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Microsoft to sue Mike Rowe for Copyrights
An anonymous reader was among a host of submittors noting that a 17 year old named Mike Rowe has been sued by Microsoft for copyright infringment of their name.
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Get his site listed on /.
Apparently they pulled this rather common scam of offering him a rediculously low amount ($10) for the domain. Then when the target flips out and says it's worth at least $xxx, they sue their asses for trying to profit off of a domain name.
The Register should know better.
Don't make them an offer. It seems that the big catch here is that Mike made a $10,000 offer to Microsoft ('s lawyers?), and that single act essentially made their case that it was a bad-faith registration.
Shouldn't that be "trademark" infringement? I didn't know Microsoft had exclusive distribution rights to the series of sounds in their name.
I'd bet a nickel the reporter who wrote the first story and editor never looked up the difference between "copyright infringement" and "trademark infringement," and then the story was duplicated to other news services without anyone bothering to double-check it.
hotmale.com next? ;)
p.
The phoenetic similarity may not be evident to someone that doesn't speak english natively...
I wonder if they will go after www.smartredirect.com who seem to own mycrowsoft.com
Don.
---------
Eatthepuddingeatthepuddingeatthepudding
Slashdot - The Home of the Tortured Analogy
Obviously the site died right away. I was able to copy Mike's message when the topic was still in red. /. rampage coming :)
I don't think he saw the
Wow, all of this exposure is starting to overwhelm me. I appreciate all of the emails I have been getting recently. If I don't respond to you that doesn't mean I don't appreciate it, I have been getting flooded and I am only responding to the ones I see fit. I am starting to get coverage all over the world. I have heard I have been on the news in the UK. That really surprised me. Anyways, thanks for visiting my site. I will keep you updated on everything that is happening.
And on 15 jan 2004:
I received an email from Smart & Biggar, Microsoft's Canadian lawyers, informing me that I have been committing copyright infringement against Microsoft. They told me that I must transfer my domain name over to Microsoft as soon as possible. I was baffled by this email, yet thought it was funny at the same time. Microsoft was going after a 17 year olds part time business that he put a lot of time into just because it has the same phonetic sound as their company.
I responded to this email saying that I was not ready to give up my domain name since I had put so much time and effort into establishing my name, getting my business cards out and posting my services on the Internet. If I were to give up my domain, I would lose all the time and effort I had put into it. I requested that they offer me a settlement of some sort to help with me losing my business. A few days later I received an email back from them telling me that they would give me all of my out-of-pocket expenses for the domain name, which came to be $10USD. I was surprised that they would offer such a little amount of money to persuade me to hand my domain over to Microsoft. In response to this recent email, I sent one back to them describing how much work I have put into my business and that the domain was worth at least $10000. They refused to give me anything more than $10USD so I proceeded to ignore their most recent email. I didn't hear anything from them after their last email.
Yesterday, January 14, I received a package from the lawyers' office FedEx Priority Overnight. Inside I found a book over an inch thick with a 25 page letter explaining to me that I had all along had the intention to sell my domain name to Microsoft for a large cash settlement. This is not the case, I never thought my name would cause Microsoft to take this course of action against me. I just thought it was a good name for my small part-time business. In this letter it explains that Microsoft's customers could get confused between my page and theirs, which doesn't make any sense since Microsoft doesn't design websites. They do, however, sell a program called Microsoft FrontPage, which they say can cause some confusion between me making websites for my customers and them selling a program to make websites to their customers. I think it is just another example of a huge corporation just trying to intimidate a small business person (and only a 17 year old student at that) to get anything they want by using lawyers and threats. It reminds me of the Starbucks thing against the little coffee shop in the Queen Charlotte Islands.
How did Microsoft find out that the domain name sounded like Microsoft? Do they have some software that monitors the domain registry, or was the site getting popular? I guess they figured he was a easy target, but it seems like David wins against Goliath? :)
:P
In my eyes it seems like the overpaid lawyers that Microsoft keeps in it's stable wanted to give the impression of actually doing something
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Check out my website: blowmesmartandbiggar.com.
No... my name is not Blowme Smartandbiggar. Nor is it Blowme S. Andbiggar.
\\signed\\
Blow M. Smartandbiggar
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
Phonenitics similarities aside, every time I speak "Microsoft" aloud versus "MikeRoweSoft" there is a difference in the phonetic spacing. Though that could just be because I want to find a difference. Personally, I serously doubt that anyone could possibly get the two companies confused. Though honestly I agree that his biggest mistake was to say that his domain was worth $X. Even thoug Mirosoft supposedly said they were willing to cover out of pocket expenses for the domain. Personally I'd like to see copies of these emails and letters.
Bork Bork Bork!!
From the article:
He registered the domain in August because he thought it would be cool to have a site that sounded like the famous company to show his Web designing skills.
Well, that's exactly what a trademark is supposed to protect against; someone else using your brand-name for their own purposes. And because the way the trademark law works, Microsoft has to defend their trademarks; writing letters, suing; or else they risk the trademark being generic; free for anyone to use.
Microsoft may be an evil corporation, but I can't blame them for protecting their main trademark.
That the defendants name is Mike Rowe is interesting, but I personally think it is clear that mikerowesoft is intended to look alike and benefit from the name recognition of "microsoft". Mike Rowe can easily invent another domain name that includes his name and build his own brand name without leeching on Microsoft.
)9TSS
The article points out that this could easily be confused with an article from The Onion. I'd add "or an urban legend".
Did you notice the law firm that he claimed M$ uses to scare him? In order for the law firm to seem smarter and bigger than the peon they are suing, they are allegedly called "Smart & Biggar"! Obviously fake, right?
And then I looked it up, and it's a real law firm!!!!!! http://www.smart-biggar.ca/About/ (Presumably Smart & Biggar/Fetherstonhaugh is based on people's names... :-)
I own maybe 7 domain names for various reasons. None of them were purchased with bad faith (eg, they're not designed to be similar to other companies or names, and as far as I know, none are). However, if someone came to me and claimed that I was infringing on their trademark, and offered me $10,000 for it, none of them are important enough to me that I wouldn't take it.
Likewise, if they came and offered me an absurd fee such as $10, it'd be a natural conclusion for me to counter offer something that I *would* be willing to sell it for. I'd say that there are few privately held domain names that there isn't some purchasing price for. Even corporately held domain names would come with a purchase price, though that price might lump in the corporation. Eg, if I offered Adobe $700 billion, I'm guessing I'd come away with a shiny new domain name, and probably a new office building filled with employees to go with it.
My point is that just because the kid *was* willing to sell the domain doesn't make it a bad faith offering. None of mine are bad faith, and I'd easily sell any of them for 10 grand.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Seriously though. I didn't get the lawsuit until I actually read in the article that the supposed infraction was mearly phonetic. How many people pronouce things online?
And seeing as this Mike Rowe has ownership over his name and plans to study computer science and makes no mentions to MS on his site, the case seems pretty clear to me. It usually takes a lot for WIPO to overturn ownership on a website, and I don't see any clear evidence that Mike Rowe was cybersquating. Come on, phonetic spelling in a written medium? And I'd just like to know how MS found his site in the first place. Do they have a phonetical analyzer?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
"... his domain would confuse Microsoft customers."
Sounds about right. Microsoft customers (by definition) are not the brightest cookies out there. Case in point, Clippy.
Actually, no. It's by no means brilliant, but it's certainly explainable.
You're a big company. YOu're huge. You are very, very controversial. When intelligent, well-informed people think about you and your business tactics, they combine images of alien zombies with all-encroaching slime-mold and a coven of satanists whose approach to product design and quality control issues is limited to ferrying suitcases of cash to Washington.
It has been proven in courts of law that you steal code and suppress competition. It is well-known that you are cavalier towards other people's patents and copyrights and fiercely protective of your own. In short, you are scum.
So What is your optimal startegy? In order to keep the great ordinary from hearing that you are scum so often that it clicks one day (I'm paying WHAT?!! HOW?!!), you have to control as much opinion as you can and a websight on a domain that is easily associated with your name is very dangerous to you at; least psychologically and at worst, materially.
It's got to work on your nerves. It has to make things run through your head.
A site on a domain like that might be used to report every time your blithe unconcern for security costs your customers billions; it might be used to post wonderfully funny pieces about how your founder is a, vulgar, fast-food munching, nerd with documented B.O.--a loser who couldn't have gotten a pity-screw from a nymphomaniac saint until his net worth was in the *billions* and even then, as the world's richest man, his choices were limited to an employee who looks the worse for wear--who looks more and more like a frump with a case of nerves in each royal portrait.
When you've little to offer but a lot to lose, you have to control what people say about you. You have to find the channels and close them: it's a trend that shows your internet savvy which is why 'Georgebushsucks.com' used to take you to a site and ask you for a contribution to his campaign.
Sorry to hear they didn't just pay the damned kid. One thing about being scum is the psychological inability to realize that writing the kid a check--even one for ten times what he asked for--with a handshake and hinting at an internship one day would beat all hell out of reaching for your lawyers and generating news coverage that proves that even your worst critics are dead right about you.
Of course, if their mindset embraced ideas like this, they would have leaned harder on their quality than on their lobbyists and the would have had nothing to worry about in the first place.
You've got to love it....
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Yeah, she'd get hit up by 10,000 geeks looking for a date instead of 10,000 lawyers looking to sue. I'm not sure which is worse.
No, they're not evil because they dominate the desktop.
They are evil because they use that monopoly unfairly, to illegally (attempt to) dominate other areas. They are evil because of their unethical and illegal business practices: buying out or crushing all competition, secret agreements with vendors, spreading lies, putting profits over user experience and security, doing their utmost to prevent interoperability with other software and systems, continually breaking the spirit and the letter of anti-trust agreements, and much more.
Microsoft are evil, not because they dominate the desktop, but because, thanks to them, most people (think they) have no alternative.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
...the holders of domains MyCrow.com, MyCrew.com, WhenDoes.com, WinDozens.com, MikeRose.com, and MikeRosoff.com have all hired lawyers.
Mr. Mike Rosoff of Kennebunk, Maine is especially worried, because he has received a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft lawyers claiming that his social security card, driver's license, passport, and all items using his birth name are infringing on copyrights.
More on the story as it develops...
--Mark
__:-b
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
I know of two people with the last name of Rowe. Both are pronounced with an OW (as in "OW, that hurt"). I was just thinking it would be hilarious if Microsoft took this kid to court, and as the police dude is reading "the case of Microsoft vs. Mike Rowe", Mike's lawyer could stand up, say "correction your honor, it's pronounced rOWe"... judge: "dismissed"
My Sig Beat up your Honor Roll Sig
Your friend Microsoft is lost in the maze of IP infringement.
Please help him to find out all the names used by evil hackers who want to steel mighty things from your friend.
Because there are so many bad boys in the world that speak strange languages,
help your little friend Microsoft to get every occurence of name spelling that can sound like his very own name.
Of course in english, our friend Law Yer has just come with the evil name : Mike Rowe Soft, so this one can not be proposed.
When you have finished this game, hand out the answer to your dad or your mom and go on to the next game.
For instance, in French
[mi | my] [c | k | que] [r] [o | au] [ss] [o | au] [ft | pht]
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
So, this all sounded pretty stupid, until I realized that well, Microsoft is pretty much just covering their ass. IANAL, but, it seems that this would fall under Trademark infringement. And if i remember correctly, a company risks loosing their trademark if they don't stop people from using it incorrectly. So, basically, I think Microsoft would just rather not have this happen, as loosing the rights to their name might have bad consequences. Hell, we could start making Microsoft Linux, and could you imagine, Microsoft OpenOffice. So yeah. The whole thing sounds a little weird at first, asking this guy to hand over the domain, but if you were Microsoft's Lawyers, what would you do?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
MikeHunt.com - Being sued by Moe Szyslak, owner of Moe's Tavern for prank call infringement.
HenWeigh.com - Being sued by Jenny Craig, settlement offered of $15 in McDonalds Gift Certificates
ShoBullshit.org - Next on the list for SCO for misleading location of mystery source code backed up on mothership hiding behind Venus.
MyLittleBoy.net - Sued by Michael Jackson for misleading name. Settlement reached at 100 little Sailor outfits with various sizes.
MajorWoody.us - Major Horace Woody has apparently given Woody Woodpecker a bad name. The Pecker and Woody are working out a deal out of court however.
FamilyLove.net - Pending legislation by the State of Arkansas's Singles site, FamilyLovers.net.
SlashingDot.org - In close contact with Cowboy Neal as geeks to not want to be confused with a "News for Serial Killers" site.
gaggle.com - Upsetting google.com, but google is unwilling to start gang warfare as drive by DoSes sometimes comprimise innocent networks.
DeathRow.us - Death row inmates suing for misrepresentation of convicted criminals actually on Death Row.
Garbage.com - Also being sued by Microsoft for copyright infringement of copyright. Alleges that this name is a common slang for their products in knowledgable circles.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
Yeah, right.
That right! If the stupid Canadian education system had done its job and made Mr Rowe a legal expert on the subject of domain disputes, none of this would have happened.
Silly student, domains are for large corporations!
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.