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I think you misspelled "MEAWGHTH"
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The linked articles talk about it being a copyright action, but unless Canada's "intellectual property" laws differ vastly from the USA, UK, etc., then this must surely be a trademark action. The USA trademark laws, from my understanding, virtually require organisations to engage in institutional harassment of anyone who comes even close to their trademark, or risk loss of the trademark through the doctrine of "dilution". Does anyone know if Canada has a similarly nasty legal doctrine?
Mike Rowe appears to be operating "in good faith" with regards to the domain name, although he'd probably have been better served by declining to transfer the name at all. Whether or not there is any actionable trademark infringement going on is an open question.
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Normally, I'd be opposed to companies going after domains like this,
but in this case I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Rowe would have registered MikeRoweSoft.com if Microsoft.com didn't already exist.
I.e. it seems that he was trying to cash in on the Microsoft name.
Now maybe he wasn't, and I'm inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt, but isn't that what a trail is for - so a (presumably) reasonble person can judge?
(Side note - Why should Microsoft get the domain? If there really is confusion between microsoft.com and mikerowesoft.com, wouldn't the public would be better served if neither party was allowed to use it?)
--x--
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Various articles quote Mr. Rowe as saying he thought it would be "funny". That what would be funny? Oh, you mean registering a domain name that sounds exactly like that of a well-known software company and using it for computer services.
Sort of funny in the way that everyone got the joke in the movie _Coming to America_ involving a fast food restaurant named "MacDougal's".
Well, okay, we've all gotten the joke. But the bottom line is that you don't get to start a fast food restaurant even if your name is McDonald, nor would you last long if you went to Alaska to start the Kodiak Camera Company. And if two guys named Hewitt and Packer wanted to start making printers, I could probably think of one name they shouldn't use.
A joke is one thing, and this story counts as "cute". But you don't get a $10,000 check from the trademark fairy for having an interesting name.
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