Support www.mikerowesoft.com?

[MatrixWatch]

Support www.mikerowesoft.com?

Mike Rowe is a 17-year-old high school student from the UK. He thought it would be fun to add the word "soft" to the end of his full name and make it the of his web-design company. The result was a website under "mikeROWEsoft.com". Guess who doesn't think it is funny--microsoft.com. :mad:

Software giant Microsoft Inc. ordered the guy to shut down his website and transfer the domain to Microsoft. After a brief debate about what he would get out of the transfer, Microsoft offered him $10. Mike Rowe suggested $10,000. Microsoft then sent a 25-page notice accusing him of trying to force Microsoft into giving him a large settlement. Looks like they are taking this kid to court over it.

Here is a copy of the article. Is it a big business taking on a small company, or is it a kid wanting to get something from Microsoft? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Here is his website: http://www.mikerowesoft.com/



From: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040119/ap_on_fe_st/microsoft_unhappy_1


Microsoft Takes on Teen Over Web Site
Mon Jan 19, 8:05 AM ET


VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Mike Rowe thinks it's funny that his catchy name for a Web site design company sounds a lot like Microsoft.


The software giant, however, is not amused.


"Since my name is Mike Rowe, I thought it would be funny to add 'soft' to the end of it," said Rowe, a 17-year-old computer geek and Grade 12 student in Victoria, British Columbia.


Microsoft Corp. and its attorneys have demanded that he give up his domain name, the Vancouver Province newspaper reported Sunday.


Rowe registered the name in August. In November, he received a letter from Microsoft's Canadian lawyers, Smart & Biggar, informing him he was committing copyright infringement.


He was advised to transfer the name to the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation.


"I didn't think they would get all their high-priced lawyers to come after me," Rowe said.


He wrote back asking to be compensated for giving up his name. Microsoft's lawyers offered him $10 in U.S. funds. Then he asked for $10,000.


On Thursday, he received a 25-page letter accusing him of trying to force Microsoft into giving him a large settlement.


"I never even thought of getting anything out of them," he said, adding that he only asked for the $10,000 because he was "sort of mad at them for only offering 10 bucks."


He said family and friends are backing him and a lawyer has offered to advise him for free.


He's also keeping his sense of humor.


"It's not their name. It's my name. I just think it's kind of funny that they'd go after a 17-year-old," Rowe said.


Company spokesman Jim Desler said Sunday, "Microsoft has been in communication with Mr. Rowe in a good faith effort to reach a mutually agreeable resolution. And we remain hopeful we can resolve this issue to everyone's satisfaction."


___


On the web:

www.mikerowesoft.com

www.microsoft.com

[spydrman]

Correction in your post, he's from Canada, not the UK.

The kid does have a point, mikerowesoft.com is obviously different from microsoft.com. The only thing in common is they both sound alike. I think Microsoft has a pretty weak case and is just trying to threaten him to give up the site by the use of their lawyers. It doesn't appear the kid is willing to do that.

[MatrixWatch]

Yes, I was misstaken about saying he was from the UK. Thanks for that correction spydr.

Ok, so I thought for a while last night about this issue. When I posted this article I pretty much sided with the kid. It seemed like a big business taking on a smaller company, and I must admit that it seems a little heavy-handed. But then I considered a few things that led me to actually lean toward microsoft corp's point of view. Here are those points. I'd be very interested in everyone else's opinions too!

1) Would I think the same way if the situation was reversed?

What if the situation were reversed? What if Mike Rowe owned his own software/web development company and he was pretty successful and popular worldwide? Then, all of a sudden Bill Gates comes on the scene, opens his own company with a similar sounding name, and starts getting attention because his new company sounds so much like Mike Rowe's. Would I be equally as outraged if Mike Rowe filed charges against Bill Gates? There is a huge climate of criticism against big business among our generation, and I admit that I am a part of that culture, but sometimes I wonder if my cynicism is applied too broadlly across the board. Whenever a big company cracks down on a smaller one I instantly see it as heavy-handed without considering the fact that perhaps these large businesses are only upholding laws that small businesses must also take advantage of the stay competitive themselves(see point #3).


2) Is the issue "Mike Rowe", or is it "Soft"?

What if Mike Rowe's full name was Mr. Mike Rowe Soft, or Mike R. Soft for short. I could see how in that case Mike Rowe would have a case. But I think that the issue Microsoft is bringing to light is whether adding the word "Soft" to the end of his business infringes off the trademark of Microsoft. For example, what if the name of Bill Gates' company was "MicroWARE", and Mike Rowe announces that the new name for his company will be "MikeRoweWARE". Sounds the same, right? And doesn't it seem fair that Mike Rowe would have his own name in the company title? Sure. BUT, doesn't the addition of the word "WARE" have absolutely nothing to do with his name? YES.. So, why did he add it? Well, it is quite obvious from the article. Mike Rowe added the word "Soft" to the end of his name because it was a funny spin-off of Microsoft's company name. This leads us into point #3.

3) Protection of brands is a major endeavor that company's engage in every day.

What if Mike Rowe started to get some business because of the publicity of his new company name? What if some people up there in Canada started telling their friends that "there is this cool guy who does programming work, and his company is MikeRoweSoft, ha ha ha.. isn't that funny.., it sounds just like Microsoft, etc." If Mike Rowe gets business because of the creative way that he utilized Microsoft's notoriety then he is profiting indirectly off Microsoft's branding. In fact, the name "Microsoft" became a household word because of the years of effort Microsoft spent protecting their brand name. If you want to know more about intellectual rights in America and beyond, pick up a copy of Robert Kiyosaki and Michael Lechter's "Protecting your #1 Asset". This book shows how companies spend about as much time and money on protecting patents, brands, ideas, and trademarks as they do advertising those products. If companies did not do this, then the unique characteristics and products that they offer would not be as unique when copy-cats and pirates start using their unique trademarks as a way to make money for themselves.

Microsoft has a team of intellectual-rights attornies, and it is their job to protects Microsoft's brand from those who may try to profit from it without Microsoft's permission. It is their job to do this, and if they let Mike Rowe slide then they are not doing their job. In fact, if you read the article closely, Microsoft sent Mike Rowe a 25-page complaint, but I don't think it is a full-blown lawsuit. They are still trying to setting this argumentively so that they won't have to crack down on him harshly without pleading their case with him first.

I think that Microsoft is aware that this kid is only 17, but they are looking beyond that and toward the precidents that this situation would set in the arena of intellectual law. Small companies need intellectual-rights laws to be upheld just as much as big companies do. That is why Microsoft takes this so seriously. There are many countries out there in which these laws are not upheld, and Western companies are losing tons of money to pirates and copy-cats. These companies do not want to see a legal breakdown like that here, so they fight small battles like this everyday. The only reason that we are hearing about this one is because it has a small percentage of validity with Mike Rowe's name being used the way it is.


Now, I have another set of arguments to support Mike Rowe's position as well, but I'd like to see what you guys think of this first.

[Sheba Sekya]

LOL! This kid is funny. But unfortunately he is in violation of copyright laws. Having a business name that sounds exactly like another business name is illegal without permission from the existing company.

Bill Gates, I don't like him much, but was once a pee-on just like Mike Rowe. He used a lot of unethical tactics to get where he is today and he did what he had to do to get there.

[MatrixWatch]

Originally posted by Sheba Sekya
LOL! This kid is funny. But unfortunately he is in violation of copyright laws. Having a business name that sounds exactly like another business name is illegal without permission from the existing company.

You hit the bullseye there. :) In fact, I remember an event that happened last year when a guy in the midwest decided to open up his own underwear store called "Victor's Secret". He was shut down under trademark infringement laws. If Victor's Secret was ruled against, then the situation with Mike Rowe looks pretty grim.

[MatrixWatch]

Here is an update to the story. Microsoft gave him an Xbox, 5 games, a trip to their upcoming tech conferance, and an MCSE course!



Teen watches as eBay bids climb for his book of legal threats from Microsoft

Fri Feb 6

VANCOUVER (CP) - The teen who laughed in the face of Microsoft's $10 offer for his cheeky mikerowesoft.com domain name kept cool Thursday playing the Xbox the company eventually coughed up in compensation.

In between games, Mike Rowe clicked onto eBay to watch the bids on a book of his legal correspondences with Microsoft climb with just hours before the auction deadline. Bidding closed Thursday night with some last-second entries pushing the prize up to just over $1,000 US. "So I'm happy with that," said Rowe, 17. "It's not the 20 million that it was before, but it'll do."

Rowe remembered when, after he first posted the documents, the bids began topping the million dollar mark and he hysterically wondered how he would spend it all.

"But then it went up to like, $20 million, and I knew it was a joke, they weren't real bids, so I deleted them all and started asking for deposits to make sure I had serious bidders," the quiet kid said, not trying to hide the bitterness.

Legitimate collectors from Canada and the U.S. dutifully mailed him cheques for $500, which he promised to return if they don't win the auction.

Rowe's learning how to manage the storm of hype he's in, making sure it doesn't burn him and trying to spin it out as long as he can.

The Victoria teen's battle with Microsoft rocketed him from the sleepy world of his Victoria high school and his parents's house into a glaring international media spotlight.

Offers for computer consulting jobs have come flooding in, he's partnered with a Princeton University marketing company and there's talk of a TV movie.

But his story had a lonely start.

Rowe holed up in his room and plotted the web site of his dreams, the perfect platform to launch a sexy e-design career.

He spent his 16th year painstakingly constructing it. Then he was hit with his best idea yet, the icing for his internet cake: a hilarious domain name that was sure to get some, if unintentional, traffic.

He registered mikerowesoft.com last August, and exploded onto the computer company's radar as someone who might try to use the domain to fleece them of a small fortune.

"They e-mailed me a letter asking me to give up my domain name because it infringed on their trademark. I e-mailed them back saying I didn't want to give up all the hard work I put into it.

"They said they would give me all of the out-of-pocket expenses for the site, which they said was $10. I said 'No, I want $10,000.' "

Rowe thought he had them, until an intimidating 25-page letter landed on his doorstep written in ominous legal jargon and quoting trademark law.

Angry at the thought of having to come up with another winning address for his site, he updated it telling anyone who might care to know how Microsoft was bullying him.

"I explained how much work I put into my site and that I didn't want give up. I got business cards printed up for it and everything.

"That's when the media picked up on it."

The attention mushroomed swiftly, with hackers jumping to Rowe's side and sending him thousands of dollars to mount a legal defence.

Stories ran across North America, painting the computer company as heavy handed and creating a public relations mess for them to wade through.

"Typically they use a more nuanced strategy to deal with these kinds of cases," said Charles Weinberg, a marketing expert with the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.

"You don't often hear about them and they are settled in a much quieter way, but this one blew up on them.

"Microsoft created a lot of negative publicity for themselves, but from their point of view, they have to be very careful about how much they offer the kid because it could set a precedent."

Rowe's site, which had averaged four hits a day, swelled with visits from an unabating stream of supporters who elevated him to hero status.

Suddenly he was the little guy taking on the ruthless Microsoft for computer users everywhere and the computer company realized they better change their tactic fast.

Microsoft's Jim Desler put on his nicest face and conceded that while Microsoft has to take its trademark seriously, it may have in this case taken it too seriously.

"As well as ourselves," Desler graciously added in an interview last month.

The company put itself in a teenage headspace and took another run at negotiations with Rowe, now flush with an $8,000 defence fund provided by his loyal fans.

"We had a conference call in my lawyer's office and they offered me an Xbox, five games, a certified professional Microsoft training course, and a trip to Redmond, Wash., for the annual technology fest," Rowe said.

"They were nice. They joked around and said I was a nightmare for their public relations department."

Playing his new Xbox, he's no longer bitter about being forced to give up his domain name. He's already moved on and is busy tweaking his new site mikeroweforums.com.

"They were never trying to bring me down. They were just protecting their trademark," said Rowe who is now almost famous at his high school where he has just begun the last semester of Grade 12.

In anticipation of the end of his five minutes of fame, he said he plans to put the money he gets from the auctioning off of his letters from Microsoft towards university.

The $8,000 in his legal defence is being returned to the fans that turned on him when he settled and the rest will be donated to charity.

[Vee-Twin]

If they had only gave him the x box in the first place then common sense would of prevailed!....................Common sense, free to use, so little used!