanlegends .com/products/chevy_nova_mexico.html
Code or be coded.
Send an email to FINANCE.Stuttgart@cmg.de to let them know what you think! Remember to keep it clean and thoughtful.
If you are a german maybe you want to tell your bank what you think about this and why you think about moving your account somewhere else, (most of them are banks) if they appear on this list.
In this case i'm less concerned about a business trying to defend their name than about the way they do it, namely using 'Abmahnung' demands where unsuspecting businesses get a letter demanding money from them just because they used the wrong wording in their advertising (see this comment for a pretty good explanation).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
SCUBA is an acronym, but it isn't a word (i.e. didn't exist before it meant Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus).
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P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
Is the notion of OSS so alien to the Germans that they can't translate it??
No, during World War II, the OSS was the name of the U.S. special forces, so they're very sensitive about it.
I told you not to mention the war! I did once, but I think I got away with it.
"Well, you started it."
"We did not!"
"Yes you did, you invaded Poland."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Come on, you know why. There a corp now, and well, shareholders want profits. If DoubleDickYouAndYourPrivacy can deliver the almighty $ to Andover, then they're going to jump into bed with DoubleDick.
Capitalism at its best. Perverting the soul of a once decent website at its worst.
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"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Is Germany going to sue Disney for naming that one lion Samba in the Lion King?
Agh.
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
Reinheitsgebot, 1516. . /. scores me as such. :)
Good info on it is at http://www.wohlmut.com/beer/morebeer.html
I know I'm off-topic but I'd like to see if
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
The translation appears to be based on translating individual words and anglicizing specific German grammatical constructs (verb structures, etc.). Considering the typically obufscated word order in German, I'm amazed it turned out even halfway comprehensible.
;)
At any rate, the name "Babblefish" appears fully approriate, both for the translator's input and output
Both SAMBAs are software that allows interoperation over a network.
This is not RDBMS vs. Pizza.
--
I bet it's for the Addidas Samba sneaker....
circa75.com
I do, however, disagree with you on one point. While its certainly true that companies need to protect their trademarks, and if you created a mySQL clone named Oracle, you would be a target for a law suit, I don't think in this case this law suit is warranted at all. Samba is nothing like this other companies product of the same name, and Samba really isn't a product in the traditional sense of the word. There is no threat of trademark dilution, especially since Samba wasn't developed in Germany, at least not as its primary market.
It seems the closest analogy I can think of to something not open source would involve me purchasing a certain product here, then moving to Germany and bringing the product with me and getting sued because there's a different product with the same name there.
so does it here in brazil, its the name of some dance never seen a lawsuit for that reason tough.
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
they look pretty slick with everything, which is why i started wearing them... the samba milleniums rule--extra white stuff round the edges...
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
And to make a tiny bit more interesting, adidas is based in Germany. Why haven't the banks hassled adidas in the past for using samba?
I was under the impression the acronyms couldn't be trademarked? What does the law say about that in Germany?
Maybe we should call it GnuSamba, simply to alleviate this problem?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Not only that, but we better start thinking of a new acronym for DNS, since MS is sure to trademark that "Digital Nervous System" newspeak crap...
I do not think that anybody is calling her stupid because of a "perfectly common accident". However, they are calling her stupid because she sued because of a "perfectly common accident". Lawsuits came into exisitence to help "people" recieve compensation due to a mishap caused by the negligence of another group, not to award damages for a "common accident". I have a hard time seeing how McDonalds was at fault. It is common knowledge that coffee is hot. I do not need a label to tell me that. Anybody who assumes that coffee is not hot either 1. Is expecting iced coffee or 2. Is stupid. That is why I think the old lady was stupid. When we start suing for "common accidents" there will be serious problems.
-Jombi
Mecca Lecca Hi Mecca Hieni Ho
What makes you think you can't trademark a name? Something that's uniquely yours is very easy to trademark. Perhaps you're thinking of Sting.com? That was over a domain name, not a trademark. Sting (the singer) is a trademark, even if he hasn't registered it. He has every right to sue any singer who calls himself Sting. He'll get nowhere suing the Society of Touchy Intellectuals in Nice Gowns.
Go to Startrek.com (hey! don't barf on my new shoes!) and notice that every single name has a ® next to it.
"MacDonald's" is an interesting case. The original MacDonald brothers were enjoined from opening a restaurant under their own name, having sold the trademark to some guy from Chicago. And any eatery with "Mac" in its name gets the boilerplate letter, no matter the name of the owner.
Gee.. Suddenly the US courts seem to be more sane than previously thought.. Hmmm...
l8r
Sean
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
And how much money did this 'poor old lady' earn by suing? (um, how much did her lawyers earn might be a better question but...). :-)
("thanks to coffee-burnt-genitals-of-an-old-lady law suit, budget surplus doubled!").
In most other countries the amount would have been equal to estimated damages (and medical costs etc), not some percentage of profit (size of company, stock value, whatever).
Punitive damages seem to be one of those anglo-american inventions that are not widely used in rest of the world... And it's kind of hard to understand that even if punitive damages are used, why are they handed to suing party as kind of a bonus, instead of, say, being given to a volunteer organizations or funds ("McDonals Fund for Healing Coffee Burns?"), or, god help, used for filling the bottomless government coffins.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oops, didn't know that. I had seen it so much, and it did have the ring of truth to it.
I can't think of a real example... plenty of examples when somebody markets for someone else, but I can't remember changed names sold by the same company in two markets.
In this context SAMBA seems to mean Sue Anybody that Might Be Alive
Actually, It was Apple Corp, the Beatles record company who filed the trademark infringement suite against Apple (Why shouldn't they have, they were bigger than god ;-} )
The suite was filed in February of 1989, and on October 9th of 1991, Apple Computers settled the suit paying Apple Corps 26.5 Millions
So no - they didn't decide to just get along because they were in different markets
slashdot username - at - email.domain.name
But anyway, I don't see how you could sue end consumers for a trademark infringement. But it wouldn't be any better if they were suing the developers of samba.
what I mean is the producer of the name samba ought to get sued not those who use it.
Sorry, but the cups to say that it's hot, and if she's going to do something which could possibly spill coffee on herself, she should be ready for what will happen. I mean, come on, it's _hot coffee_. You'd have to be stupid to not think you'd get burned by it.
The SMB implementation seems to have been around since 1991, but doesn't seem to have been called "Samba" until 1994.
The CMG trademark claim may be legitimate under the current trademark categories in Germany (and probably US categories as well).
As an aside, the UK trademark office is down overnight (CMG's Samba is used in the UK as well), and the German trademark office charges $2/search, with a $75 minimum. The US PTO web services seem really nice in comparison (and it lists lots of "Samba" trademarks, although all of them seem to be "typed drawings" rather than words).
Hmm, interesting. Must have been after I left ('94). Thanks for the info. That does explain the logo nicely :)
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Can't we have a little sideline debate that others can see, that may be of special interest to Slashdot readers? How else can /.ers debate this topic? Slashdot's not going to post it! Give the original poster some slack and rate him/her back up.
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The only definition of a "coffee grenade", to me, is a cup of multi-layered latte with sprinkling of chocolate flakes. Now that's a grenade.
Other than that, I would recommend the old lady
to try Iced Coffee instead. It's pretty good.
(For me, coffee below 212 F is for wimps.)
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Wouldn't the argument be that it's a German word, and thus un protectable?
At any rate, Hemos gave a perfectly satisfactory answer to this in a previous article. Slashdot/Andover contracts with all of their advertisers independently and does not deal directly with ad companies. However, certain advertisers have all their advertising done through doubleclick et. al. So to display those ads on Slashdot, they have to pull it from the doubleclick ad server.
I'm not trying to kiss up to anyone here, just pointing out that I believe Slashdot is not being hypocritical by displaying ads that come off a doubleclick server. However, they probably should figure out a way for those ads not to set a cookie.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
American attempt to attack German corporate interests. Given that German nationalism (and EU federalism) is very strong
there, such a view would certainly outweigh the law, common sense, ethics, etc. The German mentality is still, to this day, strongly bound to the "ideal" of unquestioning
obedience to authority figures. If one such figure takes a firm stand, the country will
follow, through the national mindset.
Umm, oh boy. Come down, man. Calm down.
The germans are absolutely NOT strongly bound to the 'ideal' of unquestioning obedience to authority figures.
This was the case during HITLER's time, but not now. The germans aren't a bunch of Nazi's.
Those are all just prejudices, but entirely NOT true.
And the laws are excellent. YOU seem to have a very strong US nationalism. The US isn't the best country out there especially if you take a look at the laws.
I guess saying DMCA should be enough. Oh and don't forget about Patent laws.
DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT German citizen.
I agree whole-heartedly. For my thoughts on the matter, see my page at honeypot.net.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Actually, the amount was two day's coffee sales.
It's a sad society that needs all the warnings we do.
"This cup of coffee is HOT."
"Don't eat this Preparation-H."
"Airport runways are NOT playgrounds."
Gimme a break.
-sid
At which point the original readership will bail and some other site will be started. No big deal, really.
Amazing. And yet every day, hundreds of thousands of people order cups of this skin-charring coffee and consume it!
OK, I don't deny that it could burn you. I do think that most intelligent people can figure that out, even if they don't know that it is literally 180 degrees. That's why the actions of a prudent adult would be to not place anything that hot between their legs in a moving vehicle -- especially if the coffee is contained in a crushable cup! I would think most prudent adults wouldn't even place a styrofoam cup of 140 degree home-brewed coffee between their legs.
Come on, windows isn't hardware, it's bloat^H^H^H^H^Hsoftware.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
If trademark X is registered in country Y, then use of the name X in non-Y countries will create a conflict whenever items X from non-Y are used in Y.
Is this concept too difficult for judges to comprehend? Why are they even entertaining such legal action, when name clashes are such an obvious result of national trademarking?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
One of the most driven cars in germany is the "Volkswagen Golf" or short "VW Golf".
("Golf" is a german word meaning both "gulf" and "golf".)
So when it entered the american market the gulf-oil company complained about the name.
So that's why it's called "VW rabbit" in the USA.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
From the web site he pointed to:
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns(or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas.
So 3rd degree burns are full-thickness burns. Which means not charred skin, but that the skin had been burned all the way through.
Also from that article:
Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds.
Not much time to react. Please read the article he posted before you react.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe the reason that Burger King could not know the name was that there was a burger shop ( according to what I heard ) somewhere around Bondi or in the Eastern suburbs someplace.
However recently a new law came into place that says a large foreign corporation can use that name in Oz.
The reason that not all of them has changed was allegedly some ownership of franchises wrangle.
Wal-Mart is a proper noun, Red Hat is a proper noun, Microsoft is a proper noun... Every name for everything ever made can be a proper noun. As a matter of fact, every random combination of letters that could ever be produced can be a proper noun (I can name my child Rewodjfuekjslcnvuekskchvow if I so desire)... Proper mouns most certainly can be {Trademarked, Copyrighted, Patented}...
-- A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong!
You overlook one thing:
Money is well being made from SAMBA (consultants, trainers, etc). They (I, bit don't tell CMG) advertise that they can implement/train on SAMBA, thus make money from it.
Or we could just lengthen them. It'll make us remember bet. Yeah that its. What was that program called thisisareallylongna.....
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Germany says this
You guys can't call that Samba
Guess Mambo will do
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
First check out this entry in the Apache JServ FAQ. JServ has a RL namespace conflict too, and yet, no lawsuit. Why does this bank thing have to get all pissed off about Samba (which is not SAMBA)? These people must never have heard of the raw flaming power that is Slashdot when they decided to go after the good people of Samba. And they must not be into Latin dance.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
My first reaction is say this is silly, it will never fly.
But this is in Europe, so the laws just might accomodate such goofiness.
Shrug.
Search for information on the Milgram experiment. Relish in the knowledge that a majority of human beings - not just 'Germans' - like following orders, even when they question the orders.
Eric ze Kidder
First McDonalds kept their coffee that hot (180 degrees) because it stays fresher longer. They had received dozens of complaints about serious burns and ignored them. They figured the money they saved on coffee was worth more then the hazard hot coffee posed (3 degree burns in 3-7 seconds -- try to get out of a car and take off you pants in 3-7 seconds as your groin is being charred).
So basically McDonalds did a cost/benefit calculation and figured profits were more important than inflicting serious wounds. And let me make a point, people spill food and drinks on themselves, it happens all the time and places that serve millions of people a year should probably take that into account. Don't try the gun/smoking analogy. Firstly analogies are logical fallacies, they illustrate but do not prove a point and second, at least nowadays, people realize that smoking and guns are dangerous. When I get a slushy I don't expect it to dissolve the lining of my stomach, just as one would not expect a cup of coffee to cause 3rd degree burns.
The original amount she received was one days PROFIT from McDonalds COFFEE sales. Millions of dollars. It was a punitive judgement, as in "you put profits before the health of your customers". She got it because she stepped forward when others didn't. She lost all of it on appeal except for lawyer's fee's and medical bills.
Do you ever feel like there are people watching you? You're not alone.
And then there's "[Mitsubishi] Pajero" in Spanish slang -> Monkey Spanker
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Funny, but it's more like sueing them the next time the bolt flies into your eye sockets. Comapanies do have a responsibility to make sure their products are safe.
Err... Being an English word doesn't seem to be an impediment to trademarking, though. Consider Tide, Brawny, Coke, and Hostess. Not that this isn't a completely ridiculous state of affairs, but... (i.e. try calling your product by one of these "well-recognized" names, and see if the "but it's an English word" defense holds up.)
I know my rights online are pretty important -as well as each one's, but the fact of facing at least two news every time I am slahsdotting drives me nuts. Could you guys @ slashdot stop this?
As long as you clearly note what your product's full name is, there isn't a problem.
There wouldn't be a problem with "StarOffice Excel" or "Corel Word"? I don't think so.
The point I was making is that the rules are a little different for products competing in the same market. Car sales obviously won't cut into spreadsheet sales -- no trademarks for consumers to confuse.
Just a quick note on frivolous lawsuits:
The "McDonald's coffee case" is frequently held up to ridicule as a classic example of a frivolous lawsuit. After all, old lady spills coffee on herself and gets burned, then sues - what's more to know?
The coffee one gets out of a home coffee machine is about 140 degrees F. A really hot cup of coffee out of a commercial device might hit 160. During the trial, a McDonald's QA manager testified that company policy dictated that their coffee be maintained at not less than 180. That's enough to cause a third degree burn in less than five seconds.
Which is what happened. Stella Liebeck was handed a cup of this coffee in a styrofoam container. When she spilled it, the burns were bad enough to necessitate the use of skin grafts. I refer you to the Consumer Attorneys of California pages, where they lay out a pretty good summary of the proceedings.
If you want to make fun of the US judicial system, go ahead, we can take it. But don't make fun of a poor old lady who got handed a little coffee grenade. Some people screw up, but she just got screwed.
For those who don't know, the original Budweiser (pronounced Budveiser) is made at the Budvar brewery in the Czech Republik. Damn fine beer, which has been around a long long time.
Wah!
They not only use Samba as a rhythm pattern on all their way-kewl 80's synths, but they had the audacity to add - Samba 2 to the mix! "Boop boop. beep beep. Bah!(TM)" www.ridiculopathy.com
What I'm not sure about, is how this can be enforeced. I highly doubt that a German ruling will change the name of SAMBA /everywhere/, or even anywhere but Germany. Will linux distributors have to go in and change the man files, and the samba binary names or what? That just seems ridiculous.
-The Tempest
"Samba" is a common noun (generally lower-case first letter), not proper (person's name, street name, location, etc.) It is a latin dance.
So, let's bring up some other copyrighted common nouns. In the US - Oracle (database software), American Airlines, Sprite (the soda), etc... You think I wouldn't get sued if I introduced a new soda called Sprite or a new database administration tool called Oracle? Of course I would, because they are in the same industry. However, if I were to introduce a database administration tool called Sprite and a soda called Oracle, odds are I would escape any legislation.
SAMBA (banking) and Samba (open-source) are both, technically, in the same industry. The average German (or American) has probably never heard of either company. My take on it is this - US copyright/trademark law requires the name similarities to cause confusion, whereas German law does not. These things happen when software gets shipped to countries other than its' origin. We'll have to deal with it.
While I once again want to say, this sounds like an incredibly stupid lawsuit, you should probably not make assumptions based on invalid theories. I also HIGHLY doubt that Germans will stop using a specific bank because they use SAMBA, and therefore banks will not stop using SAMBA. Where are the negative effects for SAMBA? Nowhere to be seen.
They are mostly threatening to sue people who make money with this software (consultants, trainers etc.). Those who advertise their service on www.samba.de.
./ seems to think that free software is just fun and all, but you know what: it's a big business nowadays (and not just for Red Hat and SuSE et al). I happen to earn my money solely with free software (and its not some small change, I can tell you!)
As a sidenote: everybody here over at
that was why Coca-Cola changed the name to Ke-kou Ke-Le which means "tastes good in the mouth"
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
You're right, and wrong.
In this case, its a computer software company, suing over a computer software name. Banking software vs. networking software.
Its the same domain.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Do a search on any keyword-compatible search engine for "samba." Apparently, the keyword has been purchased by the Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia. Who would'a thunk it?
For more information, click here.
Germans tend to call their country "Deutchland", not "Germany". You're still free to sue Americans and Britons, as well you should, though. ;-)
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
fyi, Adidas has been using the Samba brandname for at least 15 years. Check this out. I wonder if they'll get involved as well...
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
I understand the argument that Samba is a proper noun, and thus can't be copyrighted (that's how Andrew Tridgell found the name - he grepped /usr/share/dict for 's*m*b*' because he couldn't think of a good name). But other big commercial products are proper nouns - for example, Oracle or Flash. Should these names also be un-protected by trademark law?
I personally don't believe this story.. I get the feeling their're screwing us badly here.
Check this one out and tell me what you think.
I they've been running linux for some time, they should've done this a long time ago instead of waiting.
I don't know anything about german banking, but this story is just waaaaay too much.
I sick and deadly tired of large bigass corporations sueing head over heal just to make a few more bucks or get a little more publicity.
Die die die and please just ask us instead...
Usually in the US you can have a trademark which is identical to another company's, as long as the two companies don't have overlapping markets. Example: Epic the software game company, and Epic the medical software company (not to mention Epic Records or Epic Insurance). I am not sure why this is a problem in Germany, though.
There is a mineral water labelled "Loka" in Sweden.. I can imagine why they did not want to import it to Finland with the same name. In finnish, loka means very dirty water or the brown substance formed of water, dust and snow.
- Only a single company has been notified by CMG
of the trademark infringement; CMG has asked
this one company to cease and desist.
- CMG has developed SAMBA (Standard Anwendung
Meldewesen Banken) over several years with
considerable investments, and successfully
positioned SAMBA as the leading software
product in this field in Germany. The name
"SAMBA" has been registered at the german
patent office under number 2070029 on 7-5-94,
reference ) 16491/9 Wz.
- The intention of CMG is to avoid confusion
between their own SAMBA product and the open
source software Samba. Obviously both products
serve entirely different needs, but confusion
by non-experts is easy, leading to disadvantages
for both sides.
- CMG's actions are only aimed at protecting
their name "SAMBA" and not against the open
source community in general. CMG does not intend
to harm the Unix- or Linux-world or the open
source community, but indeed welcomes those
movements. It is not CMG's goal to avoid the
development or distribution of the open source
product "Samba" in general; only the name is
an issue.
- It has been found that an australian IT-company
is responsible for the name; CMG will contact
this company and try to find a mutually
acceptable solution that avoids future
confusion in germany.
- At the same time, CMG will stop its actions
against the company that has been contacted;
said company had merely been offering support
for the open source software Samba. CMG also
currently does not plan to take actions against
other german companies. After all, CMG does
not intend to harm other (open source) companies
or limit the distribution or use of those
products.
CMG would like to emphasize again that trademark protection is a legitimate action of all businesses, especially if the establishment of the product has required considerable investments.. this is also proven by the fact that the developer Volker Lendecker has registered the Samba logo as a picture trademark last year (as has been pointed out in the Heise article).Providers of support for the open SOURCE often commodity Samba are affected by a warning wave. Several companies, which are entered in the Web on a list, received a writing, in which they are requested to offer Samba no longer in the name of the company CMG to apply, to drive out or in the trade use. Samba is a software, with itself the Unix and Linux computer as server and Clients in a Windows network to begin leaves. The program free of charge available in the Web belongs to the most renowned success projects in the area open SOURCE often commodity. The name SaMBa comes from the SMB log used in Windows networks.
After information of a coworker of CMG opposite c't the warning is based on a word label within the area of " data processing programs " (class of goods GK 9) for its own bank software ( standard log-on reporting department banks , briefly SAMBA). A Germany width internal message concerns itself, was called it with CMG, in order to protect the own rights. How many warnings were sent away, the company did not want to indicate however. CMG sets the article the subject of the warning to 100.000 Marks; the assigned attorneys want to have refunded the warned company in each case from costs from scarcely 1900 Marks to 8 August.
Volker Lendecke, one the Samba developer, let enter a picture label for the Samba Logo however in the last year in the area " creating programs for data processing and EDP call circuits " (class of goods GK 42). Most important target was to protect the Samba project from such warnings avowed Lendecke.
Also, samba is an English word (refered to a latin american beat/dance).
So, like Sting being Stung, I doubt this infringement will hold up in court.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I think the problem is how you should define what's a 'correct' name. Just because any company on the world uses "Explorer" you can't be forced to use anything else for your own brand name.
I've heard of a case in germany where someone got sued because he linked to another web site where the sueing person was offended. That's ridiculous!
Something's pretty wrong with german law. I live in Austria, which is next to Germany, and I always read c't and there are lots of articles about things like that! I hope Austria's law is different in this case.
But there's the big problem: law and computers don't mix. Laws are much too slow evolving for this industry.
Prime example I can come up with was marketing the Chevy Nova in Mexico. "No va" in Spanish is "it doesn't go", or something close to that! (although there are reports that the Nova story is a myth). You've also got the Electrolux (Scandinavian) Co. who used the "nothing sucks like an Electrolux" slogan in the US for a very brief time.
Changing the name of a product to an appropriate form for a regional or cultural situation would not be unprecedented or even unusual. "FreeSMB" would be an appropriate alternative name for the SAMBA project, methinks.
the difference here appears to be that Budweiser (from the vilage/town/city Budweis, I don't know how small/large it is) has existed for longer than the american Budweiser.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
There are only so many short but pronouncable words that you can construct. There are billions of people on this planet, many of whome are naming things. Conflicts are inevitable. As a species we need to become mature enough to deal with this, or else we'll destroy our fragile world with rampant lawsuits.
-- $SIGNATURE
Samba isn't the only name that conflicts with a registered trademark in Germany. So far there were lawsuits against websites using the words 'webspace', 'explorer' and so on. 'Explorer' was the most extreme case. Even Microsoft pays for using Explorer in Windows Explorer. Websites using the names FTP Explorer, Explore2FS and so on were already sued. But it continues. A guy named Volker Jungbluth has registered 'ASP', 'Site Promotion', 'Webchannel', 'Uni Guide', 'Medica', 'Pressemailer', 'Flirtline', and many more. It is expected, that the only reason he did that, was to gain money from lawsuits. Read the German article from heise on http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/axv-03.08.00-0 01/.
Greetings from f***ing Germany,
Yaba
BTW: The firm who sues Samba is called CMG. Take your GIMPs and exchange C with G. Now what does this look like? And then, CMG uses a standard SuSE distribution for their website: http://www.cmg.de/cgi-bin/test.pl
Trademark squatting, this has happened before. Its no accident, it happened for the word pentium too they tried to hussle money out of anyone who put it in add's.
In any case, another important question will be when CMG applied for their trademark. If Samba (the free SMB implementation) was in common use in Germany before then, it will likely be exempted from claims, even from someone holding a registered trademark, just like it would be in the US.
It's my understanding that Microsoft doesn't own the trademark on "Windows", National Instruments does. They only license its use.
Come on!
1: They are both software, and sometimes that can be confusing enough. For example, my boss has confused ASP (Active Server Pages) with ASP (Application Service Provider). And you don't have to be stupid for that, you need some context to make sure which ASP you are talking about.
2: You bet? Well it is not an argument unless you know.
3: Even though Samba-SMB is not commercial, it is marketed by commercial companies, and german Samba has much to lose by not defending their trademark.
4: Someone claims a copyright for SMB-Samba, right? The license does not matter, the copyright matters.
Standard Anmeldung Meldewesen Banken This is what they claim forms the acronym SAMBA. It stands for (with a bit of rusty German) the standard bank corporation group, as a few words don't transliterate. Another problem with cross-cultural issues being brought to a head by the internet. Cool. But, in this case, isn't the Open Source license sufficient to demonstrate money is not being made from the software itself? But, I German law is worse than my German...
In Germany because 'vic' could be construed obscene. Likewise Japanese 'Puckman' became 'Pacman' in the US.
SAMBA, a must have for Unix/Windows interoperability should be able to accomodate - Just call it FreeSMB or something.
SOMBE
SIMBA
SUMBY
etc
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Personally, I think naming conventions for software should demand the corporation name become part of the product name. In that way you couldn't sue someone for using the name 'Windows' because the product would be called 'Microsoft Windows'. That is how things worked in the old DOS (MS-DOS,PC-DOS,DR-DOS) days before everyone went into some sort of legal frenzy.
The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
The primary source of Samba information and software is the internet. How is it possible to rename Samba within Germany or any country for that matter? Sure you could slap a ".de" on the end of the URL and redirect Germans there but this won't keep the name "Samba" out Germany.
Its easy to rename a car model or someting in a different country because it is very difficult to go outside of that particular market and look at the same product. But on the net it involves retyping a URL. Ooo, real hard.
I think we will see a lot more of this kind of problem. The hundreds of small namespaces are being combined into larger and larger namespaces. Eventually there will be only 1 really big namespace. And there are only so many 5 letter combinations of letters in the alphabet.
But you can get a patent...
... Intel has the letter 'i' patented.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
And this is the link to the homepage about it. Note the e-mail address. Please all do as I did. Go to the heise article, and forward it to FINANCE.Stuttgart@cmg.de with some comments to make them clear that they'd better back off.
Btw as an ex-CMG (holland) employee and shareholder I am very dissapointed about this. The dutch CMG branch always tries to play nice with UNIX/Linux enthousiasts, to get a good image for recruitment.
But peanuts aren't nuts. The're legumes. I would imagine that a peanut allergy is very different from a nut allergy... In general, though, "nut" companies do make peanut based products, and, when they switch their assembly lines, the machines aren't washed/cleaned to the extent that would prevent allegy causing contamination. People with nut allegies buy the peanuts, and are poisoned by nut residues.
Who says the CMG SAMBA was pre-existing? I doubt that very much.
What do you expect: should OSS projects in the future register their names in every country of the world? Who should pay for that?
Or should OSS projects, because of lack of funds, accept that they have to change their name every once in a while...
Chevy should have known better than to sell the Nova in Mexico. In spanish, Nova means "Doesn't go."
Is that a good example for you?
I don't think Samba should rename itself. It's not an embarrassing name. It's a phoenetic pronunciation of the acronym of the Windows system it's replacing. Those German bankers need to lighten up before someone gets rich sticking coal in their nether regions for profit.
Digital Wokan
I wanted to spend 8 years defending the US constitution.
Again and again the lawsystem is beeing missused by imoral people to sattisfy their selfish interests on the cost of others. The governments of most countries seem to support this, as if their task was not "scial defense", but "support of the wicked". I personally think that to try to own words is already an evil thing, which should be prosecuted. Otherwise these people will never learn. But where is the law to act against such people? Instead we have laws in favour of them. Even if they do it so inopportunely as the company under discussion, who uses freeware itself. We need a law to protect "words" from beeing occupied by some individual or institution. Language should be free.
I was listening to a National Public Radio broadcast a year ago or more...you can't just name your child whatever you want in Germany. An American couple living abroad wanted to name its child "Robin" or something unconventional, and the German gov't wouldn't issue the birth certificate, IIRC. Names have to be easily distinguishable as male or female, and I think there are other criteria, too. No "Myxylplikt" or "Grignr" for you (Eye of Argon reference)...
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
> Why can't they say something like,
> "Well, it looks like they weren't
> really trying to take our trademark;
> why don't we just be friendly and
> understanding and work something out?"
> Instead of, "Ha ha ha ha! We're
> going to sue your fucking ass!"
Exactly.
*This* is the big question in the current debate about a number of similar incidents over here in Germany.
In fact, people are trying to proof in two particular cases that these brand names were registered solely to make money from the sueing that follows. One was "Explorer", the other was "Webspace".
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
babble ('ba-b&l):
irony ('I-r&-nE also 'I(-&)r-nE):
So, there is a preexisting product in the German software market called 'SAMBA', and the company that makes it wants to protect it's investment in that name. I think they're right.
Well, obviously they are not just upholding their trademark but trying to make revenue by "Abmahnung" lawsuits. I mean, they basically sent bills to all subscribers of the SAMBA/FreeSMB mailing list. If they would just wanted to protect their trademark they just would have contacted the authors, probably via the mailing lists.
This is just another Abmahnung ripp off, as it is pretty common in Germany these days, and our government is still sound asleep...
I mean, protecting your brand name - fair enough. Sueing the Samba team if they refuse to - they have been warned. But that this kind of behaviour is legal practice is just embarrassing for German law and judges!
--- The light at the end of the tunnel is probably a burning truck.
Given doubleclicks arch-evil plans for our browsing click-trails, I would suggest Andover.net and Slashdot reconsider their use of doubleclick.
i can't see this happening now, but the way technology is advancing and becoming so much of an integrated piece of our lives, the solution will be to simply change the language (and alphabet) so that the acronym will stand. sigh, yes folks, this will happen someday
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
Didn't sell in mexico because the words "No va" means "Does not go". Problem is you really can't rename software like that, especially something open-source and freely distributed world-wide. Now, perhaps you could rename a German release, but who wants to go and write a whole different set of code in German, which, IMHO, seems entirely unecessary. No, I think the German company is gonna have to deal. While I don't know German law very well, I was a German citizen until I turned 18 and lived there long enough that I think a lawsuit that frivolous would be squashed just about as quickly there as it would here. You can't really copyright an acronym, the two pieces of software are entirely non-confusable, and nobody makes any money off of Samba. That would be like trying to sue someone because they wrote a program that uses files with the same .* extension as some proprietary software you wrote... Thats just dumb. You know, I could probably deliberate for hours on the stupidity of the case, but I'll leave that to the lawyers. Never fear, the Germans are smart people and they'll figure it out. They need to do everything they can to boost their economy, and they've really embraced the computer industry as well as the internet and many of it's ideals (I hope). It'll sort itself out.
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Ha...yeah... I had a vega... I paid a whoping $125 for it... I was beyond dirt poor at the time :)
I used to look in the rear view mirror and just watch the black smoke shoot from the exhaust pipe. I think it got better gas mileage than it did oil mileage.. man did that piece O junk burn oil.
Take your pick:
certificates
certifications
certifiers
certifies
chiefs
chieftains
clarifications
clarifies
classifications
classifiers
classifies
cliffs
codifications
codifiers
codifies
coniferous
crucifies
deceitfulness
handkerchiefs
kerchiefs
pacifies
pacifism
pacifist
reclassifies
sacrificers
sacrifices
specifications
specifics
specifiers
specifies
I vote for "CLIFS" myself. (Unless someone has a better dictionary.)
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
Coffee is boiling water to which flavoring has been added. It follows that when you order a cup of coffee, you're asking for water which was very recently boiling. You are not ordering water that has been carefully chilled to a specifc temperature far below the boiling point. If you want coffee chilled to the (comparatively) frigid temperature of 160 degrees, then you should ask for that.
Face it, if the old woman had ordered boiling water that had been poured over ground coffee beans, and then casually stuck it between her legs, the court would have held her mentally incompetent, a hazard to herself, and locked her up the county mental ward.
When you make an unwarranted assumption about pizza, and burn the roof of your mouth, everybody laughs. Heck, you laugh at yourself. If you sued the restaurant, the judge would laugh. The moral of this story is not that you shouldn't laugh. It's that you shouldn't go through life making assumptions with no thought to the consequences. Especially when the potential consequences are severe. If something is hot, make sure it is not *really* hot. If something pushes hard, make sure it won't squash you like a bug. Ditto for electricity, liquid fuels, acids, etc. Safely testing assumptions is quick and easy, it just takes mental effort. Nobody ever won a Darwin Award just by being stupid. They won in almost all cases by disregard for consequences.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
This is completely another case, seems to me you don't drink Czech beer. Anheiser-Bush named their beer because Budweiser got a synonym for a beer in some parts of the world. It is logical, that the original brewery got somewhat angry about it, especially when Anheiser registred it as trademark. Seems to me 'prior act' didn't fit in here? (word Budweiser comes from a name of a city).
The problem with GNU is, that it applies to all software and not only to one product, that's why GNU software would cause misinterpretation. I don't think thie thing with SAMBA couldcause somone to intergchange it.
A classic example of a product name that has the wrong meaning in a foriegn market is the Chevy Nova in Mexico. Nova means "no go"...
Not a very good name for a car...
-+ I think, therefore I code +-
The thing is, US Trademark only applies when there is some chance for confusion, or benefit, by the infringer.
Since the open source project isn't gaining anything by using the name SAMBA, and there is little chance for confusion, in the US at least, this case would be thrown out.
Anyone know the german law?
-----------------------------
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
SINS
Sins
Is
Not
Samba
--worth a smirk anyway
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
Sas -> Sas ain't Samba
Jon Bardin
In short terms it says:
Think its time to relax.
... and may a plague of RMS's befall anyone who says it's a bad idea.
(hey, I just realised that my sig is on-topic!)
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
Technically, that is what they are doing (the "friendly" approach) and that is what an "Abmahnung" is. It is a request to stop violating a trademark without actually taking it to court (but with the implicit or explicit threat of doing so if the other doesn't back off).
Now the thing is that they charge lawyer's costs with that (which are presumably a lot lower than the costs when you lose in court). This has in the last years led to widespread abuse of this system (a certain Munich based lawyer became very notorious for that) by trademarking incredibly common terms (Explorer, Webspace, ...) then sending out serial requests with lawyer's charges of around $500-$1000.
They claim that this is their cost, in fact it's nothing more than letters created with the serial letter function of some word processor. They bet on the fact that none of their victims has the money to spare to risk going to court and settle this for real (they still might lose) or that they have enough money that they don't bother. Microsoft is paying royalties to some small company for using the trademark "Explorer" in Germany.
This is a big major pain in the *ss here in Germany and an obvious abuse of German law. They are going after the little guys by sending their bills to site owners and those who merely mirror a site.
Yes, it is. And they going after the little ones, because these don't have the money for a big legal battle. It's easier to pay the charges for the dissuasiveness (I hope this is the correct translation for Abmahnung) than to risk to pay the jurisdictional amount after (potentially) loosing at court.
ok, here is the URL from the German forum where the comment from CMG was posted yesterday.
//www.heise.de/newsticker/forum/go.shtml?read=1&g= 20000803odi000&msg=227
http:
For those of you, who don't understand German it says the following:
CMG has not sued 'everyone' but one company who offers commercial support for SAMBA (the UNIX smb-Server).
They don't want to continue suing and don't want to harm the OpenSource Community nor the SAMBA-Project itself. It's just for the name.
CMG has located the name owner in Australia and wants to contact him for negotiating about the name.
BTW, CMG is not only a German company, but a European one, so it sells it's products not only in Germany but in wide parts of Europe. Their trademark 'SAMBA' however is a trademark only in Germany.
--
regards,
MaDMaik
--
Be Ernie, Be Bert - Just Be
ICQ# 8537082
regards,
MaDMaik
--
Be Ernie, Be Bert - Just Be
ICQ# 8537082
http://www.madmaik.
Considering that the German SAMBA is, well, German, and our Samba is worldwide and has been around for a while, and considering that the German SAMBA is a banking program and our Samba is a server program for Winblows/Linux network integration, it's likely this will be shit-canned in court or will become a travesty of justice - depending on how the judge feels. If I wrote a banking program and called it SAMBA and marketed it in Germany, well they may have a horn to toot. But it is impossible to come up with a 100% unique name for a totally unrelated product that will make every nation happy, and unjustified to expect our Samba to have a different name for each nation it's used in. These people need to get a life. Sue me because I'm using Samba? Get real... Sheesh. I thought Microsoft was stupid...
Wrong. The Nova did not flop in Mexico; in fact it did very well, despite its name.
I invented a product several years ago named Germany. It does nothing, it's just a little technical looking box with lots of blinking lights and a digital readout that flashes meaningless numbers. I named it Germany, and then this country tries to steal my idea!!! I am hereby sueing Germany for 1.9 Trillion dollars, in small unmarked bills please.
Interesting Photos
CMG has published a statement about the issue (in German):
:-)
http://www.cmg.de/aktuelles/cmgaktl.htm
Looks like they have received lots of mail
For a thorough understanding read "The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams who did a /. interview recently.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Well, I'll help you out on that count...
Clairol introduced the Mist Stick curling iron in Germany, only to find out that mist is slang in German for "manure".
In France, Colgate marketed a toothpaste called Cue without knowing that Cue was also the name of a raunchy pr0n magazine.
In China, Coca Cola originally was pronounced "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning either "Bite the wax tadpole" or "Female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect.
And finally, I leave the best for last: Frank Perdue's chicken slogan "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken," was translated into Spanish as "It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Check out http://www.cmg.de/aktuelles/aktuell .htm#TopOfPage
This is german, fish it if needed.
There seems to be no legal trouble, just renaming won't hurt. No evil Krautz eating your pants. :)
You are the dot in slashdot !
Okay, like the post said, SAMBA is an acronym. It stands for Standard Anmeldung Meldewesen Banken, which essentially says something like "Standard log-on procedures/protocols for banks". It's a standard method for banks to communicate w/ each other....apparently proprietary and German. Anyway, I just thought a few people might be interested in knowing what it was from someone that actually is fluent in english and german instead of a translation from a web site. Have fun...
How about a group of us start up a lawfirm just to fight these kinds of attacks.
Again, this all comes back to the "microsoft" underwear thing - you should be able to use a name if it has no chance of getting confused with the preexisting one.
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
That's pure supposition. OK, peanuts are legumes, but all the same people with nut allergies often react badly to peanuts.
Why would that be? Have you never heard of convergent evolution? It seems fairly likely that the peanut plant has evolved similar biochemical mechanisms to control the maturation of its seed, since the end product winds up looking and tasting rather like a nut anyway.
And after all, it's the biochemical contents of the kernel that triggers the allergy anyway - not its genetic ancestry.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
This looks very much like the US. The new way to make money to sew people over anything. This crappie bank company doesn't probably exist as long as SAMBA. If it doesn't SAMBA should sew them. Regards. I hope the US type of nonsense is soon coming to an end! Internet makes everything free and accessible!
I'm not weird, you're just all boring.
IIRC, they coupled this with an offer of a payed licensing of the term for future use (e.g. in the case of Microsoft and "Explorer") or, worse, they required an agreement to pay a contract fine (say, $25,000) for any subsequent occurrence (e.g. in the case of inches used instead of centimetres for specifying, of all things, screen sizes in advertisements [remember, CRT screens are manufactured in 14", 15", 17"...], while meters are the official unit of length, so customers where supposed to be confused by inch specifications [which, of course, everybody uses], allegedly making it "unfair competition").
This practice, brought to us by munich lawyer Günther Frhr. (Freiherr) von Gravenreuth (who may try to sue me for using his name), is considered by many to abuse law for personal profit.
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
Maybe someone whould tell Microsoft, who have trademarks on things like "Windows Media", "Mobile Explorer", "Links", and registered trademarks on "Natural", "Starts Here", and of course "Windows". Most large corporations have managed to get trademarks on a number of common words and phrases.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Some hold the view that Linux is a European attempt to attack American corporare interests, which isnt as silly as yours because Linus Torvald is from Finland :)
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Samba is the brainchild of Andrew Tridgell, who currently heads the Samba development team from his home of Canberra, Australia. The project was born in 1991 when Andrew created a fileserver program for his local network that supported an odd DEC protocol from Digital Pathworks. Although he didn't know it at the time, that protocol later turned out to be SMB. A few years later, he expanded upon his custom-made SMB server and began distributing it as a product on the Internet under the name SMB Server. However, Andrew couldn't keep that name -- it already belonged to another company's product -- so he tried the following Unix renaming approach:
grep -i 's.*m.*b' /usr/dict/words
And the response was:
salmonberry samba sawtimber scramble
Thus, the name "Samba" was born.
Which is a good thing, because our marketing people highly doubt you would have picked up a book called "Using Salmonberry"!
To me the whole idea seems to have been fated for disaster from square one.
The German trademark law is a bit complicated, I'm afraid, and there is probably nothing in the Web in English, but here's at least some information in the form of translated headings to get you an idea of how it is structured.
Those out there with some knowledge of German might try the Bundesgesetzblatt (the Federal Law publishing board) or this comprehensive overview of German trademark law with the texts included; I think you can forget the idea of having it babelfished, though, because it's probably a bit too complicated in style to translate properly. Another good resource is the web site of the DPMA (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt), the German Patent and Trademark Office.
If you know some German and want to go for an entirely different view of the matter, you might have a look at the other side's point of view, in this case in the form of the aforementioned lawyer Günther von Gravenreuth, well known (not to say notorious) for his actions against private and commercial "computer piracy". There even exists an FAQ for people who had legal trouble with him in one specific matter.
The European Union point of view on trademark law is available at the European Patent Office, with loads upon loads of links to various European and other offices and institutions, European law texts, patent databases and other stuff.
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Simply go to Doubleclick's website and click on optout. This means that you can safely allow their cookie on your machine as they cannot track you anymore. Simple really!
wouln'd it be cool if they renamed Samba to Symbiosis or symbiont. It's still a grep on s*m*b* and I doubt it's trademarked! Plus, I think it's quite an appropriate name for it!
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
While brazilian samba is one of those crazy southamerican dances, samba from argentina is more slow, played with a normal guitar. Mostly boring (there are a few beautiful songs tho, but it's very doll).
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
all german SAMBA users should refer to the software as S*MBA.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
I LOOOVE those shoes... :)
I bought my first pair of the Adi Dassler Samba indoor football shoes back in 6th grade.. They lasted forever!!!.. and the best part is that if you ever needed dress up shoes, all you needed to do was to take some black shoe polish to the three white stripes down the sides
It's funny, but I still wear them (No, not the same pair) today.. The average lifespan of sambas when taken care of is 3+ Years.. of course back then I'd grow out of them before they broke down..
But hey they're pretty inexpensive as well
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
Just get Adidas to sue the bank since their indoor soccer shoe line is called "Samba"
When are people like this going to realize the differences between the words, trademark, copyright and patent?
You meant, trademark.
[
Which samba organisation came first? ( - location doesn't matter as this is a global/general issue)
the open source software?
or
the proprietary banking software?
What I am thinking is that if the open source software product came first into official existence and the german banking software came after.. Then, if the OSS is not trademarked, the banking one is free to use it, but in fair game, suing should not be suitable if they came after. Should this be the case and the banking software wins in court, has right no its side, then the right and court are wrong and the situation should be dealt with.
I really like Samba. In fact I rely on it. I don't see how this lawsuit in a single country can stop the project so I am not really concerned. I just hate for the beautiful people who maintain it to have to be bothered with RL BS such as this.
It should be noted that "Samba" the open source project is not a German project, and thus shouldn't be affected by German trademark law. It is a global project. It has been around for many years from now.
Many German companies and organisations may have adopted this foriegn product for their own use and benefit, but that doesn't make it German, and certainly shouldn't force Samba to change its name! If a German company were to host the files on their server, then they're not allowed to charge for it, so they cannot possibly be using the alleged trademark in bad faith. People aren't stupid.. it's possible to tell the difference between a fileserver and a transaction processor.
Welcome to the world, Bankers. Back down, or feel the wraith of 20 million freedom advocates in your mailbox.
> Samba, it's the name of a dance - right?
Yup. It's a moderately fast dance for a couple, based on a 4/4 rythmn and latin-influenced music. The basic step involves reciprocating side-steps with emphasis on moving the hips. This is decorated with moves such as the "mambo" and "rumba".
Yesterday it was reported that all firms offering SAMBA support are affected. However today it seems like, there was just one firm, Göttinger Service Network GmbH, that received an 'Abmahnung'. This morning this firm received a message from CMG in which they told them, that they don't continue the lawsuit and that CMG would like a solution without lawyers.
However this doesn't mean that it's over. It's just that they don't want to talk through expensive lawyers.
I realize that personal experience is of little value when discussing medical issues. However, I myself am allergic (anaphalaxis) to the so called "Brazil Nut." (which, like the peanut, is not a true nut, but is sold as a nut.) I experince no allergic reactions when eating peanuts.
Peanut allergy can cause anaphalxis is some persons. Some of those people can theoretically injest nuts without reaction, but because of the contamination factor cannot do so.
For a more detailed look on food borne allergies (with reference to genetic engineering), see this paper. But, again, this really isn't my field.
Ok people, the good news is that the firm who tried to sue Samba because of their name stopped their case! Story on Heise is here! After all a short and good end.
Hey, I was in Austria drinking a Budweiser. Yup, the non-Busch, unAmerican one. And in mentioning that I'm not violating Busch's trademark in the slightest. If I offerred to _sell_ you one here I'd be in trouble. But there's nothing wrong with talking about it.
Isn't the law the same in Germany on this? Can't German's talk about "the American freeware, Samba" all they like as long as they aren't selling it?
If I were named McDonald, and cooked hamburgers, and you went on a newsgroup or Website and said "This guy McDonald's hamburgers suck," that again doesn't have jack in the box to do with the McDonald's trademark - only if I _sell_ my hamburgers and call them "McDonald's."
Seems like the only folks who even have to change the name are the distros, for their German version. Maybe to Son-of-Samba-Not? They have to translate the manuals to German anyway, so renaming should come cheap enough.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I thought this was not allowed.
Gee, I think I'll copyright RADAR, or FBI, or CIA, or...
You get the idea. The complaint is complete bull-puckey.
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
In any case, get over it and have a different name under for SAMBA in Germany. If the other company has been around first and flaunting their name first, then they have the rights.
Imagine a Japanese company having a computer product called Windows before MS. MS would have had to sell their product in Japan under a different name. (Would have been pretty funny too)
this is also valid in Austria.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Facts:
This is the case of someone misusing a product and suing because they don't want to accept the blame. There is no difference between this case and the luser who lost some fingers trying to stop the blade on his chainsaw quickly.
If you use the product in the normal fashion, you will not be hurt. If you misuse it, you may be hurt. Why is this so hard to grasp?
As a side note, why does anyone trust the Consumer Attorneys of California, a group which has a very powerful financial incentive for encouraging frivilous suits? Would you trust a Microsoft report on Apache?
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All the Black Mambas I saw were green. go figure.
photosMy Photostream
Oh, wait, that's right...
Q-Bert
If in fact the name is legally taken in Germany, Samba can simply be renamed to GnuSamba or any other appropriate name. Many products are marketed in other countries under completely different names. I.E. Motorola markets a lot of their paging equipment under one name in the US, another in Canada and yet another in europe/asia. Part of this is just the typical product marketing and product name response.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
As heise reports, CMG stopped it!!!
It was once an issue of national locality for Trademarks.
A beer of the United States was unlikely to be sold in say Germany.
Today we live in a world of international commerce. The idea of protecting the name of a company or product in one nation only is about the same as protecting the name for the distence of one city block.
As of late we've seen attempts to trademark Linux..
This is back door legalism anyway. They need to sue the people who named it Samba. But they can't becouse those people are where that trademark isn't valid. So they sue the users. Who didn't name it and arn't responsable for the naming issue.
Let's sue anyone who brings money from Germany for the Samba trademark... same issue same legal tactic.. same reasoning...
I don't actually exist.
hmmm.... paying consultants lots of money for crap.
"The Brown Ring of Quality"
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"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Is the notion of OSS so alien to the Germans that they can't translate it??
No, it's just that many technical terms are taken over directly from the English. "Software" is a good example. A literal translation often sounds more ridiculous in German than using a foreign term.
"But don't make fun of a poor old lady who got handed a little coffee grenade. Some people screw up, but she just got screwed."
So, it's OK to ignore all common sense and do stupid things, and expect others to take the blame for you? If you step on a nail and puncture yourself, you don't sue Craftsman for making the nail sharp, do you? If you put your hand on a lit stove burner and burn your hand, you don't sue Whirlpool because the stove was too hot, do you? When you burn the roof of your mouth on a hot piece of pizza, you don't sue Domino's because they made the pizza too hot, do you?
Yeah, so this old lady got burned by hot coffee. How in the hell do you think coffee is served, COLD? I used to work at a McDonalds in my teenage years, so I know about how hot McDonalds coffee is. But common sense dictates that hot coffee is not to be placed between your legs, it's to be placed in your car's cup holder, or any related holding device. Granted, the car that Mrs. Liebeck was in didn't have a cup holder, but maybe she could've thought of a better place than between her legs to put that cup of coffee. But rather than use common sense, she put the coffee between her legs, opened the top...and made history as a prime example of the "sue happy" mentality of America today. Yes, McDonalds was partly to blame because they served their coffee at a rather hot temperature, but perhaps Mrs. Liebeck could've used a little common sense and not placed that hot coffee between her legs.
And the moral of this rant is? Use your common sense people! When you spill hot coffee on yourself, it's going to burn. When you stick a fork into an electrical outlet, you're going to get shocked. When you step into the oncoming path of a speeding train, you're going to get killed. When you run on a slippery surface, you're going to fall on your ass. Don't expect a company to make you wealthy for life just because you're an idiot.
And for further reading of lawsuit abuse, I suggest everyone check out Overlawyered.com.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
sambas do rule. I refused to wear anything else until i got my nifty new pair of addidas running shoes which i also dearly love. I still have 3 pairs of sambas though, I get a new pair about every year, and you are correct in your 3 year life span, so the older pairs get used for stuff like playing Ultimate Frisbee
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
When Apple Computer started up they could only use the name on the basis that they stayed in the Computing field and stayed right out of the music industry. No problem....until they wanted to add soundcards, MIDI, sequencing and multimedia. I believe there was a pretty big payout involved!
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Adolf Hitler already proved that.
In other words, when a human being has his dignity and rights trounced upon by a corporation, it is all a big joke in the German courts. But, when a company's product name `Can-O-Bugz-B-Gone' is `disrespected', Heaven forbid, some heads are gonna roll!
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This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
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This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
HAL9000
So, there is a preexisting product in the German software market called 'SAMBA', and the company that makes it wants to protect it's investment in that name. I think they're right. The SAMBA project should refer to the product be a different name in the German market. Even Anheiser-Busch has to refrain from selling a beer called Budweiser in some markets, because that name was already taken.
There are good reasons for protecting trademarks, and OSS should play by the same rules as everybody else.
Holy jumping! Calm down yourself!
The guy never once mentioned the NSDAP, Hitler the war or anything like that!
There *is* a debate in German society about the nation's tendency to follow rules. It's sometimes a running joke. (e.g. all the signs that say " verboten" everywhere - the tendency to "improve" the "wilderness" with well-tended paths, railings, benches, trash containers and whatnot)(and yes I know there are places you can go in Germany that don't have those things). Similar debates take place in Britain (and other countries). People discuss the "nanny state" in the U.K. and the lingering knee-jerk respect for authority and surviving class-based elements in society all the time. The same thing goes on in Germany. You can discuss the background of these tendencies in german society and skip the entire 1933-1945 era altogether. (In fact, on the Internet that's usually the best way to go). It's a multi-faceted complicated society like any other.
And yes there exists completely different cultures in Germany as well - like the kick-ass fans of FC St. Pauli.
The guy didn't seem to be trolling to me. If he was he wouldn't associate the German gov't with the beloved open-source software as he did nor would he make the appeal/explanation at the end that he did.
Anyway, I do think he was being oversimplistic. But your reply was no better.
(Remember never be the first one to type "Nazi").
;-)
[We don't come from a planet. We come from a grid sector.]
I just read the article that was posted on Heise News. (Untranslated... using what little German I remember from HS) The German firm, CMG, doesn't have a case.
They're complaining because they have an on-line banking software under the name "Standard Anmeldung Meldewesen Banken", which they abbreviate as SAMBa. (Babelfish translates the name as: "Standard log-on reporting department banks")
As far as copyright goes, the SMB protocol, including client, daemon, etc. has been around for much longer than on-line banking. Under International copyright agreements, if anybody owes anything, it would be the German CMB firm that owes the Samba group for infringing on its copyright.
Samba stays. The CMB firm doesn't have the right to do what they're doing, and IF this whole issue actually gets to trial (though correctly speaking, it wouldn't really be a trial), they won't win.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Microsoft no longer calls the protocol SMB - they call it CIFS - even though it's still the same thing.
So, why not change the name of SaMBa to reflect this change. It's just going to end up being a legacy name that older sysadmins will have to explain to youngsters anyway.
"Well, it's called SaMBa because back in MY day we didnt have CIFS. We had the exact same thing, only we called is SMB. It's kinda like how the LCI used to be Qwest."
I know I may be considered a blasphemer, but if the actual name of the package came from the REAL protocal (like we know that it did), and the protocal has changed, why not change the name of the package?
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.-Franklin
Remember OpenCola?
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
At some point in the recent past it was probably called simply 'JServ'. Since there was never a lawsuit over this issue, it means either (1) someone on their team noticed the other product named JServ and decided to be friendly or (2) Sun sent them an email with the request. While I wouldn't want to get an email from Sun's lawyers, it's a hell of a lot nicer than getting sued by Sun. So if Sun can play nice , so can !@#^T&#(^ SAMBA.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
A question: do you have to pay these "lawyer's fees" if you comply with the request? Or is this a processing fee you pay whether you continue trademark infringement or not?
They also are great shoes for kitchens... I wore them all the time as a chef.. They resisted grease spills, protected your feet with their leather tops, and also looked pretty slick with the chef check pants :P
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
Adolf Hitler already proved that.
No, Adolf Hitler was Austrian.
This reminds me of a FTP client called DPSFtp. It is a GUI Linux ftp client that is actually pretty cool.
Anyway, the idea behind the program was to make a Linux ftp client that was much like the windows client 'BulletProof FTP.' So when the guy wrote the program, he named it 'Kevlar FTP' (since kevlar is some kinda bulletproof materail. However, DuPont has a trademark on Kevlar, and they contacted the guy that wrote KevlarFTP and threatened to sue him. So what he did was rename his ftp cleint to DuPontSucksFTP! I think that is a great way to deal with such problems!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
You will need GPLTrans to translate it.
This case is disturbing in that the legal systems in many countries is questionable and unpredictable, especially when it comes to "unorthodox" practices.
Free software/open source is "radical", in the minds of the conservative "elders", and potentially threatens their world and world-view. There exists the potential that SAMBA will be presented as an American attempt to attack German corporate interests. Given that German nationalism (and EU federalism) is very strong there, such a view would certainly outweigh the law, common sense, ethics, etc.
The best chance SAMBA has is if the German Govt. (which has already expressed interest in Free Software) can be coaxed into taking sides. The German mentality is still, to this day, strongly bound to the "ideal" of unquestioning obedience to authority figures. If one such figure takes a firm stand, the country will follow, through the national mindset.
On the other hand, if no authority figure defends it, then the corporation involved will become the most authoritive voice that has spoken, and therefore the one that will be obeyed. Even if the courts throw the case out, SAMBA will remain being seen as the "evil" party, and use of it in Germany will be severely crippled.
(To those who are of German origin - my fight is with ANY form of blind subservience, INCLUDING that of liberalism, which is just blind subservience to the inner whim. People are people are people, and no person, in my opinion, is any "better" or "worse" than any other. The mindset is not the person. For that matter, the country is not the person, either. The person is the person, regardless of whatever masks they, their parents or their country have pushed on them.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Chevy Nova: Means "No Go" in Spanish
Colgate: Slang for "Go hang yourself" in some parts of Mexico
Cowpis: Japanese Mountain Dew rip off that bombed in the USA (Say the name out loud if you're still confused)
Matthew Miller,
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
All this is governed by the German Trademark Act of October 25, 1994 (Bundesgesetzblatt I, p.3082).
If I spoke German, which I don't, I would translate the proper passage for you and write it here. Instead, I provide a link to the complete text in German. The more daring ones among you can use Babelfish to translate it.
Whilst it's easy to claim that Germans are idiots and no such thing would ever happen in the US (free speech, etc), please remember that frivolous suits are pretty uncommon in Germany: people claiming money for eating peanuts and suing because they were allergic to nuts and there was no 'WARNING: May contain nuts' label on the box,
Whether that is handled by law suits or by criminal code in Germany I don't know, but there is an EU directive (79/112/EEG) that requires packaged food to be clearly marked with the list of ingredients. Hence, it should say peanuts on something containing peanuts.
Also, there is some text about consumer protection that may be relevant.
Remember what happened to guys that tried to trademark Linux? Well, seems that those German guys didn't learn a thing.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
In the Lion King it's Simba not Samba.
The snake is the Mamba not Samba.
And I better not get some idiot trying to correct me and say that the Mamba is a dance because that would be the Mambo.
I think that everyone who doesn't live under a rock (excluding the morons) knows that Samba is a dance, and that under at least US trademark law you can't TM an English word or common phrase. Unfortunately I'm unsure on what the German law would conclude.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Frivolous lawsuits
People say we are the napster generation
The internet generation
The Technology generation
Seems to be that we are the frivolous lawsuit generation
Now with the EU, the law has been repealed, but there's still no German brewery that makes a beer that doesn't follow the purity law, and no self-respecting German that would drink such a sludge either.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Typical German lawyers. When they send you a notice you are being sued, they include a demand for immediate payment for their services. Even if you win the case, you are still liable for their bill, but usually the court orders the loser in the case to pay both sides legal bills.
I hate German lawyers the most.
It will be very hard to tell which way this case will go. If they get a nationalistic judge, free software will lose out, and probably be asked to pay damages (its free, doh!). If they get a younger and better educated judge, the case will get thrown out. If they get a clued-in judge, the banking system will lose and be chastised for such a frivilous case. But clueful judges are rare in Germany, and the banking system will know which is the best court to file for their advantage.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Okay, here's the deal:
In Germany, a firm called CMG seems to have registered a trademark for the word 'Samba'. That trademark refers to banking software, which seems to handle all kinds of banking transactions, using forms, etc. If you feel like wading through a longish list of features in German, see their product site.
CMG, makers of that software, have sent out snail mails to all people subscribed on a German Samba mailing list (i.e. the UNIX SMB software), and have demanded that all users immediately stop using, distributing, or advertising said software. Yeah, that's right: if you're using it, you have to stop doing so right now.
CMG is doing a so-called 'Abmahnung', i.e. a non-judicial process in which a private business/person can demand money from someone disrespecting their trademarks/trade laws. The total value of this process - CMG wouldn't say how many people are affected - is said to be about 100 000 German marks (DM), which is about $60,000. Their lawyers are also demanding 1900 DM from each of the parties involved. That's right - you were using Samba, you got the letter, you have to pay their lawyers about $1200 - until August 8. They'll probably sue the involved parties for that sum of money afterwards.
The c't article adds that Volker Lendecke, one of the German Samba developers - in order to avoid such trademark issues - had already registered a Samba pictorial logo trademark in Germany last year.
Such 'Abmahnung' demands are pretty common in Germany, lawyer firms routinely search advertising directories, etc. for anything that may be considered ambiguous in any way, or infringing on anyone's trademarks, and send out ludicruous demands out, often to people who have no way of acting against them. Whilst it's easy to claim that Germans are idiots and no such thing would ever happen in the US (free speech, etc), please remember that frivolous suits are pretty uncommon in Germany: people claiming money for eating peanuts and suing because they were allergic to nuts and there was no 'WARNING: May contain nuts' label on the box, or people suing because they spilled hot McDonalds coffee on themselves, would be laughed out of court in Germany. This is a fairly normal thing - the same would happen in the US if, say, I created a mySQL spin-off and called my new database 'Oracle' or 'Interbase', I'd be in a lot of trouble for trademark infringement. *shrug* It's that simple. Firms have to defend their trademarks, or they lose them if they become diluted.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
If she floats, she's a witch.
This is part of an ongoing problem here in Germany. I am not a lawyer, so here's my layman's summary.
It is possible to register the commercial use of a product name for a certain business category. This is a good thing, of course, since this is meant to help you protect your trademark. Once you have registered your product's name, you can sue anyone who abuses this product name.
E.g., as in this case, there is a company who owns the right to use the product name "Samba" with computer-related services, and thus, they can threaten to sue anyone who abuses "their" product name in the same category.
However, they cannot go after any dance school here in Germany that happens to be named "School of Samba" or something like this. It's a different business category.
Now, the government agency that is registering these names is obviously rather clueless, as are several courts here in Germany.
A few years back, a (very) controversial German lawyer started to sue any computer reseller who mentions the "Triton" motherboard chipset in his ads or price lists, because he was defending a client's rights to the product name "Tricon". Strangely enough, because of the "striking name similarity", this lawyer has won several times.
Right now, this lawyer is helping another client defend his rights to the computer-services related product "Explorer".
Yes, if your product is named "Explorer" and you sell or distribute it in Germany, you'll have to pay a hefty fee to this company. "To distribute" also means linking to it(!) and this lawyer is sending out numerous bills to website owners running a list of Shareware links to products such as "FTP Explorer".
Yes, it is claimed that Microsoft has paid a fee to be "allowed" to use the word "Explorer" in Germany, too.
This is a big major pain in the *ss here in Germany and an obvious abuse of German law. They are going after the little guys by sending their bills to site owners and those who merely mirror a site. Recently, c't, a major German computer magazine, put a few applicates which used "Explorer" in their name on a CD-ROM that came with the magazine. This has promptly started a legal battle which began by threats to sue every single newspaper shop in Germany selling c't.
This lawyer has become a bit of a persona-non-grata in the German net community, but he himself really enjoys this fame and status and brags a lot about his new "Explorer"-related court cases in the German usenet groups de.soc.recht.misc or de.soc.recht.datennetze. In fact, I am sure that he'd love to know that folks talk about him on a foreign forum.
Anyway, all this madness has lead to a disturbing trend of everyone threatening anyone else to sue about a product name. Try to search for "Abmahnung" on Dejanew or in the Heise Newsticker.
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You may like my a cappella music
What is it with these German companies? I remember when Ford was launching the Ford Focus, some German magazine tried to prevent them from using that name because their magazine was called Focus. Could it be "free publicity"?