B.C.'s Microsoft fighter raking it in on eBay

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:13:02 -0400
From: jticknor <jticknor () dal ca>
Subject: for IP if you like...
Sender: jticknor <jticknor () dal ca>
To: dave () farber net

Dave...

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/30/mike_rowe040130

The latest steps of Mike Rowe, of mikerowesoft.com fame, in his battle with
Microsoft...

Kind regards,
Jann

B.C.'s Microsoft fighter raking it in on eBay
Last Updated Fri Jan 30 17:36:43 2004

VANCOUVER-- A student in British Columbia who made news around the world 
when he took on Microsoft over his domain name now stands to make thousands 
of dollars on the internet auction site eBay.

Mike Rowe, from the Victoria area of B.C., has put his 25 pages of 
correspondence with Microsoft's lawyers up for auction on eBay, along with 
an inch-thick document outlining Microsoft's case to the World Intellectual 
Property Organization in Geneva.

"I have two copies of these and I will be keeping one for my own personal 
memoirs," Rowe wrote in the text accompanying the Internet auction item.

By 5 p.m. ET Friday, there were 105 bids for the material. Bidding had 
soared to $40,000, with six days to go before the sale closed.

Rowe, 17, found himself at the wrong end of an international copyright 
complaint a few weeks ago when he refused to give up the address for his 
web-development internet site, mikerowesoft.com.

When Microsoft told him he had to remove the site from the web and offered 
to reimburse him $10 for the cost of registering the domain name, he refused.

"I felt sort of insulted at that time because I'd spent so much time 
designing my website," Rowe told the CBC. "So I guess in spite, I e-mailed 
them back asking for $10,000, and that didn't go over too well."

Microsoft lawyers fired back a 25-page letter and an inch-thick document 
outlining their case to the World Intellectual Property Organization in 
Geneva.

   * FROM JAN. 23, 2004: 
<http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_microsoft20040123>Microsoft 
and mikerowesoft.com come to terms

Eventually he and Microsoft settled, after news of the dispute broke and 
millions of people logged on to mikerowesoft.com to check it out.

The company agreed to pay any expenses the high school student incurred 
during the process, provide him with Microsoft certification training, and 
give him an Xbox video game system.

Written by CBC News Online <http://cbc.ca/bios.html>staff

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