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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).
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?
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
--
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Not sure I can agree. I've lived in French-speaking countries (admittedly France has not been among them) and a vowel surrounded by stressed syllables (the first and last syllables in these words take the stress) is elided to neutrality to my ear. I just tried it out with a real live French colleague and she agrees - only when she pronounced the words at deliberately (and unnaturally) slow speed was the difference audible.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS