Amiga Case Designer Faces Intimidation

[commodorejohn]

Boy, I guess when Amiga branding is the one thing differentiating your product from a commodity PC build costing half as much, you get kinda territorial about it! Who'da thunk?

[commodorejohn]

I would've just told them to piss off, if you're not actually selling the thing with Amiga branding...

[commodorejohn]

As far as I know, the person stating that wasn't the president of the company.  He wasn't an attorney for the company.

Sounds like a friendly request to me...

I grew up around lawyers; that wasn't even slightly intimidating..  ;-)

He's one of two known personnel for CUSA (the other being Barry himself) and the general PR guy for the company; moreover, his threat was groundless posturing, as any basic research into the project would have shown (let alone actual knowledge of TheDaddy's project from - get this - being involved in the community. I haven't even been following this project and I knew he wasn't selling it Amiga-branded, geez,) and he wasn't the person to be making it in the first place, as CUSA does not own or enforce the Amiga trademarks, they merely license them.

And as has been pointed out several times in both threads, a real friendly request would have been a private note to TheDaddy, not territorial pissing on a public forum. It might not have been a formal legal threat, but it was douchey and needlessly aggressive.

[commodorejohn]

What threat???
It was not, in any way, a threat....

A public statement of perceived trademark infringement on the Internet is a takedown threat. That's not difficult to understand, it's been SOP for over-aggressive and under-qualified takedown hounds for years now. If it were not intended as a threat, it would have been sent privately, as is appropriate for this kind of communication. Instead, Leo resorted to stomping and making noise publically in an attempt to make an example of a community hobbyist without having to go so far as to take action, because he doesn't have the grounds to do so. That's why I'm actually a bit disappointed in TheDaddy for complying, because this is exactly what Leo intended to happen.

But - and I am only saying that because I care - there's a lot of  decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real  thing.

Huh?

[commodorejohn]

Well, nothing wrong with that, I just don't get how it relates to the topic...

Anyway, I'm not much for keyboard cases generally, but hot damn is that a sleek design.

[commodorejohn]

I think what we need is for OSNews to do a feature on the project and mention this incident

[commodorejohn]

Trouble is: In thre US you have to go after everyone who uses your trademark, or courts can invalidate it entirely. That is why so many lawsuits on trademarks are happening, even if the offense is rather minor.

Trouble is, it's not their trademark. It's Amiga, Inc.'s. As Leo reveals in the post CritAnime quoted, this is about pissing on someone who's made negative assessments of CUSA's products in the past, not about defending anything they actually own.

[commodorejohn]

To answer Franko from the other thread, this is just a warning that he is committing an obvious IP violation.
Most likely as a deliberate provocation, given his history of attacks.
I have no desire to see anyone, even one of our harshest of critics, suffer at the end of the law.

"Nice site you've got there. Be a shame if something happened to it."
 - BigBenAussie

[commodorejohn]

I found the 3000 T and 4000 T to be drop dead gorgeous back then, but in these modern times no one in their right mind would want a PC case that big.

Actually, I much prefer reasonably-sized cases to trendy new micro-PCs; they're a lot less of a pain in the ass to work in, and there's enough room to set a CRT monitor and a pair of speakers on top if it's a desktop. The 3000 was a little cramped, but the 4000 looks like a beauty.

[commodorejohn]

Who decides that, you? A trademark has to be defended, period.

A trademark does not have to be defended by people who don't even own it, and even if it did, Leo explicitly stated that this was an act of petty revenge. I don't see how TheDaddy possibly (though likely not) being slightly in the wrong in any way justifies Leo's actions.

[commodorejohn]

Now why in the world would you start some silly flamebait thread title like that. How lame put I'm so tired of this anti Commodore usa crap. This guy put up a bunch of money and energy for this project. What are you guys doing to help amiga name out commercially? Exactly.

Wait, let me get this straight - TheDaddy is admirable for putting his own time and money into an Amiga-inspired project, therefore we should feel bad for disliking the company that harassed him about something that wasn't even wrong for him to do? Yeah, that makes sense.

[commodorejohn]

I agree that left-justified LEDs look better.

[commodorejohn]

I am considering the inclusion of a DVD-RW and 3.5" card reader...what do you all think?

Would it come with the drive bays in any case? If so I'd say keep it simple, anybody using this will have no trouble acquiring their own drives.

[commodorejohn]

I see...so no drives...how would you fill the gaps?

A simple pop-in faceplate, I'd think.

[commodorejohn]

"We're not a big bad company trying to hurt people, except when we take petty revenge for imagined slights!"