Microsoft Linux - the premier Linux distro....

September 17, 2000 9:10 PM

Microsoft Linux - the premier Linux distro.... Who would have thought???
posted by PWA_BadBoy (6 comments total)

Haha.. they almost had me until I read the quotes at the bottom left. Nearly shit my pants. :)

They'll be hearing from MS' lawyers in no time, I'm sure.

And the blatant web design rip off... Let's not go THERE again. Hehe...
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 9:14 PM on September 17, 2000

One form of "fair use" is satire, and you can actually copy substantial amounts of someone else's copyrighted work for satirical purposes. I'm not so sure that this is actually copyright violation; you can actually get away with a hell of a lot under this form of satire. (Anyone remember "Bored of the Rings"?)

They are definitely going to hear from Microsoft's lawyers, though, because they placed a Microsoft copyright on it. (Look at the very bottom, where they linked to the Microsoft copyright boilerplate.) They got just a tadge too careless in ripping off a Microsoft web template, and forgot to remove that part.

You can place your own copyright on something but I don't think you can place someone else's copyright on it without their permission, and that is not satire and would not be covered by "fair use". I'm not really sure, but I think that might be a criminal act and I'm quite certain it's a violation of civil law.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:23 PM on September 17, 2000

well... since they designated the material's copyright as belonging to Microsoft, MS can just sue them for unauthorized use of copyrighted material and demand that they take it down :-)

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:40 AM on September 18, 2000

(although, I must say, MS would have to be really silly to do so, since the PR value would add up negative.)

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:40 AM on September 18, 2000

It's a bit difficult to see how MS's popularity and reputation with the Linux community could get any lower; I don't see how they have anything to lose.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:33 PM on September 18, 2000

Well, actually, I think that MS copyright is pretty close to being true... they don't even copy ms' design, they leach it off their own servers...

I wonder if you can get sued for using an image off someone else's site... I mean, it's not like you're making a copy of it and redistributing it... it's just a link to the actual copy...
posted by Bane at 12:56 PM on September 18, 2000