I don't really give a damn about the Mike Rowe case.
1. I am not a lawyer, so don't sue me for talking about this.
2. There is no copyright infringement because you can't copyright a business
name. You can trademark it, which is what is at issue here.
3. Fair Use regards copyright, not trademark. (Though trademarks often get
caught up in it, see #7.)
4. Copyright is granted automatically at the moment of creation of an
original work and cannot be contested. Trademark, while it can be
implemented for free, is only protected so far as it is defendable.
Defendability comes from such things as years of business, scale of
business, registration, and prior law suits defending it.
5. Businesses can have the exact same name (trademark), so long as they
don't create confusion in the mind of the consumer. Two main factors
considered by a judge in determining confusion are geographic location/reach
and business market.
For instance, I can have a business called Jellyeel that sells shoe inserts
and someone else in the same city could conceivably have Jellyeel that sells
food. It's not a good idea, but it can happen.
6. Trademark law suggests that the first owner in a region gets to keep the
name. In reality, this is rarely the case. It usually ends up settled out of
court and the one with more money wins.
7. For Fair Use, the content of the site would need to be a parady, satire,
criticism, or commentary of the offended party. In this case, the purpose of
the mikerowesoft.com site is for an independent web business, not a satire
(or anything) of microsoft.com.
8. A judge can rule that material intended as satire, commentary, etc. under
Fair Use is actually a copyright infringement if it is not significantly
different than the original in some way. The standard test for this is to
show the two items to a jury and ask them if they can see a difference.
-Kevin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Heald, Tim"
To: "CF-Community"
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 12:26 PM
Subject: RE: www.mikerowesoft.com domain
> He should be given MORE rights if the idea is to tweak Microsoft. Dissent
> and satire are two very basic reasons that fair use exists.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dana tierney
> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 12:11 PM
> To: CF-Community
> Subject: Re:www.mikerowesoft.com domain
>
>
> if it's a software site? He isn't allowed to be in software because his
name
> is Mike Rowe? It isn't copyright infringement unless there is a
possibility
> for confusion. Even if his intention is to tweak M$.
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings]
