I think pg is actually completely 100% on the money here. Kudos to him and YC being bold enough to come out and say it so bluntly.
Here's why I agree with him: I see a lot of comments from people suggesting that Hollywood works on a cycle, where things move along, start to stagnate, and then a dark horse director comes along and creates magic. Altman, Lucas, etc all fit this bill, and they've produced amazing hits. Using money from Hollywood.
So, if this cycle is indeed perpetual, and Hollywood simply has to wait for the next big thing, then why don't they? Instead, we are seeing prosecutions on a massive scale, and grossly out of touch legislation proposed like SOPA and PIPA.
If Hollywood were so confident, and had so much money, why should they care about these infringers? Is it that copyright infringement makes Hollywood lose that much money, or is it that the economic model has changed dramatically, the execs are scared shitless, and are trying dearly to hold on to their once-empire?
I don't think anyone can challenge the assertion that the field has changed dramatically. I also don't think anyone, including the Hollywood execs, has a clue where it's going now. Laws like SOPA seem to be about preventing this change from happening, to keep the power where it was. It sounds like YC's approach is to encourage people to be creative and try to come up with a viable suggestion as to where things are going.
The feature I'm really waiting for is pseudonym support. Vic Gondotra promised it several months ago at Web 2.0. I don't feel comfortable using Google+ at all right now, given that my account, among others, was suspended.
To be fair, there are a bunch of people who have been considering migrating from Godaddy for any number of reasons anyways. The SOPA stuff is just the icing on the cake that's pushed them over the edge. This migration has been coming for a long time.
I've dealt with this exact issue before, although through US law and not UK law. One thing I found is that a lot of places who have trademarks have to send out notices like this in order to maintain their ownership of the trademark.
That said, it's hard to get context on this with the information you've given us. Did this message come from a lawyer, or just an executive working there? A name change can kill a company, and the burden is likely on them to demonstrate that you are directly impacting them, which is hard to say without knowing anything about them. Do you think they have the resources to bring an infringement suit on you?
Trademark infringement can be hard to establish. A quick example: in the US, there are over 30 trademarks on the letters "AMD", for all kinds of different purposes. Trademarks are more than just a name, an infringement has to meet multiple standards.
I would look at the law on the books (in the US it's at uspto.gov, I don't know about the UK) and proceed from there.
I think Google is attempting to be brilliant, but I think it will cause them lots of problems in the longrun. Right now, a lot of people who want to visit pepsi.com just go to Google, type in "pepsi", and assume pepsi.com will be the first result. Google seems to want to sidestep this and allow people to search for +Pepsi, which will take them straight to the product page for Pepsi.
So what happens when you have two companies that have the same name? A classic example of this is the problem that rose with Nissan.com. It was registered by a guy who's last name was Nissan, to promote his family's computer business, Nissan computers. Then the car company tried to sue them to kingdom come.
Bring this dynamic into Google Plus. You have two companies called Nissan, and they both want product pages. Do you let them both be "+Nissan", do you force them to be "+Nissan Cars" and "+Nissan Computers", or do you let one be "+Nissan" and one be "+Nissan Computers", based on trending and search results? Or do you let one pay you lots of money to be ranked above the other?
If this sounds familiar, it's because it's both a recreation of the phone book, as well as Yahoo before they turned portal. I sense Google will get away with paid ranking because "it's their product" and they don't have to deal with net neutrality issues.
Here's why I agree with him: I see a lot of comments from people suggesting that Hollywood works on a cycle, where things move along, start to stagnate, and then a dark horse director comes along and creates magic. Altman, Lucas, etc all fit this bill, and they've produced amazing hits. Using money from Hollywood.
So, if this cycle is indeed perpetual, and Hollywood simply has to wait for the next big thing, then why don't they? Instead, we are seeing prosecutions on a massive scale, and grossly out of touch legislation proposed like SOPA and PIPA.
If Hollywood were so confident, and had so much money, why should they care about these infringers? Is it that copyright infringement makes Hollywood lose that much money, or is it that the economic model has changed dramatically, the execs are scared shitless, and are trying dearly to hold on to their once-empire?
I don't think anyone can challenge the assertion that the field has changed dramatically. I also don't think anyone, including the Hollywood execs, has a clue where it's going now. Laws like SOPA seem to be about preventing this change from happening, to keep the power where it was. It sounds like YC's approach is to encourage people to be creative and try to come up with a viable suggestion as to where things are going.