Hacker News Reader

Comment by gabemart | Hacker News Reader

Am I missing something? The wikipedia article claims he intentionally bought the domain because it sounded like Microsoft. The domain very clearly infringed on Microsoft's trademark. Microsoft offered to repay him the cost of buying the domain name (which they are under no legal obligation to do). I don't really get why Microsoft is the bad guy here (and I'm no particular fan of the company).

View on HN

What does trademark law say about using one's given, legal name that was not intentionally selected to resemble an existing trademark in trade when it does, in fact resemble such a trademark? I don't think it's as clear-cut as you suggest, though admitting to choosing the domain name because it resembles Microsoft is a bad move from a legal perspective.

When a multi-billion dollar corporation thumps a 12th grader over the head with its legal department, people are going to call foul.

From my reading of the article (which may well not represent the whole story, I admit) they only "thumped him over the head" with a C&D when he asked for $10,000 for his infringing domain. I'm not sure being a 12th grader gets you off the hook for that.

I'm pretty sure he does - if he sent them a death threat the courts would see that somewhat differently to an adult doing the same thing. Having said that, given the way terrorism is defined in the US these days, I could be wrong. I did some pretty bad things while at school - I had the LAPD emailing me after I emailed a spammer and said I was sick of him and had an especially pointy stick saved up to visit him with. Would I do that now? Hell no, it was stupid. I was a(nother) dumb bored kid.

According to the article, all they did was send him a cease an desist order (albeit a rather long one.) That's pretty standard.

Just sounds like the public got riled up for no good reason.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com