Mandolin Cafe threatened with lawsuit

[MikeEdgerton]

The Prince contacts you directly! I've only heared from one of his representatives.

Of course he does

[Timbofood]

It’s good to be the king, right Mike?

[MikeEdgerton]

Well, his people usually contact my people first and then set up the meeting.

[Timbofood]

Glad I had not picked up my second cup of coffee before you got that one in!

[Denny Gies]

You go, Scott. Ain't this a wonderful country?

[JeffD]

Wow. Just amazing.

What ever fun there was in crafting the response, it must have been a pain in the tail piece to have respond to something like this at all. Well it provides some variety and entertainment in the workday, I suppose, but it would sure ruin my day. There are enough regular, not unexpected, and even planned and often stupidly self created hassles in my life. Something like this landing in my lap would not be fun for me.

I suppose its a sign that the Cafe is significant in the world that it becomes a target for this kind of thing. I am glad we have Scott keeping his powder dry and swords sharp.

[ccravens]

Marking MC off my list of websites to potentially shake down...

[dhergert]

Of course he does

When I hear by email from the Nigerian Prince asking to deposit some of his money, I give him the bank number from one of the Nigerian charities that email me asking for money, so he can work directly with them. It seems to work out pretty well.

[Cornfield]

Next, he'll sue the Frito Bandito

[Don Grieser]

I was expecting a lawsuit from a disgruntled spouse for enabling our addiction, erhh,... I mean habit.

[Steve Ostrander]

Besides being a blood sucking attorney, he plays THE BANJO.

Sure, but can he play the Bandola Expandido? Oops, I said it again.....is that anything like the Frito Bandito?

[allenhopkins]

...I also gave him a ride home tonight because the brewery is closer to my house than his.

So you're the two-beer Designated Driver?

[THart]

Next, he'll sue the Frito Bandito

Tom Waits already took care of that. https://www.americanbar.org/content/...thcheckdam.pdf

[MikeEdgerton]

The worst part about this is that even though Tom Waits won he probably ended up with less than if he had actually done the commercial. It's amazing what people are willing to steal. Your likeness, your voice, your words.

[Steve VandeWater]

Well I get the scam with the Nigerian Prince...but whats the angle on hassling the Cafe? Was he expecting to get money for settling the "suit" or just hoping to get kicks from watching you take a thread down? Kudos to you btw. So many weirdos to dodge & taking up time gets to be a drag.

I'm with Astro on this. What exactly did they hope to accomplish?

[farmerjones]

So who owns the rights to the Schmergle Devistator?
And what about the Schmergel Devistater?

[jesserules]

I'm with Astro on this. What exactly did they hope to accomplish?

Picturing: some guy in his garage, who's created (he thinks) this [instrument which shall not be named], and even registered the name (scraps of paper lying around with rejected possible names like "La Superbandola"), and he figures he'll put [that instrument] into production & be on easy street, and he goes to the internet one day to see if there's any buzz about [it] yet because he did tell the neighbors about it and maybe they twittered it on facebook or something, and BANG he sees somebody else is using "his" name!!!, & he panics & finds a form letter online & hurriedly fills it in immediately ...

Or it could be something entirely different.

[Ronnie.]

wow, crazy stuff, always makes me wonder what some people will do.
Thanks

[colorado_al]

So who owns the rights to the Schmergle Devistator?
And what about the Schmergel Devistater?

Oh now you've done it!
It was nice knowing you folks. This site is about to get shut down...

[bennyb]

I don't think there's a problem here, since farmerj wisely misspelled everything

benny

[mugbucket]

And I was toying with changing my username to Bandola Expandido. Shoot!

Have to do a search to see if Mandola Expanditoski is still available...

[Verne Andru]

Once upon a time, when the world was saner and there was no internet, people were free to think and talk freely.

Then came the internet and thoughts and conversations moved online in the form of the printed word.

US copyright law does not allow you to register a word or term - that is the purview of trademark law. Back in the day trademarks were only assigned if they were descriptive of what the company/product does, not generic terms. Plus the trademark was only issued for the visual representation of the term, not the term itself.

In the '90's some US states started issuing "wordmarks" causing some bright light (with a team of lawyers) to decide that "words" and "thoughts" were now a commodity that could be commercialized and protected by the various laws backed by teams of greedy lawyers.

As more and more of the world moves into the digital domain, the race to "own" anything and everything that can be held as "exclusive" for the purpose of making money has become the new gold-rush. It is a huge industry that is growing in leaps and bounds.

Googles parent company is called "Alphabet," meaning a for-profit company owns the exclusive rights to "alphabet." Maybe not the alphabet at this moment, but through various legal machinations that could very well be in the mail.

Think about that for a moment.

[Mandolincelli]

If I'm not mistaken, the Copyright Act does not allow copyright protection for names and short phrases. Only trademark does that.

[allenhopkins]

So who owns the rights to the Schmergle Devistator?
And what about the Schmergel Devistater?

It's Devastator, dude.

I believe that Shmergel Mandolins Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of -- wait, can't tell you that; international intrigue is involved, it's too dangerous.

Clever of you to include alternate spellings, but the agents of [name redacted] can see right through that.

[colorado_al]

Hook them up to this:
https://www.theverge.com/platform/am...rescam-netsafe
Send scam emails to this chatbot and it’ll waste their time for you