Comments on: Red Bullog closes after team complain

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:55:51 +0000

This is disgusting behaviour frm Red Bull. I can understand the logo objection, but “redbullog” doesn’t have that much resemblance to “redbull”, “redblog” or even “redbullblog”, so I don’t see how Red Bull expected to win this one except through bullying

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:05:56 +0000

The problem is all with trademark law – if you don’t actively defend a trademark you lose it. The MikeRoweSoft item was a display of that, they actually sent the guy a load of goodies, but they had to do it or they could be challenged.

Red Bull offering for him to kep going, but under their scrutiny, would also tie into that.

So yes, nasty lawyers, but borne out of necessity unfortunately.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:33:08 +0000

Done

By: MartinWR

MartinWR — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:24:48 +0000

It is much much worse than that. There are countless thousands of new laws, 85% of them originating from Brussels. The figure of 3,000+ refers to new (completely unnecessary) criminal offences. Of those more than a thousand (again totally unnecessary) land you in the slammer. An orgy of criminalisation, for the law-abiding of course.

By: Dank

Dank — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:26:02 +0000

If you could Keith I’d be most appreciative.

And regarding contributing: I believe I have your details, so I’ll be in touch in the future perhaps!

Thanks

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:14:46 +0000

Very sorry to hear that Dank. You’re more than welcome to contribute here if you want to, drop me a line any time.

If you feel very strongly about ‘forced’ I could change it?

By: Dank

Dank — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:06:31 +0000

Hi Keith,

Robert is right in a sense, in that I wasn’t ‘forced’ as such to close the blog down and it was my choice at the end of the day.

I’ve completely pulled the plug on the site now as I didn’t to further jeopardise my current position.

By: F1Yankee

F1Yankee — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:12:56 +0000

well said

By: Robert McKay

Robert McKay — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:22:18 +0000

To be fair, I’m not sure they “forced” him to close the blog from what I’ve read (although I’m happy to be corrected). They’ve said that he’s using their trademark logos and are happy for him to keep it going as long as he subjects the content to their scrutiny. Dank has (quite reasonably) said “no, it’s my blog and my content and I’m not writing under external influences” and so he’s closed it down. But I’m not quite sure what the legal situation would have been had he kept the content but simply dropped the logos.

By: copydude

copydude — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:03:22 +0000

It’s what lawyers do all day.

You may remember the story of the IT guy called Mike Rowe. He set up a site called MikeRoweSoft. That’s right, he gets a heavy letter from Microsoft’s legal people . . .

The current UK Government, made up of lawyers, has managed to introduced 3,600 largely irrelevant new laws since taking power. Yes, that’s one every four days.

You’d think a bunch of caffeine pushers would be a bit more careful about their public image but if they want to wind up as popular as the Government they are going the right way about it.