Microsoft Sues Magic Bullet System and Amish Shah Along With Jay Styles
Microsoft is suing Amish Shah, Jay Styles and two companies (the creators of the Magic Bullet System guru product) for using Microsoft trademarks and cybersquatting on Microsoft trademarks. And for contributory infringement.
This should send an epic shockwave through the “guru” ranks – The lawsuit talks about contributory trademark infringement and contributory cybersquatting. That means helping or motivating SOMEONE ELSE to do trademark infringement or cybersquatting. Microsoft is saying that not only did these guys do the dirty, they encouraged other people to do it too.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog posted court documents relating to Washington at Seattle case C10-0653 RSM. This suit has been going on for a while – If you look at the title of the court document, it says “Denying Defendant Amended Motion to Dismiss”. PDF File for your enjoyment here:
Click for PDF: Microsoft vs Magic Bullet System
AFAIK civil cases are public records in the US, so this should be a fun read for quite some time to come.
You can find all the dirty online if you know where to look.
Quote:
Defendants allegedly providing instructions and their alleged sales
of a method known as the “Magic Bullet System,” which is meant to teach buyers how to use Microsoft marks in order to sell the emoticon-related software
I had seen this idea in one of the intro videos to the Magic Bullet System. I actually thought the trick was clever – Though not my style.
Their system or idea was this:
Get a domain name that has some allusion to MSN Messenger in it, like “world-favorite-msn-messenger.info” or some such shit. Then they would use their “magic bullet” or WordPress, can’t remember, to create a Google and seo-likeable website (you know, Privacy policy, Terms of service, farticles).
On that website they would offer the MSN Messenger for download and soft-bundle it with a smilies toolbar. The smilies were a CPA offer pulled from some network. I think the pitch was to tell people “Now that you got the toolbar, here are the Super-Mega-Dopey Similies” or something like Step 1- Get Messenger, Step 2- Get Smilies.
Now you have the idea… You could do this with something that isn’t trademarked, or at least be a little more careful about your pick of domain names and such so you’re not next in line.
ADHD Summary (idea shamelessly stolen from Mr. Green):
1 – Hide yo launches, MSFT be suing everybody out here
2 – Don’t fuck with Microsoft
3 – Guru shit will get you fucked by Microsoft
NegBox, 
Slave Rat, 
Mike Chiasson 6:32 pm on March 11, 2011 Permalink |
Hide you kidzzzzz!
Monty 7:43 am on March 12, 2011 Permalink |
Man, it’s crazy. I remember those videos. They claimed to make like $400/day profit with that campaign. Didn’t seem big of a deal to sue because of such shit like that…
And the idea was to order a domain like:
download-msn-messenger.org
and then pretened that people are downloading the messenger cuz they’re looking for it. Except they were taken to a smiley page and had to install that one thinking they get messenger too, but nope.
It is shady, but when you think about farticles, flogs, these generate way more money and are still ok to run.
Matt 2:52 am on March 28, 2011 Permalink |
I thought it was sketchy too, but “contributory”? C’mon – we’re all adults here. The courts treat us like children and we sink to the level of expectation.
NegBox 1:08 pm on March 31, 2011 Permalink |
Matt, in most cases I’d agree – contributory infringement is the bullshit lawyers use to pad lawsuits.
In this case I think Microsoft may have a valid point. When anyone shows a campaign online, there are invariably two hundred newbies who will try to cut and paste it – and then pout wondering why it doesn’t work straight up. I wouldn’t be surprised if their little video had actually caused a few dozen copycat sites, especially considering how much traffic these guys drive to their launches. What would be nice is having the burden of proof squarely on MS – to come up with several samples of sites actually “contributing” if you will.