Microsoft Monopoly, The Board Game 39
billybob submitted it first: "If you're looking for a great way to waste some time, check out
Microsoft Monopoly,
the online board game!" It's GPLed and you can submit your own jokes. I like the quick'n'easy lawsuit form.
lol (Score:2)
Woah... (Score:1)
But, hey, that's one hell of a hilarious site. Now it's giving me ideas for a new Monopoly board... :-)
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This would be called corporate arm-twisting (Score:3)
The funny thing about lawsuits is that large corporations are using them as leverage. Say I have a big-time company that makes OS' (what, me? pointing fingers? NEVER!), and I find a website that, although it is clearly labeled a parody, I find slanderous. Now, I am big and burly and have lots of money. The owners of this site are most likely either poor or not well-off enough to be able to support themselves easily while fending me and my macho corporation off.
So I sue. Even though I am obviously in the wrong, 90% of the time, the po' wittle website (say that five times fast!) will cave in simply because they cannot pay the incredibly high lawyer's fees.
Ah yes, welcome to America, Land Of The Free (tm.. of course.)
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Lawyer food. (Score:2)
I hope everyone has seen the page where they present a fill-in-the-blanks demand letter from MS and Hasbro lawyers. It's just as funny as the "game" itself, however I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting a real demand letter.
IANAL, they are clearly using several trademarks there. They should be OK on the copyright end, because it's a clear parody, but trademark-related issues might get thorny...
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Innovative (Score:1)
Feel free to rate me down as usual [grin]
Hee hee (Score:1)
D'ya think the pic is copyrighted?:)
Finally, a use for the web (Score:2)
Sure, it's got nudies galore, pictures of planets and even slashdot, but this -- this! is what the internet is all about.
Of course, being the conscientious slashdotter that I am, I bookmarked it, looked long enough to comment on it, and left it for a week so that all the other little dotties can have a look. Next week I can have a game in peace.
Do likewise!
this reminds me... (Score:2)
Sorry (Score:1)
:-)
This message is pointless...and it is wasting space in your computers memory
PHP (Score:1)
This should come with a disclaimer (Score:1)
Eric
Fascinating, maybe (Score:1)
Re:Fascinating, maybe (Score:1)
Re:Innovative (Score:1)
Would have made a nice question to ask Bill Gates in the Paxman interview
and there's even been a online clone of the game Monopoly made about MS - have you ever played it? Did you win?
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Re:What I'd like to see.... (Score:1)
The site is distributing the source as well.
All you need to do is some playing around with konq or worst case scenario - netscape and gimp.
Hurd vs. Linux???? (Score:1)
Haha, I love the parody on the site... one particular thing I liked about the board was the one that said GNU Hurd would have a stampede soon. Cool, I always thought Hurd would be the next big thing after Linux. (Now where is Linux on that board??? I probably missed it... looks like it's suffering from the Slashdot effect, so I'm not going to add to it. :-))
(Offtopic) IMNSHO a microkernel approach to an OS (ie. Hurd) is better than a monolithic approach, like the traditional Unix kernel. Of course, with dynamically loadable modules in Linux, the distinction is somewhat blurry... From a technical standpoint, I like Hurd's microkernel design better. (This is not intended to be flamebait!) That's why I think Hurd would be the next big thing after Linux. "The stampede shall come!"
..so mad I could sue... (Score:3)
Enjoyed your MS Monopoly site. Check out my version of the MS Monopoly game I created about a year ago, plus the other MS humor at:
http://jokewallpaper.com/msdoj.htm
I also can relate to your "I am So Mad I Could Sue" page. My parody/satire site is just a little over four years old. In that time I have been contacted by lawyers from Intel (Pentagram 666 processor, dropped from site), Apple (Think different, still on site), Netscape (modified, lawyer letter on site), Eli Lilly (prozac-seltzer, dropped from site), Pine Tree Car Air Freshnr (computer air fresheners, dropped from site), and UPS (modified, lawyer letter on site)
Check out the letters at:
UPS: http://jokewallpaper.com/letter13.htm
Netscape: http://jokewallpaper.com/letter1.htm
The points I make in the UPS letter are valid. You are covered by "fair use parody" in the use of the Microsoft trademark, but perhaps not covered in the use of the Hasbro trademark. You definitely are making a social commentary using the Microsoft logo, but using the Monopoly game trademark is not so clear cut.
Please remember all legal advice in the preceding paragraph comes from a humor writer, not an attorney.
Have Fun,
Steve Kremer
JokeWallpaper.com
BTW, if some of the "Letter to a Netscape Lawyer" looks familier, segfault and userfreindly used part of it for a lawyer letter prank last April Fools Day.
Keep it free? Just an idea... (Score:2)
I see 200+ mirrors on sites in as many countries as possible. If we start now, we might be able to keep it available.
I would follow rde's suggestion and bookmark the site for a later game, but in these litigious times, one has to mirror the entire content of any site that might be the littlest bit offensive to *anyone*. Especially big corporations.
Or at least take a peek before it goes away...
It seems the only way to keep the web free is a little peaceful civil disobedience.
Russ
Another lawsuit (Score:1)
This was long settled out of court. Now go back posting on-topic.
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Slower'n frozen molasses (Score:3)
Granted, the site is probably being Slashdotted. Still, it's a bit embarassing to see the Apache, PHP3 and MySQL logos displayed so prominently when the site evidently can't handle the load. Someone at Microsoft is probably thinking that they're getting the last laugh here.
Re:Slower'n frozen molasses (Score:3)
The
Royal Canadian Air Farce (Score:1)
No, the ISP gets the lawsuit - they give in faster (Score:3)
So don't threaten them - threaten someone upstream from them, like the ISP. The ISP doesn't care about the rights and wrongs of the issue - they're looking at the money. And the money says that you have very little to gain by standing by your customer and everything to lose - the best commercial proposition is simply to drop customers as soon as anyone who can spell "lawsuit" writes to you, regardless of whether they'd have a case, and regardless of who the Good Guys might be.
This simple inequality is probably a bigger risk to free speech online than any CDA style legislation...
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Patent Lawsuit (Score:1)
maybe from the royalties they can pay the lawyers they might need
Re:Keep it free? Just an idea... (Score:1)
Arm-twisting should not work (Score:2)
It seems like almost every week I hear about someone having to cave into some company's intimidating lawyers just because, whether they were right or wrong, they could not afford legal fees.
On one hand, it doesn't bother me to bill someone $75 per hour for software work. Likewise, when a doctor wants money of that magnitude (or higher), it doesn't bother me to pay. But on the other hand, the very idea of figuring out how to find a lawyer that I would want to hire, and then .. ugh ... paying them is so distasteful that I would do just about anything (e.g. cave in) to avoid it.
And yet we're in a litigous society where one should pretty much expect to have to deal with lawyers -- or at least legal procedures -- at some times in our lives. Maybe this is a topic that should be covered in every person's basic education (e.g. mid school or high school). Why do we bother to teach kids
- How a bill becomes a law
- How the courts can sometimes zap a law
- To memorize and impressively recite lines from MacBeth
- How Newton computed rotational inertia
- How Millikan measured charge
- How Mendel bred plants
- How to speak a foreign language
- How to paint a flower with watercolors
- How to play a sport
but we don't teach them what to do when they get slapped with a harrassment lawsuit? I'm not too happy when I think about all hours I wasted learning about English kings hanging, drawing, and quartering people who spoke treason, but no one told me what to do if I get a scary letter with a bunch of "esquires" in the letterhead.I'm not saying get rid of the legal profession (the law is far too complex at this time -- we need specialists until it gets better (and that is never going to happen)) but maybe most adults really should be able to take care of themselves when "simple" things are involved. See a doctor if you have chest pains, but get out the ol' pocket knife if you have a hangnail. Why can't it be the same in law? People should only have to hire lawyers when something obscure or complicated is involved.
We all deal with life-threatening danger every day, but common sense and a little training makes it almost safe. Crossing the street, for example. But the risks in a courtroom are almost as high, and no amount of common sense will protect you. It's so bizarre and so intimidating that we pretty much have to hire experts to handle it for us. And that's the reason most people have to back down instead of fighting, even when they know they would win. That sucks and it needs fixing.
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Re:Arm-twisting should not work (Score:1)
Unfortunately, they make things obscure and complicated on putpose. It helps the lawyers, because then they get more work. It helps large corporations, because all that complexity allows for numerous loopholes they can squeeze through to smack us normal people or escape liability. And the lawmakers benefit because they get paid by the lobbists for lawyers and corporations.
Sometimes, i think Shakespeare was right. The rest of the time i don't think about lawyers at all.
It appears to be down. (Score:1)
The requested URL
What a pity.
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I noticed
Umm... portscan? (Score:1)