but something that sound likes something else isn't anything a self-respecting company should complain about.

Happens all the time. Self preservation is more appropriate than self-respecting.

I remember a story about a member of The Rolling Stones suing a sports writer for writing his articles under his own name which happened to be the same as the rocker's name. They wanted this sports guy to print a notice with each article saying that he is not a member of The Rolling Stones and has nothing to do with the band. I would hate if someone with the same exact name as me gets famous then tries to stop me from using my own name publicly.

I feel that the 17-year old kid in the mikerowesoft.com case is in the wrong. I am not sure if Microsoft's actions are a little extreme or not, but either way Mr. Rowe brought it upon himself.



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I don't feel any sympathy for the kid, although I do hope Microsoft doesn't try to sue him out of house and home. After all, he's just a kid who needs some humility.

macrobaye - your mac rants or threads pertaining to macs or you mentioning macs is really begining to piss me off.
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I just looked at mikerowesoft.com. Not only did this guy rip off Microsoft's name, but his real name is not Mike Rowe. In "about me" he says that he is Roy.

email that info to Microsoft piracy department Tech.

heh I'm sure "Microsoft" knows that already, Kona

probably.

dumb kid

I think it cheapens corporate entities when they acknowledge crap like this and 'Microsoftsux.com' and the like. I can understand pursuing misspellings routed to pr0n sites and such, but acting threatened by stuff like this just makes you look paranoid or bullyish. No one is gonna type 'mikerowesoft.com' by accident, and it most certainly isn't gonna cause brand confusion.

It is one thing to address fraud, and another to squash perceived dissent. I'm not saying they won't win, I'm just saying it should be beneath them to address it.



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big time, 10 USD can't even buy a subscribtion for wc for that money

I agree with BS. Although Microsoft is well within their rights in this issue, it's a little stupid of them to pursue it.

Reminds me of a site a few years ago called something like "Brenda's Shack", and it was basically the personnal web site of a girl called Brenda.  She could have called the site Brenda's Home, or Brenda's Hideout or whatever. As far as I know "shack" is a common English word.  But apparently the lawyers over at Radio Shack thought that they owned anything with the word "shack", and the worse is that the judges agreed. The girl had to change her web site name.
Oh, and by the way, she didn't even have a domain name, Brenda's Shack was just the title that was written at the top of her page.

Anyway, copyright and trademark protection goes too far sometimes. But I guess those expensive lawyers got to eran a living, right?

Well...the sharks in suits just screwed over the Australian Ugg boot companies.

Some Yank company decided to register the name...even though it was a generic term originating in Oz 46 years ago.

Their intention is to give the Chinese more stuff to make with slave labour rates while lining their own fat pockets with the filthy lucre.

The a-holes even sued the dictionary for not retrospectively referring to the company that STOLE the name.

Makes you puke.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=4170302§ion=news

lol...

What if your name was Micheal and you're a software designer? MichealSoft