Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Agrees Settlement Over MikeRoweSoft.com
GillBates0 writes "CNN's reporting that Microsoft Corp has settled with Mike Rowe, persuading the teenager to give up his domain name in exchange for costs of changing the existing domain to a new Web site, Microsoft certification training, an Xbox, an invitation to a technology festival at Redmond and some other gifts. Includes a choice quote from Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler: 'We wanted to do this in a way that's going to foster his interest in technology'. Mike had received a 25-page letter from Microsoft informing him he was committing copyright infringement, and threatening legal action, as reported earlier on Slashdot."
I would have thought the Microsoft would have wanted some change to the name of the company too? Surely the same problems will arise if he's still calling his business/site Mike Rowe Soft or whatever?
Yes, but since he had fallen in the trap of offering to sell the domain for a good amount of money, he was pretty much done for. This is probably the best option he could go for, but I have to agree that it would have been interesting to see the developments of this story if Mike had chosen otherwise.
DrkBr
XBox is probably the best console according to game developers. Gamespot.com also always claims that the most fluid and best graphics/gameplay comes from XBox followed closely by Gamecube, and then finally the PS2. This is for comparing games written for all three platforms.
It could very well have to due with the cross-platform rendering toolkits that game developers use. They may not be tuned correctly for PS2.
How far does this extend? Sure, you can sue phonetic copies, but what if someone makes a macrohard.com? Is that infringement as well? Or maybe micrsoft.com, or some other creative misspelling... What are the boundaries for this type of suit?
------- "A true friend stabs you in the front." -Eliot
Master Rowe gets a nice toy or two, and has a career track ahead of him.
In the end, everyone smiles but the lawyers. Good.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
mikerowesoft is not a near miss. Its a very far miss at best, plus its his own damn name. I think MS was sort of out of line on this one, though he provoked them by posting (at least some at the time I saw the site) anti-MS content on the site. Shows that corporations (whether legally or though monetary means) are far more powerful than any individual which may not be a good thing.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
One odd thing: I keep reading about copyright violations in these stories, but shouldn't Microsoft's claims be trademark-related? Copyright doesn't apply to a business name as far as I know.
Regarding the settlement: it mentions the MCSE, the XBox and so forth, but I'm guessing there's money in there somewhere, too. This was a very bad PR situation for Microsoft. Since Mike had the PR on his side, yet is giving up the domain, I'm guessing he got more than just some courses, plane tickets and a game console in return.
That doesn't mean it was in bad faith, like MS claimed. The kid had an actual business running. He simply decided to make a counteroffer when they came up to him. Had they not, he would've run the site all the same. He wasn't cybersquatting
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
The Xbox has lots of problems, and its not just thier console. EA wont do any multiplayer games on the XBox using Xbox Live because Microsoft charges access to those games and Microsoft keeps all the money. Some developers might say that its the best console, but I bet those developers did mostly pc games and im sure the switch over isn't hard. Microsoft has raped bungie (im not the only one who thought the pre-microsoft halo movies looked pretty kickass compared to how the game turned out). In fact id say the only reason why the Xbox is popular is because the company behind it can pretty much throw as much money as they want behind it, they dont innovate, they buy companies who do. Oh and the fact that Microsoft moved my job over to india doesn't help me like them any more..
Down with the XBOX! Gamespot sucks too!
I have all 3 of the current "big 3" systems.
I started with a GC, and its still may favorite...the first party stuff can't be touched, and for multiplayer (Smash Bros, Monkey Ball 2, Mario Kart) and other exclusives (the first Rogue Squadron game on it, at least) make it the last one I'd give up.
Then I got a PS2...ugh. I got it for WDL:Thundertanks, hoping it would be another "Battle Tanx", but it sucked. For a while its saving grace was GTA3 and GTA:VC, but now it's only the thought that the sequel to those will be on this system first that have me keep it around. There are some other good games, but overall the gem/shovelware ratio is way too small to justify the expense of the system. I really think that "first mover advantage" combined with the leverage of playing PSone games (which in turn had a huge first mover advantage) as well as being untouchable for specific genres I don't care about (sports, RPGs) are what make this system the leader.
I got an Xbox lastly, and its made a tremendous impression on me. It follows in the Microsoft tradition of not really innovating much, but copying some of the very best parts of other systems. It's a buttugly huge console but it has the best controllers (the S-version, the original were just clones + minor enhancements and great enlargements of what the DC had) and some of the games are sweet...Halo and Crimson Skies in particular. It is very likely THE biggest horsepower console out now, and it shows.
So while my heart is still with Nintendo, I've really been impressed with what Xbox has done. And will probably never really forgive PS2 for the dumbness of only putting 2 controller ports on without a multitap...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I know he's 17. I know he has his who life in front of him. I know he can't afford the costs of doing battle with Microsoft (few can, individuals and corporations alike). I know I'm not in his shoes and I might see thing differently if I was. I know all of this, and much more that points to this being the right decision for him, indeed, being the ONLY decision he really could have made.
But I just can't shake the feeling that this amounts to selling out and nothing more.
I mean, let me ask this question... is there any one out there that thinks this truly is legitimate copyright infringement? The only point in favor of that I can think of is that he said he wanted people to think he was associated in some way with Microsoft (I forget his exact words, but that's the gist of it). But that one point aside, is similar pronunciation copyright infringement?
Look, IANAL, naturally, and maybe there's precedent that says it in fact is. If so, end of story I suppose, and I'm wrong. But if there's not, if certainly seems like a worth-wild battle to fight in my opinion. I mean, you've got to draw a line against the darkness somewhere, to paraphrase a beloved captain, and although this isn't the world against terrorism or anything, it's still something worse fighting for I think.
If for no other reason than to not like Microsoft bully everyone they want without any thought of being wrong, that's enough of a reason!
I know, I know... 17... whole life in front of him... etc.. etc.. etc...
Still, I can't shake the feeling that the word sellout applies all too well.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
This was in 1996, I was 14, and I registered gamespotlight.com. I then e-mailed gamespot.com and asked them if they had a problem with it, and they said in fact they did (I was surprised for some reason). They offered to pay me to transfer the domain name, and rather than taking the money, I just did it for free: back then internic let you transfer domains because of trademark disputes for free.
The good deed was graciously recieved. After meeting up with some of the guys at E3, GameSpot then offered me a paid summer internship in San Francisco when I was 16.
Bam! Those were the good ol' days.
- Philosopistry
Philosophistry
The question should be, is it modded? Damn, everyone I know owns one modded it. The emulators are the thing that make the XBox worth something...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Probably already been posted, but I wonder how these guys are managing to survive.
Ok, so the domains mikeroesoft.org, .info, .biz, and .us are open. If I have been reading things correctly and I register these, then I get a free Xbox and certification?
SIGFAULT
Slashdotters seem to have the hardest time being objective
;)
;)
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 20:28:45 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill Gates
To: "Eric A. Stephens"
Subject: Re: Using "Microsoft" in a domain name
[ sorry for the off-topic thing to "Microsoft-law", it's just the best medium I can think off off-hand ]
Ok,
I've been getting tons of email about the trademark thing due to the action of stopping the auctioning off of Microsoft-related names, so instead of just answering individually (which was how I started out), I'll just send out a more generic email. And hope that slashdot etc pick it up so that enough people will be reassured or at least understand the issues.
And hey, you may not end up agreeing with me, but with the Longhorn announcement tomorrow I won't have much time to argue about it until next week
Basically, the rules are fairly simple, and there really are just a few simple basic issues involved:
- I (and obviously a lot of other people) do not want to have "Microsoft" as a name associated with unacceptable (or borderline) behaviour, and it's important that "Microsoft" doesn't get a name of being associated with scams, cybersquatting, etc etc. I'd personally hate that, for rather obvious reasons. I _like_ being proud of Microsoft, and what has been achieved. I'd rather not have to apologize for it..
- Trademark law requires that the trademark owner police the use of the trademark(unlike, for example, copyright law, where the copyright owner is the copyright owner, always is, and always will be unless he willingly relinquishes ownership, and even THEN he ends up having rights).
This is nasty, because it means, for example, that a trademark owner has to be shown as caring about even small infringements, because otherwise the really bad guys can use as their defense that "hey, we may have misused it, but look at those other cases that they didn't go after, they obviously don't care.."
- Even with things that aren't scams or something like that, VALID uses of "Microsoft" may be bad if they mean that other valid uses of "Microsoft" are blocked.
Those are the kind of ground rules, I think everybody can pretty much agree with them..
What the above leads to is
- I'm required to ask people to acknowledge the trademark. When you use the term "Microsoft" in official marketing literature etc, you should acknowledge it as a trademark owned by me. Not because I love seeing my name in print, but simply because of the "policing" issue (#2) above.
(And no, that does NOT mean that you have to add that to normal, everyday use of the term. Common sense rules the day, think of the situations where you see the silly "xxxx is a trademark of yyyy", and realize that yyyy may not really care except the legal issues force them to
- _Intent_ matters. It matters a lot.
If your intent is to use the word "Microsoft" as part of a real Microsoftproject, that doesn't mean that you automatically absolutely have to get permission from me. That's the LAST thing I want. I want "Microsoft" to be as free as possible as a term, and the real reason for having a trademark in the first place was to _protect_ it rather than use it as some kind of legalistic enforcement thing.
But, for example, if your intent is to register "mylinux.com" (made up example, I don't know if it is registered or not) only in the hopes of selling the domain name for mucho dinero later, then that kind of intent is not something I (or anybody else, I think) would find really acceptable, because now the use of "linux" in this case has really been a question of blocking somebody ELSE from using the term and using it to get money.
This is where the cybersquatting laws come in, for example, allowing the use of a trademark as a way to make sure that such squatting activity does NOT happen.
- Being "specific" is _good_. Being specific
Why does Microsoft want to own MikeRoweSoft.com? Why didn't they just ask Mike to change MikeRoweSoft.com to a page saying "MikeRoweSoft.com has been renamed/moved to _MikeRoweForums.com_ to avoid confusion with the _Microsoft Corporation_."?
The shareholder is always right.
A million kids have web design website up and running. Calling most of them "actual businesses" is like calling a door-to-door vacuum salesman an "account executive."
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As an aside, it seems to me that if you are going to charge to set someone up with a website, and you have a button at the bottom claiming XHTML 1.0 compliance, you'd better be compliant. At least, an "actual business" would be.
###
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!
Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.
Line 247, column 59: there is no attribute "leftmargin" (explain...).
Line 247, column 74: there is no attribute "topmargin" (explain...).
###
This goes on and on, no need to paste it all. Point is, claiming that this is an actual business is a joke.
Actually in our country that is just a good way to make money. You either copyright an idea or reserve a domain and then you sell the rights for a ton of money to someone who can actually do something with it. It's not bad faith its simply good business. Acquire something that you think will be sellable someday, then hold out till you get an offer you like.