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Asterix and Mobilix Redux
eguaj writes "I thought the "Obelix vs. Mobilix" case was over, and that the Mobilix web site had definitely won in the first instance, but this morning I saw this mail , on the linux-laptop mailing list, stating that 'Les Éditions Albert René' went into appeal and they managed to overturn the first decision, and now the Mobilix.org site will have to withdraw his domain name, pay the compensation fee, etc. Mobilix.org is a web site dedicated to Linux/Unix on mobile devices (laptop, pda, cell. phones), and they ruled that "Mobilix" was too much similar to "Obelix" and that people could take one for the other." For Americans: Asterix and Obelix are well-known French cartoon characters (think: Mickey and Goofy).
somehow its reasuring that europa isn't that much better than america. then again, would this even be newsworthy if it where done by disney, or just expected?
Listen, I'm bilingual, and only in French can that sound similar, and even then, only if you're dyslexic.
Nice reference... That does sound like something Di$ney would do...
This has bad repurcussions for 'names' in general. :(
..its not just us in the US w/ really freaking stupid copyright laws...>=(
GOD DAMNIT , MODERATE ME!
They can hardly be accused of typo-cybersquatting if the O is two rows up and a bit right from the M. Perhaps spoken errors could come into play, but this sounds like quite a petty case. And who the fuck would mistake a PDA site for a Cartoon site?
How about Crispix cereal? Sounds too much like what would be the name of the guy in Asterix' village who always overcooks the roast boar.
Epix image hosting on eBay? The lady in the village who needs to use an Epliady (not hard to find in any French village for that matter.
Appendix? Can't use that one either. That is the guy who keeps trying to add extra verses to Cacaphonix's tales.
Phoenix, Arizona? Better change your name, you copyright-violating town.
how long before they make us pry the '8' key off of all our keyboards?
-- OMFG = Oh My Floatse Goatse
America, home of the free (and of DMCA, RIAA etc)
But Mobilix is (well, was) a mobile phone company around here. Owned by France Telecom as far as I recall. Now it is called Orange.
Could this not have influence on this issue, i.e. that the name has been previously used without Obelix and his Gaul friends objecting?
Just a thought!
virve
--
This just underlines the injustice of the courts. I suspect that it was as much decided on who knew who and who had the biggest pockets - always a big factor in a trial.
Life would be much more pleasant if there were no lawyers.
Seems like it, since there is a string "goofy" in there..
This sets a dangerous precedent. Next to be wiped out will be Unix, which sounds too similar to the name of the eunuch in the Asterix books. (We won't even talk about Linux, the guy with the blanket).
Euh, nice comparison (not!). Mickey and Goofy are cool, I like them, but you can't possible compare them to Asterix and Obelix. FYI, it is a (apparently not so) well known fact that Asterix and Obelix have add more to the knowledge of classical history then classical education. A lot of things in the strip (not cartoon) are genuine. You can actually learn stuff from Asterix. So, I'd say go out and read some.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
It's 2003 AD, and all the Internet is occupied by the powerful IP empire. All? No, a little village of indomitable freedom fighters still hold out, assisted by their druid Getafix's magic potion, freenet.
given that reasoning Felix the cat is net?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
This is as bad as the legal case the Russian gov is bringing up that the Russian premier looks like that that wrinkly little fart Doddy in Harry Potter! Just bears out the old joke. What do you call a dead layer? A good start.
"I kill you! You no good 56'ing!"
two is not 'essentially one'. back to reality with you.
What about asterisk.org, the opensource PBX, isn't it VERY similar to Asterisk's trademark ?
How can they not sue them ? It's not even similar, it's the same ! People can get much more confused.
Obelix vs. Mobilix, Windows vs. Lindows, ... I guess we can expect cases like Equator vs. Equador now. (Or New York vs. York, Slovenia vs. Slovakia, Washington state vs. Washington DC, Indians vs. Indians, ...)
Whatever, why not?
Withdraw the domain name? French don't control the .org registry I think; all they need to do is sell the domain name for a nominal amount "to help them recover legal costs" to someone not based in France who will continue to host the service.
Why should the French care? What if Obelix was similar to an ancient mythical Hindu character (to pick an unlikely case at random) that's been around a lot longer; it would be foolish to suggest Obelix stop being used if that occurs; (especially as far as I can tell Obelix is a play on Obelisk (those Menhir things he makes)).
By this argument Mobilix should be left alone even if it is similar, and who cares if the French get confused, what about the rest of the world. Will we stop everything if we can find one nation that has some citizens that might confused by it?
An offender because of a word indeed!
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Sometimes you just have to be ashamed of your compatriots. Funnily enough, the owners of the Asterix & Obelix trademark didn't try anything against the french spatial agency when it named one of its first commercial space rockets after the comic book hero (that was in the 60s, IIRC)
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
If lawyers refused to take part in frivolous lawsuits, this would not be a problem.
What do you expect from the guys who try to make someone else pay for a person's clumsiness of spilling hot coffee in their lap (the infamous McDonald's case)
Only a hell of a lot funnier than that stupid mouse and dog. I'd say a better comparison is Homer and Bart. Mickey and Goofy start to lose their humor once you reach a certain age. Asterix works on so many more levels...
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Sent via: Via Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested
Re: Re: Infringements of AT&T Copyrights and Trademarks
I write as attorney for AT&T Telecommuncations Corporation.
As you are, no doubt, aware, AT&T owns the rights to ATT, AT&T, or anything relating to or sounding vaguely like the phoenetic sound of "at." These rights are protected by numerous copyrights trademarks.
We have recently learned that you have have been using the words "at", "attack", "attachment", and any and all words beginning with "AT" in your book entitle the "Dictionary" Your addition of these items in your book is an infringement of AT&T's rights.
Based upon the foregoing, we hereby demand that your confirm to us in writing within ten days of receipt of this letter that: (i) you have removed all infringing materials from your book; and (ii) you will refrain from adding any similar infringing material in the future.
The foregoing is without waiver of any and all rights of AT&T Telecommunications Corporation, all of which are expressly reserved herein.
Very truly yours,
[Attorney]
checking for libvirus... no
ERROR, libvirus.so not found, terminating
My thoughts exactly. I could care, but this involves some French coders. France has never helped the U.S. (except when it helped their diplomatic and military plans).
As it stands, the U.S. is accused of wanting Iraq's oil, and supposedly France is taking the principled stand for peace. Just wait until there's a new government in Iraq. France will be the first ones to show up, their old oil pipeline contracts in hand, asking if their agreements with Saddam are still good with the new government. It's all about money, as this little internet tale shows us once again. The difference is that the U.S. explicitly says it's about money, while the French make vague allusions to some higher cause.
Principled stand for world peace? Tell that to the people rioting in the Ivory Coast who battled French special forces. Protector of liberty? Tell that to the kid who lost his website to the French media empires.
Personally, I can't think of a single reason not to go in there and clean up the sewer AKA France. Do it now, before they drag down the rest of the EU with there attitudes and work/welfare ethics.
So if i register Maxosoft.com or some other thing with an 'x', I'll totally own Microsoft.com!
Hey, we had your Feds can't catch worms to save their live, and believe it or not there is a whole world just over the oceans at either side of the US!
Now be quiet and enjoy something completely useless from Europe!
"I kill you! You no good 56'ing!"
The dude should fold, and change the project name to "Oh Bell Icks", just out of pure bloodymindedness.
"That different enough for you, huh? Huh?"
yes, we have no bananas
When France has been questioned about its far-flung third-world colonies, its response is: "These are not colonies. These places are part of France!".
We could also go on about the strong French censorship against "foreign" art, ideas and media. That is one hallmark of fascism that the French government goes in for whole-heartedly.
... they've drunk tooooo much magic potion.
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
they can't even understand spelling and pronounciation.
Mobilix, with an i in the middle. Like fish, chips, wit.
Obelix, with an e in the middle. Like wretch, bench,wench.
They're not the same. They're not even that similar. How did they win? Did they manage to get a deaf judge or something?
Asterix was aimed at adults with an extremely corny sense of humour who liked the occasional bad joke (you know, the kind of jokes that are so bad that they're good). The beano was aimed at 10 year old kids.
If we Slashdot them, they'll surrender!
My real name happens to be Joel West. Now do a google search on "Joel West". If he (the CK model) ever wants the domain I'm toast aparently. Even though I've been using the domain legitimately, and yes my site is lame.
The point is that I only ever heard of this fellow by doing a google search. So who wins? I can't afford a lawyer especially in USD. I have no choice but to surrender. Ah well...
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!
"Just because you're a genius doesn't make you a smart guy!" -- Narrator, Powerpuff Girls
I know Mobilix, but never heard about something like Asterix and Obelix? Or, is France filled with insane people who has language difficulties in discriminating Mobilix from Obelix?
Get my "law-talking guy" on the phone, no one has a go at The Beano and lives to tell the tale!!!
No Beano = No Viz!
"I kill you! You no good 56'ing!"
In Denmark we up until recently had a major mobile-phone provider with the name Mobilix. They have now switched their name to the more international Orange, but I never heard of them having any problems arising from their usage of a name that could have been taken from the Asterix-comic. This is even more peculiar, as they probably must have intended for the association to be made: Asterix is quite famous in Denmark, and the company constantly played on its French ancestry.
TNN.com has been told that they are far too close phonetically to CNN.com. Said Judge Robert Rheinhold "All those N's... way too confusing." TNN was ordered to avoid using N's in the future.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
(think: Mickey and Goofy)
You mean as in "large oppressive media companies" and "crazy, ridiculous, or ludicrous"?
1 + 1 = ...essentially 1?
How stupid is that?
I refer people to that site all the time for the IrDA HOWTO and used to read Asterix and never once associated the names.
Mobilix = Mobile Linux *sheesh*.
Pixels keep you awake!
In France the keyboars are azerty, where the 'm' is closer to the 'o'. The 'o' occupies the same position as on qwerty, the 'm' is to the right of the 'l' (where ':' and ';' are on qwerty).
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
It is actually AD 2003.
Not that anyone cares.
Yeah, right. Maybe if Mickey and Goofy were alcholic, steroid-taking, gluttons who liked to bash Romans. I think that Asterix and Obelix serve a much different audience than Micky and Goofy. It's more like Looney Tunes, with historical undertones and more puns than anyone should have to bear. I'm proud to own the complete set.
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
Interesting they go after the small, relatively unknown person, rather than the big hulking brand with enough money to spend on Lawyers to make this case stand out as the stupidity that it is!
If they'd taken on Weetabix (that well known breakfast cereal), I'd have perhaps thought they were actually trying to be serious about things (like keeping everything with an 'ix' suffix in their control)..
However, it's a case of hit on the small guy and be a bully..
That's the last Asterix book I read!
Or buy for anyone else..
Malk
Underneath the layer of eye candy that rests on top of OS X is something simple yet powerful -- Linux
Hmmm... shouldn't that be BSD? Oops, I mean... BSD is dead!
So what do you call one, then? 'Nearly one'?
In a related story, Hans Blix has filed a lawsuit against France seeking a bottle of Nix head lice remover, a Twix bar, and a big bowl of kid-tested mother-approved Kix cereal in damages. When asked for his reason for suing the unpleasantly fragrant nation, Blix replied, "I'm a jelly-filled donut."
Saying that "Asterix" and "Mobilix" are too much alike is like saying Sylvester Stallone bares a striking resemblence to a 55-gal drum of pickled herring.
Oh wait. Hrm...
Bowie J. Poag
So, the owner of a hypothetical site www.ogeefy.com could be sued by Disney, and they'd win?! I can't believe that.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
all going to Disney's obnoxious cyber advert? Looks like someone slipped Network Solutions a mickey.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
This is actually quite ironic since allmost all names in the Asterix comic series are derived from real words (in French). Asterix comes from 'asterisque' (the * character), Obelix from 'obelisque' (a vertical monument, like a pillar), idefix (the dog) from 'idée fixe' (difficult to translate, something like an unchangeable opinion), assurancetourix (the chief IIRC) from 'assurance touts risques' (an insurance for all damages), etc ...
And now they sue somebody cause a word they use looks like one of the names of their characters. It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid.
"Son, in a sporting event, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get" - Homer J. Simpson
for when they go after Oblix?
In Germany, judges eat YOU. All their brain are belong to trash.
Oh, well, my Karma was too good anyway.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Absolutely. Mickey and Goofy are no way near to Asterix comics when it comes to humor, wit and information. Also, Asterix comics have an attention to detail that is seldom found in other books.
The whole things is turning into another I can hire more lawyers than you show off...
nothing new under the sun indeed.
This is a joke, right? Mobelix, Obelix, Asterix... Admit it, michael finally gave up on real articles altogether, and now he's just messing with us.
/syle
...but better!!! I read every one I could get mey hands on, even in high school.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Extreamly corny sense of humour...
Sounds like the folks in alt.callahans
Actually, for all who are not familiar with the case, the history and a short introduction to german laws in short:
In autumn 2001 the publisher of asterix filed a suit at the "Landgericht", LG ("county court", a court of the first instance) and lost. The LG pointed out that there is no risk of a mix-up.
After this, the publisher went to the next instance, the Oberlandesgericht (court of appeals), wich decided 100% different and against mobilix.
The problem is, that Mobilix now has no further legal possibilities, as the case may not be retried at the Bundesgerichtshof (federal court) itself.
Their only chance is that this fact (that no appeal is allowed) can be a subject of a new case at a federal court. But the chance to win this case is quite small, and it would only give them the chance to bring the original case (Asterix v. Mobilix) to a federal court.
Additional information for USians not familiar with france, this website and see this article for more french military history.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
idefix (the dog) from 'idée fixe' (difficult to translate, something like an unchangeable opinion)
In the English-language version, his name is "Dogmatix", which means basically the same thing.
assurancetourix (the chief IIRC)
He's "Vitalstatistix" in the English version.
The great thing about Asterix is that new punning names are made up for every language that the stories are translated into. I've even seen a Welsh-language Asterix book; my father, who is a Welsh speaker, confirmed that the names were still puns in Welsh.
My favourite Asterix name is a Roman soldier I saw in one book called "Poisonus Oystus". Inspired.
-Stephen
Asterix has always been among my favorites. I have all the albums, and I started collecting when I was 8 years old. It is a great cartoon, and there is even a story about how money corrupts, in which the Romans send in a guy to buy all the bautas the Gauls can produce. Obelix makes bautas, and suddenly the village gets industrialized, the villagers get rich and things start going really wrong.....
They should start reading Asterix too.
I found this e-mail address: contact@albert-rene.com
I told them I would never buy an album again unless they drop this suit immediately.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
When the stories were translated into English, they changed some of the names -- asterisk and obelisk are valid English words too, so they stayed the same, but many of the other characters got renamed so the (awful) puns would still work. For example:
... and this one I didn't understand for years ...
Vitalstatistx was the (rather fat) chief of the village.
Dogmatix was Asterix's dog.
Unhygenix was the village fishmonger.
Fullyautomatix was the village blacksmith.
Getafix was the village druid (who cooked up the magic potion for our heroes).
Lots more names, but those are the main ones that changed in English, I believe.
This is such incredible bullshit. You'd have to be a complete moron to see any resemblance between the names. This frigging cartoon company can kiss my ass.
> For Americans: Asterix and Obelix are well-known French cartoon characters
In the next step, they will sue everyone who uses asterisks... C-programmers, delete your comments!
On the other hand, my Microsoft keyboard has an asterisk, too. Sue them!
info@asterix.tm.fr
"The ironing is delicious" - Bart Simpson
AC comments get piped to
I can totally see how a mobile phone could be mistaken for a good natured fat guy who likes to beat up romans and eat wild boar.
</sarcasm>
When will the insanity end? Mobilix, despite being in a totally different market, gets the shaft, but Lindows, which was intentionally named in order to draw in Windows customers, is OK?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
If you type "obelix.net" in the adress bar of internet explorer, you will be redirected to msn search. And guess which web site is the returned ?? Mobilix !! here is the result result: http://search.fr.msn.ch/results.asp?cfg=DNSERROR&v =1&FORM=DNSERR&q=obelix%2Enet
Redge
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
It's a German court, what do you expect. Nothing like that could happen in good ole USA, where we preach a freedome like no other.
I personally don't see how you could confuse asterix with mobilix. I'm surprised they haven't brought legal action against the number 8 which shares common space with the * on your keyboard. It's only because the French are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Apparently, they hate the powers that be.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Three years ago, when I worked in a bank, we used to go to www.fed.gov to get statistical data from the Federal Reserve. One day, I got distracted and typed www.fed.com, trying to reach them as usual. Surprise: it pointed to a pr0n site. I almost got fired.
Nickts mehr übrig, I'm afraid...
These judges must be gibbering idiots!
Here's a freebie for you useless lawyers: McDonnel Douglas sounds confusingly similar to McDonald's, when said really fast. Release the hounds!
'idée fixe' (difficult to translate, something like an unchangeable opinion)
The usual "translation" is just to cite the phrase in French; it usually implies more than an unchangeable opinion, rather one that is also almost obsessive.
Ils sont fous ces francais!
You stupefucks are too busy screaming about how Americans suck in general to bother tying it to any particular action.
You make it sound like nobody ever says anything bad about America, so how dare we ridicule others. Where the hell have you been, Saturn?
Get your head out of your ass and pay attention for once.
Sounds like a clear case of you being able to dish it out, but not being able to take it.
but Lucas own AT-AT, AT-ST and a slew more for the new eps I haven't had time to learn.
Yeah, compare the body count from french army in Ivory Coast (zilch) to the one from US spec forces in Somalia (a thousand, if you believe Black Hawk Down). go tell to the somalians that the US stand for world peace, and see how they laugh.
i had a sig, once..
I want to know when are we gonna stand up and stop taking it from behind by governments, companies, and conglomerates? I'm sick and tired of people who have no business doing so trying to dictate what happens online. The net was started by the academics, the computer elite. And now companies hop on and throw thier money around in an attempt to grab more control than many small governments would hope for.
There are millions of us out there. Millions of people with the knowledge and the skill to make it right. What would happen if all of the sudden, today, Obelix.com dissapeared from the net? A punishment for trying to pull something so rediculous. Maybe after that happens a couple dozen times, corporations, governments, and even people would think twice about pushing people around for no reason.
Corporations and governments may be strong, but as a community we are stronger. On our own turf, they cannot hope to even win, but only if we get togeather and fight for what is right. Do the little things. Send those that are being bullied money, sign up for the EFF, or just talk to people, sway public opinion.
It is a battle we can win, only if we get off our bums and do something.
I will thell them that if MobiliX loses it's domain or trademark my children will never read Asterix & Obelix.
And I do have children. Thank you for asking.
Antti S. Brax - Old school - http://www.iki.fi/asb/
Shouldn't McCratney et al sue them back for using Jelousubmarine (or similar, can't recall the exact spelling) in one of the character names?
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
Man, it does not only have the same last 3 characters, they also share the "Ob" and what is definitely suspicious is the fact of the changing of "i" by "e".
Either the article left a few details out or the German legal system is a very strange animal.
Plaintiff: Hey, your site name sounds like our trademark so we're taking you to court.
Defendant: Yeah, sure, go on, try it.
Plaintiff (to court): Look at this name, it's just like ours!
Court: Is it hell, bugger off, case dismissed.
Plaintiff (to appeal court): Hey did you see what they said? They said the other name doesn't sound like ours. C'mon now, it does, it double does. Tell 'em won't ya?
Appeal court: Ok, we'll tell 'em. Case awarded.
Does anyone spot anything missing here? Like how the case got to the appeal court in the first place? New evidence? Crooked witnesses?
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
I'm ok with the name as long as they don't damage Romans or hunt boar.
Obe
Um, "idée fixe" is very easy to translate; it means "dogmatic". That's why it's funny, it's not really a pun unless you understand both English and French.
My favourite Asterix name is a Roman soldier I saw in one book called "Poisonus Oystus". Inspired.
Don't forget Odius Asparagus.
Trademarks are going to get pretty difficult if simply rhyming with an existing trademark is going to count as an infringement. I don't know about French, but a quick Perl script chewing on CMU's pronouncing dictionary reveals only a couple dozen single-syllable endings to English words, and only a few hundred two-syllable endings.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I have bought more that 12 Asterix and Obelix Albums.
.
.
Not any more
Now i will use other legal means to obtain them like trade with friends , trade used comicks
They only reason i was buying was because i wanted to support these guys.
Not anymore.
People that behave like predatory animals do not deserve my support.
Really?? Are you serious??... this seems like a joke, but I'm not sure, as I've never read the English version of Asterix and Obelix. I always liked the strip (never saw the cartoon) but it's been awhile... I find it hard to believe that it would lose so much in the translation and become so stupid.... prove me wrong! ;)
and it was hilarious, in fact the last time I went back to France I wanted to buy some of these, but the bookstore that I found them in was some kind of book club and they wouldn't let me buy because i didn't belong :( Bastards!!! This is a ridiculous lawsuit. It's sad that we live in an age where mere words can be copyrighted.
> idée fixe' (difficult to translate, something like an unchangeable opinion)
The usual "translation" is just to cite the phrase in French; it usually implies more than an unchangeable opinion, rather one that is also almost obsessive.
This is why the English translation is Dogmatix. Dogmatic defined as "positiveness in assertion of opinion especially when unwarranted or arrogant". But then you all already knew this.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Something which work !
Mailbom the company address contact@albert-rene.com with protestation emails !
Also send the mail in cc to all the xxx@albert-rene.com addesses you can find on google.
Flood their fax ! Phone to complain to the marketing departement.
This will make their Monday a nightmare and all the employee will know what's happening.
I will try to find the union and inform them that if a boycott occurs they will loose their job.
Or CE (Common Era)
Which seems a shame. I guess if only there was a longer copyright term, Walt Disney might have an incentive to translate them into english.
zilch? Stop reading French news sources.
Read some African continent news sources and you'll get the whole story.
Oh wait. You use Hollywood movies as a source of information. Nevermind.
funny you should mention that considering one of my favourite stallone quotes:
"Myra, some people might think you're cute, but I happen to think you're a very large baked potato."
This page is almost impossible to read in Mozilla... all these accented characters are being displayed on my system as tabs??? or something...
It looks fine in IE...whatsa matta?
And, of course, Cacofonix, the (appaling) bard. (sorry if I've misspelt that)
My favourite is the Egyptian, "Ptenisnet". In Asterix, The Legionary, he gives his name in Egyptian and the speech balloon actually has a little net hieroglyphic.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
You ignore the following facts:
McDonalds always calls it hot coffee. Hot. Yes, indeed. It is part of toddler training to be careful around hot things.
The lady spilled the hot coffee HERSELF. McDonalds did not spill it.
This is just one of those frivolous lawsuits that have become so common, and are a reason we need tort reform. And yes, it is 100% frivolous certainly.
And now they sue somebody cause a word they use looks like one of the names of their characters. It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid.
Even stupider is the fact that they don't even stick to their own names: in the English translations (at least the ones in Australia, which I imagine are the same as the British ones), for example, the chief is Vitalstatistix (i.e. Vital statistics).
Or the fact that too many people (in at least Australia) these days call * an asterix. (Though whether this can affect a German/French trademark case I do not know.)
Look out!
... and not Linix
In Germany, the loser of a criminal case can always call appeal court.
It's a crime to have a similar name in Germany? Maybe you didn't mean to say criminal.
Anyway, I'm not advocating anyone's legal system over another's (I'm neither German nor American). It just seems gut-weird to me that as soon as you don't get your way with a lower court, without any other reason than your not liking their decision, you get to appeal. It's not as though any new arguments are being produced (at least it doesn't seem that way from what I read).
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
>... and this one I didn't understand for years Getafix was the village druid (who cooked up
> the magic potion for our heroes).
Although, according to another Asterix reference the druid was called "Magigimmix". I seem to remember reading that elsewhere too.
It would appear that get-a-fix was too naughty for the US audience.
follower@iname
Why get into a fix over a pun?
More than mere navel gazing.
You ignore even more facts:
- McDonald's served their coffee at 20 degrees above the industry standard. Obviously, everyone knows they need to be careful around a cup of coffee. It's hot. Duh. However, if you had a cup of molten lava in your hand, would you be just as careful with it as you would with a cup of coffee, or would you be more careful with it, knowing that it is significantly more dangerous than a cup of coffee. Most rational people would treat a cup of molten lava with greater care than they would treat a cup of coffee, because the danger is significantly higher. The woman in this case should only be expected to treat the coffee with the same level of care she would treat any other cup of coffee. However, this cup of coffee was served, unbeknownst to her, at a temperature significantly and dangerously higher than an ordinary cup of coffee. I've spilled normal coffee on myself before. Normal coffee does not cause third-degree burns requiring skin grafts. If it did, I would treat it with much greater care all the time.
- Yes, the lady spilled it on herself. This is why the jury decided that she too would share in the blame. But, because of the reason I stated in the point above, she was found to be 20% responsible, and McDonald's was found to be 80% responsible, since they willingly and knowingly served her coffee at a dangerous temperature, knowing that she would have no reason to be aware that this coffee was significantly more dangerous than most coffee, and knowing that they had settled over 700 other cases involving serious burns from their coffee, burns that go beyond the type of burn that normal coffee should cause.
This case was only frivolous in that McDonald's should have done the decent thing and simply accepted some responsibility on their own, and at least helped to pay the woman's medical bills -- which was all she wanted in the first place. Do you have any idea what skin graft surgery costs? They refused, so the lawsuit occurred.