A few years ago a jeans company sent our company, Maverick, a letter to stop using the name because Maverick was their brand. No way in hell, we said, we own the name in our category, which is services, and have nothing to do with apparel. Besides, we asked them, wouldn’t it be folly for them, who does not market that brand of jeans in Indonesia anyway, to be up against a public relations company?
They may take us to a court of law but for sure we’ll drag them through a bruising battle in the court of public opinion.
The company saw the light and backed off.
Today there’s another incident involving Sony Corporation and a blogger called Sony AK. It’s already beginning to look like another march of folly as Indonesian onliners rally up against the Japanese corporation. Time will tell how this pans out but Unspun’s feeling is that even if Sony Corp wins the legal war, they would have lost the war over public opinion. So what is the point of such legal initiatives if not for the Dog in Manger attitude toward things? Sony AK can;’t conceivably take any business away from Sony Corp or harm its brand name, unless, of course, Sony Corp insists on shooting itself in the foot.
A couple of hours ago, Indonesian onliners – Twitterers, Kaskusers, bloggers – were outraged due to a news regarding a law suit against Sony Arianto Kurniawan. The law suit is filed by SONY Corporation, and they claimed that Sony Arianto Kurniawan’s website – http://www.sony-ak.com, is a breach of copyright.
SONY’s representative lawfirm in Indonesia filed Sony AK, a well-known Indonesian IT blogger, because “Sony AK’s domain name uses “SONY” brand name for things that are related to network sites and center of information technology knowledge. The domain http://www.sony-ak.com visually has similarity to the wholeness and is similar to the brand name “SONY”,” so the document said.
This suit has upset many Indonesian onliners, especially those who have been blogging and are into IT for several years. Sony AK’s site has been known for being the knowledge sharing center for IT enthusiasts in Indonesia, and has been up for approximately 6 years.
Unspun 
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