Ludicrous lawsuits and legal laughs

Coca-Cola's 'technical difficulties', Microsoft's latest litigation, and plenty more.

Unless your mind is as drink-addled as mine, you should recall my bemoaning the inevitability of every high-profile web event falling over, the organisers usually quick to pin the blame on supposedly unprecedented demand.

Well, it's happened again. The outfit responsible for the latest online outage is Coca-Cola. No sooner had it opened the UK doors on its Apple Itunes-aping www.mycokemusic.com legal music download service, than it pulled them closed, citing technical difficulties. (The specific difficulty being that the service didn't work.)

Curious visitors, of which Backbiter was one, were fobbed off with a message that the site was being "uploaded with the latest music" and that they should return at midday. Backbiter returned at midday and was told to try again at 4pm.

At 4pm, he was told to return the next day. Predictably, that tomorrow came and went and, at the time of writing, a new tomorrow hasn't arrived.

The incompetence of Coke's tech-heads ensured that all the fizz has left this launch. And the recording industry is apparently at a loss to understand why net-savvy music lovers are so keen on file-sharing services.

When not delivering such still-born legitimate services, the bigwigs responsible for the sales of music to consumers are trying their damnedest to imprison the people who would very likely be their best customers.

The latest move by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is to bring copyright infringement lawsuits against 532 individuals, whose computer IP addresses have been identified as frequenting the likes of Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster.

532, eh? Only another several hundred million or so to go, chaps, and then your job will be done. Ahem.

Backbiter reserves similar sentiments for Microsoft and its Xbox. The firm is spreading the good news that sales of its obese games console have reached a staggering 13.7 million.

If you ask me, the tail end of that proclamation might be represented more accurately as: '... have staggered to 13.7 million'. Although the number of shifted units is up a touch, the revenues of Microsoft Home and Entertainment, the division responsible for the Xbox, are tens of millions of dollars down.

Meanwhile, Nintendo has seen European sales of its Gamecube console improve by 88 per cent in recent months. And Sony has sold 70 million Playstation 2 machines. Staggering indeed.

So what is Microsoft to do in order to reduce its stockpile of unsold Xboxes? Give them away, it seems. If you fancy an Xbox for free, simply register a domain name - in good faith, obviously - that has phonetic similarity to any site presided over by Microsoft and then reach an out-of-court settlement with the firm.

That was the benefit bestowed upon Canadian student Mike Rowe, who decided to have a bit of a laugh by adding 'soft' to the end of his otherwise eponymous website address.

Inevitably, the slavishly litigious Microsoft didn't take too kindly to the creation of Mikerowesoft.com and initially threatened the teenage lad with all manner of unpleasantries.

No doubt the firm's over-eager legal beagles would've continued down this path, had not the world's press caught wind of Mike Rowe's plight.

So where next, Backbiter wonders, will the minions of Microsoft's newly knighted boss look to find supposed mala fides?

Being a helpful sort, I'd like to be the first to bring their eristic eyes to the Build Gates Super Store, over at www.buildgates.com. Should you know of similar soundalike sites, let me know. Together we can help Microsoft improve its Xbox-shipment figures.

A more laudable Microsoft initiative was announced by Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The man's plan is to eradicate spam. Within two years! Hallelujah!

But could this be the same Microsoft that promised Backbiter (albeit in a previous guise) that, with the introduction of a new spam-filtering system, he would soon enjoy a 95 per cent reduction in junk email receipts to his Hotmail account? Yes, it could be.

And did the new filtering software result in the radical clear-out of junk mail from said inbox? No, it did not. And when did Microsoft issue this assurance? Er ... just about two years ago.

During the Forum, Mr Gates had a few words to say about Google, hailing it as a "great company" and one that reminded him of a young Microsoft.

How touching. Could these sweet nothings be a further indication of Bill's deep desire to create a beautiful friendship with the sultan of the search sites?

Backbiter wouldn't be at all surprised. With that in mind, Mr Gates might want to consider joining Google's new social-networking service, www.orkut.com. Be warned though, Bill. Membership is by invitation only.

If you have any moans, groans or scurrilous gossip that you think might interest backbiter, you can email him at backbiter@pcw.co.uk.