BetaONE will rise again! - Microsoft Takes On Teen Over Web Site

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Microsoft's Pushing The Little Guys Around Again! :crutch:

Mon Jan 19, 8:05 AM ET - Assoicated Press

Quote:

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."

Code:

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

I don't know for sure what that is going on in Redmond but to me it's obvious somebody there should start take his pills again.

uni you're right, someone in redmond needs to take some mydole. If you say it right it sounds like microsoft, but the spelling really isn't. What if he had a company named that? Would MS still come after them?

This guy should hold our for more money. No question. This is an opportunity.

Quote:

:: Microsoft Updates :: January 19/2004 :: Wow.
Wow, this is amazing. My site this morning went down because of the massive amounts of visitors coming to my site. 250000 to be exact. My host couldn't handle the bandwidth so he was forced to shut it it down. I pleaded my case on a couple message boards and Deafening-urge.net came through for me with a great offer to host my site. Many thanks to him

Code:

http://www.mikerowesoft.com

To me m-i-k-e-r-o-w-e-s-o-f-t pronounces just like m-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t :D

Micro$oft is just pushing their weight around again... It's the kids name for crying out loud... obviously adding the "soft" to it... Which is pretty brilliant if you ask me. The kid should definitely hold out, and fight this in court... He shouldn't have to give up his domain just because it sounds like "Microsoft". Jesus - if that were the case, I wonder how many other domains out there should Microsoft go after? Just a waste of time and money on their behalf - but then again, they have enough in the bank to piss away... :lol1:

EDIT
Some more news on this matter: hxxp://msn.com.com/2100-1104_2-5143614.html?part=msn&subj=ns_2543&tag=mymsn

Quote:

However, after the case received widespread coverage on the Internet, Microsoft has acknowledged that it may have taken things too far and has promised to treat Rowe fairly. A representative of the software company told ZDNet UK: "We appreciate that Mike Rowe is a young entrepreneur who came up with a creative domain name. We take our trademark seriously, but maybe a little too seriously in this case."

Quote:

According to Robertson, Rowe may have a good argument for keeping the domain name, because it is his real name, and he isn't pretending to be affiliated with Microsoft. But he said Microsoft probably regrets getting involved with the case because of all the bad publicity it has generated.

-SlickVic78

I think if this guy wins it will be pretty neat, a 17 year old put it to the big MS! I would hold out, after all like it was said above it is his real name! I wouln't close a domain name down if someone copyrighted my name! Well best of luck to him at any rate!

Regards,
~PCTech

I think someone is going to get fired over this at Microsoft. :jump:

I wonder if this guy had anything to do with this M$ mess.

Steven Ballmer, 47 :jester:
M$ CEO, Director Pay $871.00K

Code:

http://www.ntk.net/media/dancemonkeyboy.mpg

OMG, Can anybody please briefly explain why Steven Ballmer is going to get fired? I am in poor dialup (even worse 32k) so I would rather prefer a text based answer. Thank you.

Steven Ballmer is (was) a BIG man over there. :o

haha OMG...

IF this goes to court and he wins then I think i will be the first copy cat..lol..already got 50 domain names i might register...ha

Like mikesasoft.com lol now watch someone buy it...haha...

~*McoreD*~

Slow down, don't sell your stock. :P

I just thought after looking at the video above that this guy seems like there is nothing he wouldn't do to protect M$. I just assumed he would be the guy that had a call in this M$ mess. Even if he did, I really doubt he would get fired over it.

Sorry if I scared ya. :)

No need to apologize KC.
My bad. Stupid /me. :)

I just re-read post.

Can't believe I read it first as "someone is going to get fired" and that is "Steve Barmer, 47". :D

Rgds,
McoreD

Sounds like they might reach a deal soon. <_<
I'll bet the deal is only good if this kid Don't Tell Us how much money he received.
Just my guess, we have all seen it too often.

Quote:

:: Microsoft Updates :: January 20/2004 :: CNN Live
Today at about 9AM PST I was on CNN Live. I never thought it would get this big in my wildest dreams. Thank you for all of the support the last few days.

I will be talking to Microsoft today to discuss clearing this situation up. Please stay tuned to what happens. There has been an article on CNET and ZDNet news regarding Microsoft and how they say that they took me too seriously. All along I have just wanted to prove a point that the small guy can win against the giant corporations. Hopefully people will stick up to what they think is right even if someone bigger than you is behind it.

Code:

http://mikerowesoft.com/

Edit - You know, if he does take a cash payout and don't goto court...
All those people who pitched in money to help him defend himself in court will be :angry:
Maybe they will then sue him in a class action lawsuit. :lol:

For those of you that have not seen the update on his page.

Quote:

Posted by Mike on 01-24-2004 01:18 AM - 6 comments
Sorry there hasn?t been a lot of news posted by me lately, I have been very busy with school, exams, the media, new website and settling with Microsoft.

I will post my opinion on this and my settlement reasons and thoughts shortly.

I would like to thank everyone world-wide for the support I have received from individual people, radio, TV, magazines, etc. This really made THE difference and it would have been impossible without everyone?s support.

Many people would like to know the status of the donations I have received towards my legal fees. This had to be downloaded from PayPal into my bank because someone tried hacking my PayPal account (unsuccessfully, fortunately). As Microsoft has kindly offered to pay my out-of-pocket expenses, these donations will now no longer be necessary. As I have said from the beginning, I was not into this to make money and therefore I would like to offer the following:

Return donations to those who would like their donation back (Minus PayPal fees).

Donate these funds to a terminally ill children?s charity as they could use this much more than I.

Or your suggestions.

I have set up a poll regarding the issue, as seen on the left. If you have another suggestion please make sure your voice is heard and post in either this thread or the poll thread. I will be going with the majority vote at the end of the day on February 14th, 2004 to give everyone the time to make your opinion known and for those who would like a refund.

If you would like your donations returned before hand, please forward your PayPal information to refunds@mikeroweforums.com (Please do not send an email to this address for any other reason). It is easy to check if you have donated, so please do not ask for refund if you did not donate.

I would prefer to deal with this quickly so that it is taken care of to everyone?s satisfaction and I can get on with my new website, schooling, and life.

Thank you to everyone for contributing as that not only made me feel better, knowing I would have some funds for lawyer fees if needed, but also likely showed that I had some resources available to fight this if it would have been necessary.

I look forward to sharing the future with you on these new message boards. I will be posting regularly to keep in touch.

Yours truly,
Mike Rowe

Code:

http://mikerowesoft.com/

Sounds to me like he got M$ $MONEY$ and is not going to tell anyone how much.
I signed up as a member on his board so I could post my thoughts of his offer to return the donations or donate them to charity. If you care to, you can view my comments here.

Code:

http://www.mikeroweforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

I just recieved a newsletter with this snippet in :

Code:

* Microsoft has backed down from their hard line stance over a 17 year old

Canadian student's domain name.  The MS lawyers served papers on Mike Rowe

because they claim www.mikerowesoft.com infringes on their copyright. As he

had worked many hours on the site, he asked for some compensation for giving

up his domain, and they offered him the out of pocket expenses he had

incurred - $10.00 (US).  Figuring that two could play the game, he requested

$10,000.00 for the time and effort.  MS went stupid on him, accused him of

intending to sell his domain name to Microsoft for a large cash settlement,

and generated some really bad PR for themselves in the process.



The saga of Mike Morris, who has owned http://www.mikerosoft.ca/ for two

years, is very similar. In this case, Microsoft has left the domain

unchallenged until they came down on Mike Rowe.  Now they have set their

lawyers on him.



Does MS think we are all so stupid that we could possibly mistake either of

these sites for theirs, simply because they SOUND alike???



[I just got the word that Mike Rowe and Microsoft have reached a settlement

- MS will be paying for Mike's out of pocket expenses and throwing in an

X-Box for him to change the name. The site mentions that he will have the

details posted soon.]

(Source: Common Sense Security Newsletter-http://markkaren.com/markkaren/security/)

I found this one from
Seattle
_http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/001313.html