No its not. Knowing the law well enough is because otherwise if you shame a company in the wrong way they can sue you for defamation of character. The reason this even remotely worked is because the way the laws are in the U.S concerning things like copywrite. Having a similar name beand name or product name is NOT enough for you to face charges or get sued. Microsoft while it was entirely stupid to do this, did this simply to see if they could as passively as possible remove it from existence or make it theirs because someone didnt like that it was that close. Just like how pokemon company sued palworld but lost without even being able to put up a proper fight. Competition is what helps prevent monopolies which means that competition helps support the anti trust act. Unfortunately Disney has exploited enough loopholes that Disney is close to being an unofficial monopoly at this point. Edit: There is actually an episode of Icarly you can watch that highlights this on a decent level. It goes beyond this though to the point its possibly a company can request their logo, brand name and product names not appear in a TV show or movie or in a manga or comic book, picture book specifically. Now you can refuse. Its protected under the constitution. But there are other ways other than court to get your point across that businesses can often pull off successfully that can hinder or destroy your success for doing so. Its all a mind and knowledge game.
@@nullpoint3346 Pokemon co. Tried to sue palworld. It was dismissed. It was within I think a few months of them finding out about the idea of palworld and I think they even sent a cease and desist letter.
crazy how these days when anything bad happens to someone they instantly turn to the media, recording everything that happens or making a tweet on it lmao. most likely trying to gain backup and attention. now back in my days, we didnt have people on the internet to come and support us during our bad moments. we had to speak for ourselves. anyways good job to him! hopefully he can donate me that xbox❤😊:3
@@ca174_your a fucking knobhead you know that? Do you really think Microsoft would've done anything if he had just "spoken up" ? A nearly trillion dollar company giving a damn about the guy they sent a 25 page long cease and desist letter with only 10$ in compensation? You're delusional if you think that's the case
This usually happens bc some dipsh*t has a stick up their butt before someone responsible sees what they're doing and corrects it. Basically it could've been one person causing trouble then their manager fixes it
I might sound dumb but I’m on team Microsoft. Like, I don’t understand. A man sued a company because they had him tattoo “krud” on his head as an April fools joke and people were on his side. Now, the teenager is the one pulling the joke copying Microsoft’s name. It’s only fair if Microsoft got money from this dude. It’s literally copyright.
This is how lawyers for corporations are, they refuse to give you $10k cash because of their tiny ball and fragile egos; but they will gladly give you $50k worth of stuff.
@@xaviergall2233major in accountancy here, there's like 10 different ways through accounts for "argument settling" money to be written off to the requesting party, all abiding by IFRS
Because by giving him compensation in the forms of their products, it’s both cheaper and an investment as he will still need to purchase from them later on to play newer games, get new controllers, and overall get hooked on the Xbox ecosystem instead of play station, etc..
Probably the real culprits were the legal team, whereas the other departments had no idea what the legal team did and were happy to snub them by receiving him warmly and parading him through the legal department Nobody likes these type of lawyers.
So instead of having to pay 10$, they still only had to pay slightly above 100$ (dunno the price of those things, but as they produce them themselves it would be waaay cheaper than clients would pay. Aside from maybe the xbox which iirc already were sold at cost). Somehow, despite it being 10x more, I don't feel like it was much of a loss to them.
That would explain the settlement offers. Paid tour feels a bit weird from someone who threatened to sue you. Makes more sense if it was a sidebranch that fucked up, and main branch wanted to play nice.
@@777SkepticThe kid could then sue Microsoft and win even more money. Although chances are, Microsoft would probably not do that. It would affect their company tremendously
Huge loss, he could’ve likely leveraged the name since the Copyright infringement case would easily be shot down in court, if he didn’t settle he probably could’ve got them to just buy the domain from him
The funny thing is, he did not have to give up his website or close it down because as long as there’s three differences between his logo and company name and Microsoft, it makes it legal for him to have his site
@@tytanium654 no, it wasn't the same Mike Rowe. The website creator was 17 in 2004, meaning he was born in 1987. However, Michael "Mike" Gregory Rowe (March 18, 1962) is the host, narrator and executive producer of one of Discovery Channel's most famous series, Dirty Jobs.
@@jaketripp7934no, it wasn't the same Mike Rowe. The website creator was 17 in 2004, meaning he was born in 1987. However, Michael "Mike" Gregory Rowe (March 18, 1962) is the host, narrator and executive producer of one of Discovery Channel's most famous series, Dirty Jobs.
Wish someone would do same to Disney. Dumb bastards threatened to sue a day care in the 80s for using Disney characters in fan art for the kids. Thank God Universals stepped in. Also the House of Mouse 🐁 once threatened a Chuck E Cheese for including a homemade Mickey as wall art! This bully needs to be stopped ✋😤😪 Glad Desantis, gov of Florida stood up to woke Disney's greedy dumb ass.😅
2 things: Because of the way that American copyright laws are written, a company MUST VIGOROUSLY DEFEND their copyright claim lest the argument will be made in court that it's not that important to the claimant. It's not like businesses are being jerks, they are just following laws as written. The other thing is that we also notice that there was no beef with Mike Rowe, the host and creator of the TV show "Dirty Jobs".
Fun fact: owners of trademarks are required to show they are taking reasonable steps to protect their trademark. If they don't, then they could be seen as not caring about the trademark, and that *could* harm future cases against infringements. So, next time you see the big guys bullying there little guys, it's partly the court's fault.
Yep, if they dont do legal actions that has similar names to them and ask for them to take down the website, if they dont, then fiesta break lose and everyone has similar names
There was no stolen election, and don’t forget your KkK leader tried to shut down the weather channel because they refused to say that his sharpie hurricane was real
I used to be part of a company in Swansea, Wales, UK. It was called Mike-O-Soft Computers. Microsoft tried claiming Copyright & Trademark infringement. You might still be able to find the newspaper articles about it online. Basically, the judge laughed it out of court as it was the same sort of basis. It was a Guy named Mike who sold software and did computers. Company has been going 20+ years and is still going today. Mike has nothing to do with the company anymore, but as it's an already established name, there is nothing Microsoft can do about it.
I mean they literally just said we will give you an Alienware Laptop, and a lot of our own products that we already own so we don't have to pay for anything over the manufacturing price. And hopefully you buy more of our products later so we make money back cause you are now attached to our 3-year subscription plan.
“Because of the bad experience you had with our company, as compensation, we offer you our company products, trips to our factories, and you basically get to be a walking Microsoft ad.”
How obnoxious to give 10$, just cause he is a kid.. it’s as if the kid is a beggar.. shows the real colours of the company.. they could have given these gifts much earlier… I’m so glad that he stood his ground..
Acutally it was the Canadian office, when Microsoft HQ found out they were not happy - hence all the free stuff and flights for an appology in person....
Microsoft made a very smart decision here. If they had offered a lump sum for the website, it might have encouraged others to follow suit for financial gain. Instead, they opted to provide Microsoft products and services, essentially saying, 'This is all you're getting.'
In the late 90s, my buddies family had a company in Austria. Another company in Austria or Germany had applied for that same name maybe six months or a year before his father did. They got their cease and desist ... there was no settlement, but they could no longer use their last name as the name of the company. It's now shortened and cannot be confused with the other one. Both companies still exist to my knowledge, my buddy took over his company from his father designing software.
Luckily for Microsoft, it's domain amplification and reverse cursed technique was enough to survive Mike's domain, mike rowe soft, however after Microsoft escaped the domain, mike used his maximum technique, public support. Microsoft cried out "you know maybe we can talk this out" but mike simply responded, "nah, I'd run your pockets"
No extrapolation, he is a great example of the sort of people we want in the world around us, who will fight against injustice and won't be pushed around, no matter what the odds look like. Anyone who keeps big corporations' power in check (in a legal, moral way) is a hero.
Sounds like the right person at the company heard and was sympathetic towards the end to go so far in giving him all that stuff. They definitely could've done damage control with less.
The main reason I can see why they’d reject paying the 10k which is nothing to them, is because they didn’t want to encourage other people to try getting an easy pay check from them, cause I could see even more people creating other versions of the name
@@abiku2923yeah… there was a story of this kid who liked the movie…. He later died from cancer, his family tried putting a picture of lightning on his gravestone and the company sued them for it.
@@unsealedhades76it’s not exactly an “American” thing when everyone knows how corrupt most billion dollar companies are. Disney erasing history and accuracy is one of them
Imagine being attacked by a big company just because of your own name, same energy as Nintendo destroying an orphanage because someone was named Luigi.
Apparently it was the Canadian branch that sent the letter, so when the story went public and HQ found out they weren’t happy, hence them giving him a bunch of free stuff and multiple free trips to their HQ. Just giving him a bunch of money and saying sorry one of our branches fucked up wouldn’t look good, giving him a bunch of free stuff, flying him out to the HQ, and apologising in person those are all things that actually make the company look apologetic
I've gone to war with multiple big companies on social media. this companies have this mindset that they're untouchable in the courtroom, but they forget that you can win the battle in the streets instead. one company that wronged me ended up losing 20% in their stock value in a month of me going to war with them. shows you the power of social media influence and/or marketing knowledge.
