Lindows halts Benelux ops
p2pnet.net News:- Lindows founder and ceo Mike Robertson has stopped operations in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg having received demands that it pay a fine of up to 100,000 euros (currently about $US122,000) a day for failing to comply with an earlier court order.
Microsoft claims Lindows chose its name in order to gain PR from being associated with Microsoft’s Windows operating system software.
“Microsoft, which is often embroiled in legal battles with competitors, has pursued Lindows in courts around the world, alleging trademark infringement of its Windows brand name by Lindows, which offers a Linux alternative called LindowsOS”, as Reuters sums it up here.
Microsoft complains that the Lindows main Web site, http://www.lindows.com, was flaunting a previous Dutch court injunction against using the Lindows name by referring visitors from Belgium, Luxembourg the Netherlands and Sweden to a separate home page, http://www.lin—s.com/.
“Visitors to this referral page were met with a stick-figure sketch of an unfinished game of hangman<' ays Reuters. "The accompanying text, which read Lin---s.com, was situated above the letters of the alphabet. Twenty-three of the 26 letters were crossed out, with only the 'D,' 'O' and 'W' remaining, leaving the reader to complete the puzzle and fill in the full word 'Lindows'."
The lin—s.com site now refers viewers to Lindows’ appeal of the Dutch court ruling, instead of to a link to buy Lindows computers.
“Microsoft and Lindows are scheduled to go to trial in the United States this month over efforts by Microsoft to win an injunction against Lindows over use of its trademark,” adds Reuters. “Microsoft has won injunctions against Lindows in Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.”
Not to worry, however.
Robertson’s latest (and extremely clever) marketing idea is to use the BitTorrent p2p application to sell Lindows onlin e- at half the usual price.
March 16th, 2004 at 5:44 pm
you know what as a belelux citizen i can say fuck the belelux this shit is wack. the gov is a tool of oppresion after this EU copyright dirrective.
do what you want resist the facist fundementalist corperate personhoods and states that would try and define what is alive for us as humans when they are not human and if there are humans working within these systems of oppresion they are sell-outs who need to be called on there shit and be held accountable