Teenage Web developer Mike Rowe, who was threatened with legal action by Microsoft, has been overwhelmed with support from Internet users and has set up a defence fund to allow him to fight back.
Rowe, a student from Vancouver, registered the domain mikerowesoft.com to front his part-time Web site design business in August 2003. Three months later, he received an email from Microsoft's lawyers asking him to transfer the domain name to Microsoft. They offered to pay him a "settlement" of $10 (£5.55), which is the cost of his original registration fee. Microsoft's lawyers told Rowe that his site infringes on its trademark rights.
When Rowe's plight was reported on the Internet on Monday, his Web site became a victim of its own popularity and had to be taken offline for several hours. According to Rowe's site -- which is now being hosted by a different company -- on Tuesday, about 250,000 people visited his site, many offering financial help: "I have put up a defence fund so that I can hire a lawyer to guide me through the process of talking to Microsoft. I have already received a lot of pledges and I thank each and every one of you for that," he said.
Microsoft's legal department may be busier than they anticipated during the next few months, because in the past four days all the top level domain extensions for mikerowesoft (.co.uk, .net, .org and .tv) have been snapped up. Mikerowesoft.tv has been put up for sale on eBay.
ZDNet UK readers are overwhelmingly in support of Rowe. His story generated hundreds of TalkBacks, with many readers feeling insulted by Microsoft's argument that its customers will get confused between mikerowesoft.com and Microsoft.com. D Colonna, a software engineer from Wisconsin said: "If Microsoft believes their customers will be confused by the existence of mikerowesoft.com, then they hold an extremely dim view of their customers' intelligence."
However, as one reader correctly points out that, under US law, Microsoft has no choice but to pursue a trademark case against Rowe because if it ignores his site, the company will lose its right to fight against trademark infringements that may occur in the future.
Talkback
Dear Mike,
Just to let u know u have more than enough support from internet users. I can predict that Microsoft will eventually settle out of court and u'll be a very rich guy...THEN do not forget your humble beginnings.
Don't give up the fight, remember, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Best of luck
Bola
London
Micro's Soft Thinking!
Think of the legal fees racked up by Microsoft's attorneys.....Best guess, $1,000 per page of their brief.....No doubt, it is the attorney who intend to take the giant to the cleaners, not Mike Rowe.
I just read that one reader 'correctly' feels Microsoft will lose its future right to contest trademark infringements if it fails to contest MikeRowesoft. What nonsense. This assumes that MikeRoweSoft is in fact an infringement of Microsofts copyright, which has neither been proven nor, on face value, looks even remotely fair, either legally or morally. Mike Rowe has a far GREATER right to use the term MikeRoweSoft that Bill Gates has to use Microsoft, with the exception of course being that Microsoft is already trademarked. However, this trademark is for, and let me be clear, MICROSOFT, not MIKEROWESOFT. Microsoft has a trademark on its name, but it does not own the word MICRO nor does it own the word SOFT. This means neither does it own its phonetics. To allude that it does, or that it owns any word or term that has the same phonetics as its trademark is ludicrous. If this is true, then remove MICRO and SOFT from the dictionary because the dictionary meanings of these terms are now obsolete. Mike Rowe has a right to name a business after his own name if no other business or trademark already exists with THAT EXACT NAME. This is a classic case of David vs Goliath where Goliath is clearly the MONSTER and David is clearly the HERO. I'll log on and put some money into Mike's defence fund. If everyone in the world contributes just one dollar, MICROSOFT can say goodbye to their case and, by default, will have provided the very fuel that makes MIKEROWESOFT a potential large competitor. I hope that Microsofts pettiness bites them hard on the arse. One last point: as a web designer, anyone with any brains knows that no web designer is ever going to be able to earn the sort of money that Microsfot earns - not even close. It simply is impossible, even if you have a major web design company with hundreds of employees. MikeRoweSoft could never harm Microsoft financially, and to accuse Mike Rowe of attempting to extort money from Microsoft is the same as saying if you take one straw from a haystack you've damaged the haystack immeasurably. Bill Gates, if you are reading this, take notice that all of a sudden your company is now in the eyes of millions, all thinking you are a bastard, all thinking you are about one thing: monopolising the IT industry at the expense of the very same people who purchase your products. With millions of people praying that Mike Rowe wins any legal proceeding against you, I fail to see how even with your expensive lawyers you have a chance. Overwhelming opinion is against you, and even if you did somehow manage to win a case against Mike Rowe, you'll lose by the alienation you will have caused many. I will think twice now anytime I look at a Microsoft product, because I know that you and your company are not about your customers, not about the people, but about one thing: keeping the little guy poor and lining your coffa's with more money than you need or are entitled to - or can realistically use. Go Mr. Rowe, there are many of us who will support you, and many more who will blackban Microsoft as their true motives are now exposed to the masses. Funny how a little fun business name might very well change the world. Hahahah.
I hope Billy Boy Gates is happy now that the blundering fat man Ballmer running MS now has given them yet another bad name. He should go work for the RIAA and together they can sue some more kids. I have no respect at all for them any more. Good luck to Mike Rowe and all the rest who resist the world internet takeover attempt by MS.
Microsoft are forever throwing their weight around and intimidating smaller companies who don't have the money to fight back. It's ridiculous that they are now turning on a 17-year old kid whose name is genuinely Mike Rowe.
Somebody should really take Microsoft down a peg or two. It's just become a bully.
Microsoft ought to just buy Mike's site for the $10,000 he asked for. That is a drop in the bucket for them and surely much less than it will cost them to fight him. Mike could get himself a lawyer and negotiate the price even higher. I think $10,000 is pretty cheap to lose that headache.
I don't care about Microsoft or Mikerowesoft, I am not a computer geek, but an average user.
I don't have a vandeta against either of the 2 parties, but I will express the voice of your average user who uses a PC for work.
I once wanted to buy this PC and spec for spec, it was £80 cheaper on the internet, but the OS was stated to be Lindows, I was at that time aware of Windos, Macs, and various Linux distributions, but not Lindows ofcourse.
I nearly bought it, but luckily for me a geek friend of Mine told me Lindows was Linux, I HAD THOUGHT IT WAS A TYPING ERROR AND WRITTEN AS LINDOWS INSTEAD OF WINDOWS.
The same would apply to the average consumer, when people use Confusing Names based on popular names, I thing for the benifit of Lay people who a re majority the trading standrds should monitor people who try to confuse us and make them to Explictly state thaey are not that or more easily change their names
Thats my own experience and view
Thanks
Think about visually impaired people. If some text-to-speech functionality of browser would be confused by this URL, Mr Mike Row should make a compromise with Microsoft.
I think its great that so many people are offering support for the little guy. Perhaps it shows (as many of these comments have indicated) that many people are tired of MS's bullying tactics.
I also agree with other commentators that 10,000 is not going to financially damage MS at all.. but it seems they are more concerned with 'saving face', and protecting the precident that might be set.
A phonetic connection is tenuous, but I do appreciate the comment made about speech browsers getting confused.
Good On U Mike!!! There should be no problem! After all, your name is Mike Rowe, if Madonna can ban a porn site that used her name (think it was madonna.com) her argument was that it was her name which belongs to her, the same defence should be applied!
Its all about principle. Mike Rowe cannot deny that he was well aware of what his catchy name would do for him. He is trying to use the "I'm only 17 and didn't have a clue" syndrome. Please!
Well you also cannot deny that his name is Mike Rowe and the fact that it sounds like Microsoft or that he caught onto that fact doesnt mean he is wrong. Give the guy a break, I'm sure Microsoft has more serious problems to deal with than this.
Make your new domain name public before Microsoft pays you out Mike.
Amazing - we should all start registering similar Microsoft web site names and let these idiot big guys try and sue 20 million web sites!!! Is there NO sense at the top?
Sorry but how is his site an infringement? u might as well get channel4.com and channel5.com to fight it out, after all it ammounts to the same thing! Good luck with the case Mike and here's hoping U win!
I don't care about Microsoft or Mikerowesoft, I am not a computer geek, but an average user.
I don't have a vandeta against either of the 2 parties, but I will express the voice of your average user who uses a PC for work.
I once wanted to buy this PC and spec for spec, it was £80 cheaper on the internet, but the OS was stated to be Lindows, I was at that time aware of Windos, Macs, and various Linux distributions, but not Lindows ofcourse.
I nearly bought it, but luckily for me a geek friend of Mine told me Lindows was Linux, I HAD THOUGHT IT WAS A TYPING ERROR AND WRITTEN AS LINDOWS INSTEAD OF WINDOWS.
The same would apply to the average consumer, when people use Confusing Names based on popular names, I thing for the benifit of Lay people who a re majority the trading standrds should monitor people who try to confuse us and make them to Explictly state thaey are not that or more easily change their names
Thats my own experience and view
Thanks
Just goes to show how sad and desperate Microsoft is now people are starting to realise how awful their software really is.
MS is on solid legal ground, but $10? That's the real problem here - a multibillion dollar corporation deciding that $10 is fair compensation for deeply wounding a kid's nifty business idea, then responding to a request for $10,000 (not unreasonable for renaming and remarketing even a small business) as if it were "extortion". I'm not arguing that MS is technically wrong, and I certainly don't thing they're obliged to pay a nickel to anyone registering "MikeRoweSoft.org" after Jan. 18, but it was unconscionably petty to treat young Mike Rowe this way. MS can rescue this easily and cheaply with a $10,000 check presentation photo-op featuring an avuncular Steve Ballmer extolling the virtues of bright young entrepreneurs and tut-tutting the lapses of judgment all too common in corporate bureaucracies; noting that the fellow(s) who came up with the $10 offer and/or the "extortion" accusation have been shown the door would be a nice touch, but that's optional. Get cracking, Redmond - sooner than you think, this story can spin bigger and badder, and Mr. Rowe may be unreasonably emboldened by youthful bravado and a defense fund full of MS-hate dollars.
Go for it Mike ...... you didn't start out with the intension of Cyber sitting but since you have been accused of it i'd take em for everything they have .. Come the revolution Gates will be the first at the wall !!!
Mike, you fight for your site. After all its your name, you have every right to use it. After all its not like you deliberatley changed your name to sound like Microsoft.
This is a typical example of American big business bullying and throwing their financial weight around. Let's hear it for the little guy!
Good on you Mike!
Lets face it, if its such a problem for them, then let them pay a decent amount for the name. If its that valuable to them, they certainly aren't short of a bob or two
Good luck!
Haha! Pure jokers, keep up the good work mike
Hey Mike
I wish you all the luck in the world, if these jerks can't discern the difference between ,( MikeRoweSoft.com ) and Microsoft.com...then they are as dumb as the ones that can't discern the difference between( Lindow's. ) And Windows...learn to spell, and notice how totaly different Lindow's OS looks, as compared to Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, ME, XP...I have everyone of them, and i hope Lindow's and Linux takes away lots of Billy Bobs business, he is getting like McDonalds,they think they own the name McDonalds, Billy Bob thinks he owns the name Windows, hell there was Windows sence the begining of time.
So hang in there Mike, let that Asshole know he don't own the world yet.
now when his Longhorn OS comes out, i have a feeling, lots of people are going to realy get screwed....GO LINDOW'S AND LINUX
Go Mike!!! IS that U Garner?? Well see u on L4Y!!! Microsoft are yet again being too hasty about showing their fists. i mean chesus!!! Give it a rest Billy!!! copyright my arse!
Microsoft Suck.
Just how low are these people going to get?.
For all the people reading this, boycott Microsoft and windows completely!
Use Linux as an operating system. It's free, you can copy discs without fear of going to court, AND ABOVE ALL, IT'S TOTALLY MICROSOFT FREE! - And it works.
Come on MS, sue me for my comments if you dare!
I'm still with you Mike, let's realy piss Billy Bob off.
Billy Bob, is it ok by you if i tell all the people that own's Windows OS, that for $29.95, They can order a CD from L-I-N-D-O-W's that will run on Windows, but does not load to their Hard drive, this way you can try Lindow's, without installing to your hard drive.
and this way more people will be aware that they have a choice of another operating system, and you are not plaged with...( this program has performed a illegal operation )
Billy knows...Illegal...he does it all the time, and gets away with it
Now don't get me wrong, i am in no way Associated with Lindow's, just the fact is, i am for the small company/ person that is being run over by THUDS like Microsoft/ McDonalds / Haliburton just to name a few...
here is the web address
www.lindows.com
Enjoy
gets the facts straight guys.. Mike Rowe lives in Langford (a suburb of Victoria) and not Vancouver.
cheers
Glenn Letham
www.symbianone.com
Hope microsoft sees there dumb (microsoft that is) they think they are the best... and they charge a LOT of money for bug(ged) software...
Let's piss billy off :P
I think that Microsoft is making too much of a deal out of this. It is not Mike Rowe's fault he was named what his name is. He should not have to go through the inconvienence of changing his domain name. I highly doubt that Mike would have ever had the intentions just to tick microsoft off while creating his page - seen the resemblence, probably, but i doubt he planned this all out to earn big bucks from Microsoft. I say Microsoft should let him be...its his name for crying out loud! I hope Mike Rowe for the best and never give up against this software giant...wanting to crush every tiny threat that comes in existance. GO MIKE ROWE! MIKE ROWE! MIKE ROWE! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!
Anti-MS.. how fresh and interesting !
If Microsoft did nothing and the domain was used maliciously then everyone would be up in arms over their inaction - eitherway they cant win.
Mike Rowe must have known full well he was likely to come up in the MS radar when he registered the domain and sure enough I see the anti-MS gang have all blindly jumped on board as usual.
Yes they acted heavily handed but bear in mind there are alot of illiterate computer users who MIGHT be duped by this - they saw a potential threat and went for it as any company would.
This comes down to what you deem as acceptible content - if Mr.Rowe put pornography up on it or started spamming there wouldnt be any fuss or "evil MS" rubbish. If he puts up some software then its okay... ?. Free speech is about drawing no distinctions.
Funny how *no one* has mentioned the behaviour of a certain soft drink maker regarding the image of a *vending machine* in a amateur computer game. That was alot more ridiculous than this but they arent MS so they dont get the juicy Zdnet headline of course - that would require proper research.
Ha ha. I think all of this is absolutely hilarious. Good on ya Mike, stick it to em baby!!!
Poor Mike. Can see why Microsoft have to take action but that still doesn't mean it's fair.
David v Goliath
I have been computing since the early days of DOS and undoubtedly we would not be where we are today without Bill Gates and his Microsoft team. Some of the knocking of Microsoft is obviously justified and most large corporations are going to have their ups and downs in more ways than one!
However I wonder if Bill Gates really knows what his “protection” team have let him and his Corporation, in for this time, or even knew what they were up to, until this media hype and bush telegraph sprung into action? The news has even been distributed better than a Highway Patrol “APB”. As a result of the bad press they have created, maybe some heads will be rolling (a la French guillotine), and the sooner Mike Rowe receives substantial compensation and a suitable apology the better. The cost in real terms to give him a six or seven figure settlement is negligible to the likes of Microsoft and the goodwill gained at this late stage will far outweigh any expenditure.
The alternative is to let Mike Rowe continue with his web site with a disclaimer at the top and a live link to Microsoft for anybody silly enough to have accessed his web development company by mistake. Hopefully there would be a company out there, should Mike Rowe agree, that could assist him on a profit sharing basis with the massive increase in web site design business that will result from all this publicity.
In case anybody out there knows what is happening with “mikeroesoft.com” registered by Popular Enterprises they could let us all know. What is even more surprising is that Simon & Schuster published “Bill Gates’ Personal Super Secret Private Laptop – A Microspoof – don’tell what’s inside” in 1998. I have several copies and am making them available on Ebay – with 50% of the selling price to Mike Rowe’s fighting fund.
this story can spin bigger and badder?Yes. It may will be.
MS you are always great in my mind, but NOT this time .MS. you will get what you pay for($10) once mistakes you made. and Mike, WE SUPPORT YOU!
When does MS sue Viagra? They cure the micro-soft. ;-)
MS doesn't have anything better to do, do they? Pay Mike the $10,000 and be done with it. I'm sure Billy can part with 10K, I'm sure he keeps that in his pocket...Microsoft is really annoying...
I think that is totally stupid - Who does microsoft think they are
http://theseespace.tripod.com/blog
Should not have messed with Bill Gates, that bastard wants all the money in the world, but for now he will settle for your website. 'lol'
TAKE HIM DOWN !!!
Voicing my support of Mike Rowe. Let the little guy win this one. Enough of the greedy corporate legal maneuverings. Even if some fool gets confused about the website, that is m$'s problem. They should have thought of mikerowesoft.com first. But then expecting m$ to play fair is waiting for pigs to fly.
interesting story...
...however, i think that adding 'soft' when he's allegedly a web guy (although most of his 'work' is either sub domains, /'s or dead links) was premeditated - badly
in ten years i've never come across a web company with 'soft' in their name
having typed my tuppence worth i'd like to add GOOD LUCK!
best regards
b
First they make bad software, then they try to sue someone because of his name - Microsoft, is and alwasys has been a thief. I expect nothing less.