SAMS3D opened this issue on Jan 21, 2004 ยท 47 posts
randym77 posted Wed, 21 January 2004 at 6:31 PM
Speaking of Apple...Yoko Ono and the remaining Beatles have been suing Apple on and off for years, claiming that Apple is their trademark. The Beatles had a record label called Apple Records, with a very similar logo to Apple Computers' logo. For the most part, suits like this are settled quickly because one party has a lot more money than another party, and caves as soon as they get a nasty letter from a lawyer, but in the case of the Beatles vs. Jobs, it's gone on for decades. It was recently revived because Apple has ventured into the music biz, with iTunes. Yoko and Co. claim that violates an earlier settlement that let Apple Computer use the bitten apple logo as long as they stayed out of the music business. Should be interesting to see how Microsoft and MikeRoweSoft.com settle this. It might be something as simple as requiring Mikey to put a disclaimer on his page ("This site is not affiliated with Microsoft in any way" etc.) As for money...I think the "twit" has already been rewarded. He's gotten his 15 minutes of fame. He's parlayed it into free webhosting (that can handle a quarter million hits a day!), and has a PayPal button on his Web site where you can donate to his defense fund. While most other kids would have meekly handed over the domain name, he not only stood up to Microsoft, he sent a press kit around to all the major media outlets (which is why we're talking about him now). Some people might find this obnoxious, but I think Microsoft would really value that kind of moxie and entrepreneurship. It's the kind of thing they love.