Yeah, Microsoft's lawyers made a bit of change writing the first letter, documenting the site, and sending the ominous demand notice. They probably let MS know the case didn't need to go to court, too, since what Master Rowe was doing isn't considered trademark violation under the law. But there was no case, and no big money. Yay.
Microsoft seems to have realized there was a good way out of this. Now they've protected their (rather bizarre) trademark claim without creating the appearance that they'll pay cash to domain squatters.
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.
My personal experience is that Panther is noticably faster on a low-end G3 than Jaguar. It's bigger, but things like the Finder are far less annoying than 10.2.
I believe the counter-offer was invalid, since Rowe is a minor and he cannot legally enter such a contract. Microsoft will lose this one.
In any case, it sounds as if Mike Rowe ain't selling software. There's no reasonable belief that his website will confuse Microsoft's customers. That's the basis of trademark law.
Microsoft must surely understand trademark law by now. This is a shakedown.
To assert their trademark, they must demonstrate there is the reasonable possibility that Master Rowe's website design webpage might be confused as a product of Microsoft. Since the spelling is obviously different and Rowe isn't selling software, that's gonna be damn tricky to prove.
If this ever went to court (and it won't), Rowe would win. And the horrid PR of attacking a minor over something like this -- if I'm Microsoft, I'm sending him a $10,000 check now just to make it all go away.
(Yes, it's a cover, but it still tells the truth better than you or your colleagues ever did.)
I am a garden-variety radio programmer in a medium-sized Southern market. I love what I do, am proud of my co-workers, and try to actually fulfill my stations' mandate to serve their communities. This was my attitude long before I ever worked for Clear Channel, and is how the vast majority of the people in our business feel.
If you care to call me a liar, identify yourself and cite specific instances in which I have been deceptive. All I have done is relate my personal experience inside Clear Channel, even if it doesn't square with the lazy and ill-informed popular tendency to tar the company with every ill ever committed in the industry.
Pre-disco era there were a couple other rules that were common to most mainstream formats - you never played 2 female vocals in a row and you never played 2 records by black artists in a row (the cards for which had an "R" notation in the upper right corner, to make sure you knew). Yes, that was racist and wrong, but that's the way it was.
Yup, that's how it was. Back then, though, there were far fewer female and black artists on the playlists. It made sense to seperate them, for variety's sake.
I still seperate female artists in Oldies and Classic Rock for just this reason. But there would be no way to do this in most other formats today, nor any particular listener-driven reason to do so.
Is it also the local station's decision to speed up the tempo of all music played on a Clear Channel station?
Yes, by nature that's a local programming tactic. An old one, too: DJs were wrapping the capstans of their turntables with tape to speed them up way back in the Sixties.
This is usually done when you have two stations slogging it out for dominance in the same format. If you pitch the music up, it makes your competitor sound like they're dragging. It's an aggressive radio war tactic. Works, too.
There's no need to pitch music beyond a tight competitive situation, and there are some formats (Classic Rock comes to mind) in which this technique is inappropriate.
In Miami, Florida, the three or four Clear Channel stations worked together to prevent the playing of some songs -- going so far as to deny listener requests.
Very few stations play listener requests at any time. Radio figured out a long time ago that only about 1% of our listeners call the studio, and their tastes and listening patterns are not usually representative of the total audience. Unless you're a teeny-bopper, be glad 14-year-olds aren't deciding what you hear on the radio.
We do, of course, take note of what people are calling for. But we generally defer to more scientific methods of determining the tastes of our target audience: call-out research, auditorium testing, and record sales data.
I happen to know the Rock programmer in Miami. He's a smart guy -- hardly the sort of person to make knee-jerk decisions. In any case, it sounds as if you had local programmers attempting to tailor their stations to the community. Dunno if they made the right call, but it's not a case of sinister corporate censorship.
As an aside, I *did* drop one song on our Classic Rock station. We held Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner" for several months after 9-11. Nobody complained. I'm with you on the appropriateness of Lennon's "Imagine."
Oh...and no computer genetrates any of my stations' playlist, thanks. Human beings decide which songs go into a given level of rotation (spins per week).
Most of us schedule our music hours using a hoary old DOS (yes, DOS) program called Selector. It drops songs in the slots we define. But it's just a highly glorified card file, and is edited by hand.
Clear Channel would never demand that certain songs not be played, they would simply make suggestions that the affiliates can follow or, alternately, choose not to follow.
Clear Channel would insist that its programmers not play records known to research poorly. That's not a conspiracy -- just good programming. If a Program Director is knowingly playing stiffs, he's an idiot who doesn't deserve his chair.
Clear Channel would not dictate chart movement or mandate a station add a certain record. And certainly not for pay, if that's what you are inferring by your "mafia" slur.
We're not a perfect company, but most of our stations are run by folks who give a damn about our profession, communities, and the music we play. Most of us were doing what we are doing today long before someone hung a Clear Channel sign on our door, too.
Because those playlists are generated in-house, and factor in which songs a label is paying more to push into rotation and other such revinue-based decisions.
No, we NEVER factor the wants and desires of record companies into our rotation decisions. That would be stupid, and we're not paid to be stupid.
Record companies want us to play untested, unfamiliar music (to develop new product). We want tested, hit music that's popular with the largest segment of our target audience. Radio and the record industry want entirely different things out of radio airplay.
Speaking entirely from a business standpoint, we radio programmers are responsible for multi-million dollar radio stations. If I advance play for crap records just because some record company wants to farm some new artist, my ratings will decline. Then I lose my job (which I value). It's the same for all other programmers. We base our music on the response of our listeners.
You are referring to an informal, non-binding, and rather oddball list circulated by a few CC programmers shortly after 9-11. It had no weight at all, was not issued by the company, and was rather ignored by virtually all CC PDs (including me).
In any case, al lot of folks sort of lost their minds after 9-11. I don't fault the PDs who made up the list. They were really trying their best no to rub salt into listeners' wounds.
As for the Dixie Chicks, Clear Channel NEVER banned them as a company. Many stations pulled their records after getting hundreds or thousands of listener complains. My stations chose to keep playing them, but we've backed off in recent months. The music research comes back looking horrible. But that's the decision of our listeners, not Clear Channel.
I can think of at least one radio company which *did* officially ban the Chicks: Cumulus Media. Go picket THEM.
Local Clear Channel stations make their own music decisions. We all share our local research, but the company NEVER dictates which songs we play. Period.
Those who say differently are lying, guessing, or wishing.
Other companies have their own policies. But that's how we do it at CC.
I live in the Bible Belt (as in, "Don't believe the Bible? We're gonna belt ya'!"), but my first impression of the NET BSD logo was the Iwo Jima image, not the little devils.
That logo has to be HUGE in Japan.
Niue came to be self-governed simply because of its remoteness from New Zealand (which still maintains Niue's defense).
Without generous grants from New Zealand to make up regular budget deficits, Niue would have folded long ago. The population is half what it was in the Sixties, and continues to decline.
I personally hope Niue is able to make a go of it, but things were hardly rosy before the storm.
Slashdot Mirror
ACLU files aginst accursed Patriot Act
The ACLU has been out in front on this one.
Yeah, Microsoft's lawyers made a bit of change writing the first letter, documenting the site, and sending the ominous demand notice. They probably let MS know the case didn't need to go to court, too, since what Master Rowe was doing isn't considered trademark violation under the law. But there was no case, and no big money. Yay.
ACLU and the Patriot act
Hopefully, that will cure your rant. You can stop foaming now.
Well, I *stole* it myself. Pass it on. ;-)
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.
Wow! Light sabre battles! I'd never have expected that!
Sure as hell can't. Well done. Enjoy the postcards from Opportunity!
My personal experience is that Panther is noticably faster on a low-end G3 than Jaguar. It's bigger, but things like the Finder are far less annoying than 10.2.
...and die by it, too. It's every site's right to place intrusive advertising, but it will make me far less likely to visit.
In any case, it sounds as if Mike Rowe ain't selling software. There's no reasonable belief that his website will confuse Microsoft's customers. That's the basis of trademark law.
To assert their trademark, they must demonstrate there is the reasonable possibility that Master Rowe's website design webpage might be confused as a product of Microsoft. Since the spelling is obviously different and Rowe isn't selling software, that's gonna be damn tricky to prove.
If this ever went to court (and it won't), Rowe would win. And the horrid PR of attacking a minor over something like this -- if I'm Microsoft, I'm sending him a $10,000 check now just to make it all go away.
I am a garden-variety radio programmer in a medium-sized Southern market. I love what I do, am proud of my co-workers, and try to actually fulfill my stations' mandate to serve their communities. This was my attitude long before I ever worked for Clear Channel, and is how the vast majority of the people in our business feel.
If you care to call me a liar, identify yourself and cite specific instances in which I have been deceptive. All I have done is relate my personal experience inside Clear Channel, even if it doesn't square with the lazy and ill-informed popular tendency to tar the company with every ill ever committed in the industry.
Yup, that's how it was. Back then, though, there were far fewer female and black artists on the playlists. It made sense to seperate them, for variety's sake.
I still seperate female artists in Oldies and Classic Rock for just this reason. But there would be no way to do this in most other formats today, nor any particular listener-driven reason to do so.
Yes, by nature that's a local programming tactic. An old one, too: DJs were wrapping the capstans of their turntables with tape to speed them up way back in the Sixties.
This is usually done when you have two stations slogging it out for dominance in the same format. If you pitch the music up, it makes your competitor sound like they're dragging. It's an aggressive radio war tactic. Works, too.
There's no need to pitch music beyond a tight competitive situation, and there are some formats (Classic Rock comes to mind) in which this technique is inappropriate.
Very few stations play listener requests at any time. Radio figured out a long time ago that only about 1% of our listeners call the studio, and their tastes and listening patterns are not usually representative of the total audience. Unless you're a teeny-bopper, be glad 14-year-olds aren't deciding what you hear on the radio.
We do, of course, take note of what people are calling for. But we generally defer to more scientific methods of determining the tastes of our target audience: call-out research, auditorium testing, and record sales data.
I happen to know the Rock programmer in Miami. He's a smart guy -- hardly the sort of person to make knee-jerk decisions. In any case, it sounds as if you had local programmers attempting to tailor their stations to the community. Dunno if they made the right call, but it's not a case of sinister corporate censorship.
As an aside, I *did* drop one song on our Classic Rock station. We held Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner" for several months after 9-11. Nobody complained. I'm with you on the appropriateness of Lennon's "Imagine."
Most of us schedule our music hours using a hoary old DOS (yes, DOS) program called Selector. It drops songs in the slots we define. But it's just a highly glorified card file, and is edited by hand.
DOS: still at work on a radio station near you.
Clear Channel would insist that its programmers not play records known to research poorly. That's not a conspiracy -- just good programming. If a Program Director is knowingly playing stiffs, he's an idiot who doesn't deserve his chair.
Clear Channel would not dictate chart movement or mandate a station add a certain record. And certainly not for pay, if that's what you are inferring by your "mafia" slur.
We're not a perfect company, but most of our stations are run by folks who give a damn about our profession, communities, and the music we play. Most of us were doing what we are doing today long before someone hung a Clear Channel sign on our door, too.
No, we NEVER factor the wants and desires of record companies into our rotation decisions. That would be stupid, and we're not paid to be stupid.
Record companies want us to play untested, unfamiliar music (to develop new product). We want tested, hit music that's popular with the largest segment of our target audience. Radio and the record industry want entirely different things out of radio airplay.
Speaking entirely from a business standpoint, we radio programmers are responsible for multi-million dollar radio stations. If I advance play for crap records just because some record company wants to farm some new artist, my ratings will decline. Then I lose my job (which I value). It's the same for all other programmers. We base our music on the response of our listeners.
In any case, al lot of folks sort of lost their minds after 9-11. I don't fault the PDs who made up the list. They were really trying their best no to rub salt into listeners' wounds.
As for the Dixie Chicks, Clear Channel NEVER banned them as a company. Many stations pulled their records after getting hundreds or thousands of listener complains. My stations chose to keep playing them, but we've backed off in recent months. The music research comes back looking horrible. But that's the decision of our listeners, not Clear Channel.
I can think of at least one radio company which *did* officially ban the Chicks: Cumulus Media. Go picket THEM.
Those who say differently are lying, guessing, or wishing.
Other companies have their own policies. But that's how we do it at CC.
I live in the Bible Belt (as in, "Don't believe the Bible? We're gonna belt ya'!"), but my first impression of the NET BSD logo was the Iwo Jima image, not the little devils. That logo has to be HUGE in Japan.
For a moment, I thought they ment the end of life for Red Hat, not the old distros...
So -- who told the Republicans that there's oil on Mars?
Niue came to be self-governed simply because of its remoteness from New Zealand (which still maintains Niue's defense). Without generous grants from New Zealand to make up regular budget deficits, Niue would have folded long ago. The population is half what it was in the Sixties, and continues to decline. I personally hope Niue is able to make a go of it, but things were hardly rosy before the storm.
Good lord! Talk about some really LONG words! ;-)