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For anyone unfamiliar, this is a clever riff on a classic economics joke about the Efficient Market Hypothesis [1]. "Two economists are walking down the street
by gpanders 6y ago
For anyone unfamiliar, this is a clever riff on a classic economics joke about the Efficient Market Hypothesis [1].
"Two economists are walking down the street and one of them notices what appears to be a $20 bill (or a $100 bill—the monetary amounts vary) on the sidewalk. “It’s not a real $20 bill,” the other economist declares. “If it were a real $20 bill, someone would have picked it up off the sidewalk already.”
[1]: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_it_were_a_real_20_bill/ https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/if_...
- quickthrower2 6y agoExcept the $20 bill in this case is a $-10 bill (or whatever the domain name costs), as there is no profit to be made by registering a top company's trademark as a domain name.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYup. It's more like lots of people were walking along and saw exactly what it was, and knew better than to touch it.
- aaronharnly 6y agoHa exactly — like a briefcase with $1million on the sidewalk. No way I’m touching that!
- BolexNOLA 6y agoI too don’t want Javier Bardem hunting me down.
- gumby 6y agoWell we know he'd do it for $2M. But for $1M...what are the odds?
- chimen 6y agoNeed to watch that again. Thanks for reminding me. His role was awesome.
- jacobush 6y agoI will never watch that again. Too depressing. His role was awesome.
- DrOctagon 6y agoOr Lloyd Christmas
- toyg 6y agoOr Mullan and O’Malley (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow_Grave https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow_Grave)
- koheripbal 6y agoWhile it is an unwinnable case, there is a positive dollar amount to settling out of court.
- benatkin 6y agoEspecially if you have a cute story like the MikeRoweSoft guy did.
- CydeWeys 6y agoHe bought mikerowesoft.com though, not microsoft.soy. It would not have ended the way it did if he'd bought the latter. His case was a lot less clear cut than a blatant exact string match on an unambiguous trademark. Also, Mike Rowe is actually his name; Netflix is not this guy's name.
- SilasX 6y agoI think Nissan.com is more illustrative -- it was a guy named Nissan[1] who had an actual computer business in his name and got to keep it away from Nissan Motors, but now his site has a lot more to do bragging about his fight with the motor company than actual computer stuff. [1] Hebrew/Israeli name usually transliterated as "Nisan"
- ksec 6y agoInteresting, why doesn't Nissan motor just paid more money say a million for it? Surely they can afford it.
- tzs 6y ago> $-10 bill (or whatever the domain name costs) For the curious, .soy seems to be one of the more expensive TLDs. It's $34.54 at Gandhi, $25.98 at Namecheap, $35.99 at Network Solutions, and $20 at Goggle. (I also tried at Bluehost, HostGator, and Godaddy, but none of them seem to even offer .soy). It looks like netflix.soy was registered via Google, so that would be a $-20 bill.
- m463 6y agoWould a proper analogy be: free boat! (needs work, might be radioactive)?
- znpy 6y agoI wouldn't necessarily think like that. A domain can be either resold to another third party or could be sold to the trademark owner itself. You might reach a price agreement that brings you some money and costs the trademark owner less than getting a lawyer involved.
- dghughes 6y agoThat reminds me of my father's advice when I wanted to buy a house. He said if the house was so good why hasn't anyone bought it yet.
- mierz00 6y agoA little anecdote. I actually had this exact situation happen to me when I was a kid. I was walking in a crowded street just outside a shopping center and there where a bunch of $50 bills being blowed by the wind. No one was paying any attention to them so I picked one of them up. You can imagine my surprise when I realised that they were real. All in all it ended up to be roughly $3000 and my mum took the money to the police station. No one claimed it and a few months later we got to keep it.