light exchange medium

shucks thats funny..

we thought we were gonna be sued.. like when we said 'word' you know.. like word-up.. or whatever... too close to MS Word.

so we started saying star-office-text-document instead..

but then sun sued us.

You made a site called "Windoze Consulting" while knowing that Windoze is a common INSULT against the MS OS and you expected not to get sued?

It's just my little side business ... I'm just trying to make a extra buck here and there. What gets me are the domain names. They want me to stop using them. What if my content was unrelated (computers)? What if a put a nice big penguin on the site and called it Winquin would they come after me for that?

Thanks for the comments I really appreciate them.

Jeff

Your common Joe Blow doesn't have a clue that windoze is an insult to windows at least in the non-computer educated world. Actually most people don't think much of it or they just chuckle. I guess there are always possiblies to be sued. After all its America...

It's called Freedom of Speech :rolleyes: something that you Americans love to profess... hmmm?

I am a lawyer, although probably not in your jurisdiction, and so can't give you any legal advice,...

But common sense advice is this,... If you want to spend a lot of time, effort and money, you can probably get M$ to fork over six figures for your troubles,... so long as you discontinue the use of the name. You might get a Court to rule in your behalf,... but since your site wasn't promoting Linux by putting down M$, you don't really have parody on your side. Although M$ doesn't own the word "windows" nor do they own colored boxes,... the whole thing taken together is evidently a take-off of their trademark... which could lead to consumer confusion... But all in all, the fight would consume your life, leaving little more to enjoy... I wouldn't bother.

Ok. What about the domains. Renaming the site is not really a big deal. But the domain names they want me to "discontinue". Where do they have that right? I could simply put up a window (the glass type) replacement company that uses the domain names. Where does their control stop?

surely if its only the domain name their having the grievances with,

wouldnt any judge laugh this straight out of court?

the site could be about selling windows. but as they said they only have a problem with the domain name, the content doesnt really come into it.

and if the word windows is copyrighted then no window salesmen would be able to use the word in their advertisements.

tell them to P1SS OFF i would. if they had a problem with domain names like that M$ would have already registerd them as so people cant register them

berrance

If you have the willpower and a lawyer who likes the idea of a 'rainmaker' then fight them, as eventually you will win, either in court, or with a nice fat check from M$ (although this route you will have to give up the domain).

After all, sorry about the naughty link but M$ has not been able to shut down this site.

Actually, it wouldn't get that far. They would probably appeal to the DNS board and get the name handed over to them that way. It's not a court of law, so money and influence works more there.