Letter by Virgin to Vatican over Trademark Infringement
[May 5, 2015] VIA CERTIFIED MAIL
His Holiness, The Pope Frances; Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ and Sovereign of the Vatican City State The Roman Catholic Church 00120 Via del Pellegrino Citta del Vaticano
Re: Infringement of Trademark Rights of Virgin Media Group LTD.
Dear Pope Francis: This law firm represents Virgin Group, (“Virgin”) in connection with its intellectual property rights. Your use of “Virgin”, “Blessed Virgin”, “Virgin Mary” and other derivatives is a violation of Virgin Group’s common law trademark rights. This letter constitutes Virgin Group’s demand that you cease and desist use of the word “Virgin” in materials including but not limited to The Holy Bible, published Catechism and writings of The Saints. You should immediately forward this letter to your attorney.
Virgin Group offers Virginal Media and Transportation to consumers in Europe, the United States and other first world nations. Virgin Group has continually used “Virgin” (the “Marks”) as its brand name and in advertising campaigns throughout The Developed World. As a result of these efforts, Virgin Group’s customers, and the general public, have come to recognize Virgin Group as an established business marketing Virgin products.
Recently, Virgin Group became aware of your use of it's registered “Virgin” trademark, which can cause confusion relating to our brand name and dilute it's value. As you are undoubtedly aware, your spelling of the word “Virgin” is exactly the same as the spelling used in Virgin Group’s Marks.
Because of your use of “Virgin”, Virgin Group appointees have witnessed actual confusion in the market. The following incidents occurred on certain dates.
- Vinyl shoppers at Past Blast Records, inexplicably found themselves pleading for Heavenly Graces.
- During a transatlantic Virgin Air Flight, a pilot using the rest room was mistakenly assumed by some passengers to have been raptured. Worried passengers were seen offering prayers to the Virgin Mary, instead of CEO Richard Branson or other appropriate representatives of Virgin Group.
- Virgin Group sponsored a Popaloosa concert where a female festival-goer was spotted abstaining from alcohol, designer drugs and nudity. An investigation later determined that glancing at Virgin Media's corporate logo had caused the young lady to ponder the Virgin Mary, instead of Virgin Media related products.
- At this year's SXSW event, attendance was down at the Virgin Group sound-stage, even though the selection of anointed musicians was indistinguishable from other years. A Virgin Group funded audit found consumers confused by your use of our trademark “Virgin”.
Virgin Group has powers granted within Investor State Settlement agreements to enforce its legal rights. You can avoid legal action by immediately ceasing and desisting from any and all use of the terms “Virgin”, “Blessed Virgin” and “Virgin Mary”. Additionally, you must execute a copy of this letter and send it to this firm within seven (7) days of the receipt of this letter.
I recommend you consult with an attorney or higher authority before taking any action. If you or your attorney have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Sarah Dale Norvell IP LLC Intellectual Property Attorneys Offices: Northfield & Chicago
CC: Client 1 The Honourable Sir Richard Branson, Consecrated Sovereign of Virgin Group Holdings LTD
I, Pope Francis personally and on behalf of The Roman Catholic Church, agree to immediately cease and desist from any and all further use of “Virgin”, “Blessed Virgin” and “Virgin Mary”. In the event this agreement is breached by me or The Roman Catholic Church, Virgin Group shall be entitled to costs, attorney’s fees, and collection costs related to any claims and/or action brought to enforce this agreement and shall be free to pursue the forfeiture of all assets, property and membership of the Roman Catholic Church within the Holy See and other first world countries. I certify that I have the authority to enter into this agreement on behalf of The Roman Catholic Church.
By: Dated:
Both individually and on behalf of The Roman Catholic Church.
Re: Re: My kid roped me into launching a MC server
I've been part of online communities and get how it is to be integrated. That's why I haven't just powered it down.
Your advice is sound except for one thing - the average age of MC players is around 0. My staff range from 11 to 15 and some of them are pretty sharp. However, the few that wouldn't turn it into Lord of the Flies just don't have the means to host it (and maybe not the time).
re: "All that said, there are a ton of legitimate reasons to use a VPN or storage locker."
Most VPNs are in use by businesses and are critical to their operations. They're necessary to extend office networks : between different locations : to remote and mobile users : to customers and vendors who buy/sell/utilize data services.
In the US, VPNs are required by the Federal government for any number of services including Medicaid/Medicare billing and fulfilling government contracts. I'd bet Australia's government does something similar.
However, the copyright industry is more than willing to cause irreparable harm by crippling communications across industries everywhere. And for Big Copyright's purchased legislators, billions in productivity loss seems to be an acceptable price to protect millions in copyright revenue.
Hijacking the comments to note that Loretta Lynch didn't even wait for her appointment to declare that Unconstitutional Surveillance is constitutional.
Nova, will run on top of two networks T-Mobile and Sprint. It may be possible to bond the two carriers together to get much faster speeds.
I don't think so. Bonding would need both ends of both connections to terminate at the same places - 2 ends at the device, the other 2 ends at the same tower. You'd also need bonding support at each end.
Using 2 networks, I could see a performance difference if 2 apps were each saturating a connection. But even pulling that off would require the device to have some sophisticated traffic management.
"After Jeanette Rubio dropped the Senator off at a political summit, she drove too closely to a four-door Porsche Panamera which, coincidentally, belonged to a supporter of the potential 2016 presidential candidate.
She ended up sideswiping the luxury car, which has a base price of $78,000."
"Yet we still can't seem to cure partisan nitwit disease"
I run into partisan/ideology nitwit disease All. The. Stinking. Time.
Are you an ideological or partisan nitwit? Take the test and find out!
Answer the 2 following questions: 1) On some issues, Conservative Republicans are more likely to be on the right side than Liberal Democrats. 2) On some issues, Liberal Democrats are more likely to be on the right side than Conservative Republicans.
If you are unable to answer yes to both of those questions or if doing so causes severe discomfort, there's a high likelihood you are infected. Seek help immediately.
Until help arrives, employ these temporary safety measures: 1) Stop viewing cable news. 2) Immediately discard any information originating from or transiting networks owned by News Corp, GE, Westinghouse, Disney, TimeWarner or Clear Channel. 3) Cultivate a deep understanding that the two major political parties are equally good/bad for America and their primary benefactor will always be themselves. It may help to study their obvious similarities to duopolistic corporations. 4) Practice voting incumbents out of office. 5) Courageously face any animosity you feel for people you don't agree with and learn to let it go. 6) Never vote for a candidate without knowing the specific policies they'll enact while in office. 7a) Never vote for a candidate because you despise their opponent. 7b) If you consistently feel anger toward a representative you didn't vote for, your free will is likely compromised. Seek professional help. 8) Go outside and play. Enjoy the company of people with different values.
The proceeding help is brought to you by someone who cares.
I've shilled for Namecheap before here and with good reason. They're as good as registrar can be and an example of how to succeed through excellent customer service.
Don't leave your toys out in the rain. Don't loan your powertools out to drunken, homeless 5 year olds. Don't hook critical SCADA systems up to the risky Internet.
Imagine sitting in a full public Library computer room next to a frequent visitor who rarely bathes or who bathes in cologne. Patrons are having difficulty tuning out his odor. Maybe you wish the library had a rule against overly aromatic visitors.
Look there's nothing wrong if you're hygienic and have a specific set of cleaning rituals. What you can't do, however, is insist that public institutions follow your personal views just because.
Our guy may be offensive smelling to a germaphobe but not to a construction worker. Whose definition of acceptable odor do you use? And why? And what do you tell the person who isn't getting their way? Too bad, but some fragrance-free, regular bather agrees with us?
We have to be more grown up than that.
summary: The cleverly concealed point of my post is that public porners and filter queens are both examples of nitwits who lack empathy and consideration for the folks around them.
We tend to keep quiet about inappropriate behavior until it becomes safely outrageous. Maybe if we interacted with nitwits earlier, the folks running things would have fewer impossible situations to deal with.
Years ago, I registered domains with Namecheap based on recommendations from DSLR members. My experience couldn't have been better.
Awesomeness #1 is their Nameservers update immediately. It's usually seconds between me updating A records and DNS servers all over getting the update. Which leads me to . . .
Awesomeness #2 Namecheap has been accepting Dynamic Name updates from my pfSense boxes for years. That completely untethers me from any of the usual Dyn providers (that can be kind of clunky to use).
The only not-great experience tied to Namecheap wasn't even their fault but they fixed the problem anyway. Shortly after I had made a purchase at Namecheap, the purchase guarantee provider used by my bank canceled the credit cards I used because Namecheap was an "Internet company", therefore must have been a target for fraudulent purchases - ala NewEgg.
I sent Namecheap a headsup about the boneheads my bank used. Next month, Namecheap followed up that after 30 days of dialog w/ my bank, etc. - they got policy changed to make sure I wouldn't be inconvenienced again.
I can't name another company I use for anything that would go that far out of their way on my behalf.
Why people still use a craphole like GoDaddy when in-every-way-superior Namecheap is available just baffles me.
On the post: The Virgin Group Disputes Trademark Application Of Tiny Olive Oil Company Vasse Virgin Because Of Course They Did
Letter by Virgin to Vatican over Trademark Infringement
His Holiness, The Pope Frances; Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ and Sovereign of the Vatican City State
The Roman Catholic Church
00120 Via del Pellegrino
Citta del Vaticano
Re: Infringement of Trademark Rights of Virgin Media Group LTD.
Dear Pope Francis:
This law firm represents Virgin Group, (“Virgin”) in connection with its intellectual property rights. Your use of “Virgin”, “Blessed Virgin”, “Virgin Mary” and other derivatives is a violation of Virgin Group’s common law trademark rights. This letter constitutes Virgin Group’s demand that you cease and desist use of the word “Virgin” in materials including but not limited to The Holy Bible, published Catechism and writings of The Saints. You should immediately forward this letter to your attorney.
Virgin Group offers Virginal Media and Transportation to consumers in Europe, the United States and other first world nations. Virgin Group has continually used “Virgin” (the “Marks”) as its brand name and in advertising campaigns throughout The Developed World. As a result of these efforts, Virgin Group’s customers, and the general public, have come to recognize Virgin Group as an established business marketing Virgin products.
Recently, Virgin Group became aware of your use of it's registered “Virgin” trademark, which can cause confusion relating to our brand name and dilute it's value. As you are undoubtedly aware, your spelling of the word “Virgin” is exactly the same as the spelling used in Virgin Group’s Marks.
Because of your use of “Virgin”, Virgin Group appointees have witnessed actual confusion in the market.
The following incidents occurred on certain dates.
- Vinyl shoppers at Past Blast Records, inexplicably found themselves pleading for Heavenly Graces.
- During a transatlantic Virgin Air Flight, a pilot using the rest room was mistakenly assumed by some passengers to have been raptured. Worried passengers were seen offering prayers to the Virgin Mary, instead of CEO Richard Branson or other appropriate representatives of Virgin Group.
- Virgin Group sponsored a Popaloosa concert where a female festival-goer was spotted abstaining from alcohol, designer drugs and nudity.
An investigation later determined that glancing at Virgin Media's corporate logo had caused the young lady to ponder the Virgin Mary, instead of Virgin Media related products.
- At this year's SXSW event, attendance was down at the Virgin Group sound-stage, even though the selection of anointed musicians was indistinguishable from other years. A Virgin Group funded audit found consumers confused by your use of our trademark “Virgin”.
Virgin Group has powers granted within Investor State Settlement agreements to enforce its legal rights. You can avoid legal action by immediately ceasing and desisting from any and all use of the terms “Virgin”, “Blessed Virgin” and “Virgin Mary”. Additionally, you must execute a copy of this letter and send it to this firm within seven (7) days of the receipt of this letter.
I recommend you consult with an attorney or higher authority before taking any action.
If you or your attorney have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Sarah Dale
Norvell IP LLC
Intellectual Property Attorneys
Offices: Northfield & Chicago
CC: Client
1 The Honourable Sir Richard Branson, Consecrated Sovereign of Virgin Group Holdings LTD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I, Pope Francis personally and on behalf of The Roman Catholic Church, agree to immediately cease and desist from any and all further use of “Virgin”, “Blessed Virgin” and “Virgin Mary”. In the event this agreement is breached by me or The Roman Catholic Church, Virgin Group shall be entitled to costs, attorney’s fees, and collection costs related to any claims and/or action brought to enforce this agreement and shall be free to pursue the forfeiture of all assets, property and membership of the Roman Catholic Church within the Holy See and other first world countries. I certify that I have the authority to enter into this agreement on behalf of The Roman Catholic Church.
By: Dated:
Both individually and on behalf of The Roman Catholic Church.
On the post: Latest Pointless Moral Panic: Minecraft Is Ruining Our Children
Re: Re: My kid roped me into launching a MC server
Your advice is sound except for one thing - the average age of MC players is around 0.
My staff range from 11 to 15 and some of them are pretty sharp.
However, the few that wouldn't turn it into Lord of the Flies just don't have the means to host it (and maybe not the time).
On the post: Latest Pointless Moral Panic: Minecraft Is Ruining Our Children
My kid roped me into launching a MC server
Two years later I'm managing & hosting 2 Minecraft servers w/ most of 100k usernames and my kid has wandered off onto the next project.
I did my bit. I got involved with my kid playing MC and now I'm saddled with running his online community.
At least pets die eventually. I don't know how long game servers live for.
*sigh*
On the post: Australia Considers New Copyright Law That Could Be Interpreted To Ban VPNs
Vast majority of VPN use is business critical
Most VPNs are in use by businesses and are critical to their operations.
They're necessary to extend office networks
: between different locations
: to remote and mobile users
: to customers and vendors who buy/sell/utilize data services.
In the US, VPNs are required by the Federal government for any number of services including Medicaid/Medicare billing and fulfilling government contracts. I'd bet Australia's government does something similar.
However, the copyright industry is more than willing to cause irreparable harm by crippling communications across industries everywhere.
And for Big Copyright's purchased legislators, billions in productivity loss seems to be an acceptable price to protect millions in copyright revenue.
On the post: Netflix Moving To Encrypted Streams, As Mozilla Moves To Deprecate Unencrypted Web Pages As Insecure
sidebar: Most VoIP is unencrypted
However, most carriers use unencrypted RTP to carry the content of the call.
On the post: Sheriffs' Association Urges 'Investigation' Of Assistant Attorney General Nominee For Her Pro-Drug Legalization Comments
http://www.newsweek.com/ag-nom-lynch-dodges-republican-questions-defends-obamas-execu tive-action-nsa-302812
On the post: The Many Ways In Which A Google-Powered Mobile Network Could Be A Game Changer
Not how that works.
I don't think so.
Bonding would need both ends of both connections to terminate at the same places - 2 ends at the device, the other 2 ends at the same tower.
You'd also need bonding support at each end.
Using 2 networks, I could see a performance difference if 2 apps were each saturating a connection.
But even pulling that off would require the device to have some sophisticated traffic management.
On the post: Rep. Jared Polis Calls For 24 Hour Surveillance On Senator Marco Rubio
Sen Rubio's wife sideswipes a Porche
She ended up sideswiping the luxury car, which has a base price of $78,000."
If only we had total surveillance, surely this tragedy would have been prevented.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/01/28/marco-rubio-wife-in-minor-car-accident-cr ashes-into-porsche/
On the post: New Michigan FOIA Caps Per Page Fees, Drops Costs Further If Agencies Miss Response Deadlines
"The police report was some 2,000 pages"
"This cap would turn $1800 into about $20.00"
*Reload MathEngine and try again*
On the post: Hey, Just A Silly Thought: Maybe It's Time We Stop Letting Comcast And AT&T Write State Telecom Law?
"Yet we still can't seem to cure partisan nitwit disease"
Are you an ideological or partisan nitwit? Take the test and find out!
Answer the 2 following questions:
1) On some issues, Conservative Republicans are more likely to be on the right side than Liberal Democrats.
2) On some issues, Liberal Democrats are more likely to be on the right side than Conservative Republicans.
If you are unable to answer yes to both of those questions or if doing so causes severe discomfort, there's a high likelihood you are infected.
Seek help immediately.
Until help arrives, employ these temporary safety measures:
1) Stop viewing cable news.
2) Immediately discard any information originating from or transiting networks owned by News Corp, GE, Westinghouse, Disney, TimeWarner or Clear Channel.
3) Cultivate a deep understanding that the two major political parties are equally good/bad for America and their primary benefactor will always be themselves. It may help to study their obvious similarities to duopolistic corporations.
4) Practice voting incumbents out of office.
5) Courageously face any animosity you feel for people you don't agree with and learn to let it go.
6) Never vote for a candidate without knowing the specific policies they'll enact while in office.
7a) Never vote for a candidate because you despise their opponent.
7b) If you consistently feel anger toward a representative you didn't vote for, your free will is likely compromised. Seek professional help.
8) Go outside and play. Enjoy the company of people with different values.
The proceeding help is brought to you by someone who cares.
On the post: Hey, Just A Silly Thought: Maybe It's Time We Stop Letting Comcast And AT&T Write State Telecom Law?
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Tomorrow Is Move Your Domain Day: Support The EFF And Get A Year For Free
Namecheap - terrific registrar
They're as good as registrar can be and an example of how to succeed through excellent customer service.
I wouldn't go anywhere else.
On the post: How Florida Police Falsely Arrest & Shame Men As Child Sexual Predators, Steal Their Cars... Then Try To Hide The Records
FDLE guidelines for ensuring seizure success
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/131365NCJRS.pdf
On the post: Cyberattack Results In Physical Damage To German Steel Mill's Blast Furnance
Re: Why
Don't leave your toys out in the rain.
Don't loan your powertools out to drunken, homeless 5 year olds.
Don't hook critical SCADA systems up to the risky Internet.
On the post: Librarians Are Continuing To Defend Open Access To The Web As A Public Service
Patrons are having difficulty tuning out his odor. Maybe you wish the library had a rule against overly aromatic visitors.
Look there's nothing wrong if you're hygienic and have a specific set of cleaning rituals.
What you can't do, however, is insist that public institutions follow your personal views just because.
Our guy may be offensive smelling to a germaphobe but not to a construction worker.
Whose definition of acceptable odor do you use? And why?
And what do you tell the person who isn't getting their way? Too bad, but some fragrance-free, regular bather agrees with us?
We have to be more grown up than that.
summary:
The cleverly concealed point of my post is that public porners and filter queens are both examples of nitwits who lack empathy and consideration for the folks around them.
We tend to keep quiet about inappropriate behavior until it becomes safely outrageous.
Maybe if we interacted with nitwits earlier, the folks running things would have fewer impossible situations to deal with.
On the post: Illinois Woman Files For Trademark On Phrase 'I Can't Breathe' Because This Is America Damn It
On the post: Leaked Emails Reveal MPAA Plans To Pay Elected Officials To Attack Google
Re: MPAA won't suffer a thing over this
On the post: Leaked Emails Reveal MPAA Plans To Pay Elected Officials To Attack Google
MPAA won't suffer a thing over this
It's cute because there won't be in the news. The US Legacy Press isn't about to hold their content buddies accountable for anything.
Same goes for their partners in Gov.
On the post: Thanks To Namecheap For Sponsoring Techdirt's Switch To SSL
I'm here to shill for Namecheap
Awesomeness #1 is their Nameservers update immediately. It's usually seconds between me updating A records and DNS servers all over getting the update. Which leads me to . . .
Awesomeness #2 Namecheap has been accepting Dynamic Name updates from my pfSense boxes for years. That completely untethers me from any of the usual Dyn providers (that can be kind of clunky to use).
The only not-great experience tied to Namecheap wasn't even their fault but they fixed the problem anyway.
Shortly after I had made a purchase at Namecheap, the purchase guarantee provider used by my bank canceled the credit cards I used because Namecheap was an "Internet company", therefore must have been a target for fraudulent purchases - ala NewEgg.
I sent Namecheap a headsup about the boneheads my bank used.
Next month, Namecheap followed up that after 30 days of dialog w/ my bank, etc. - they got policy changed to make sure I wouldn't be inconvenienced again.
I can't name another company I use for anything that would go that far out of their way on my behalf.
Why people still use a craphole like GoDaddy when in-every-way-superior Namecheap is available just baffles me.
On the post: Small Change To National Archivist's Powers May Keep Government Agencies From Destroying Embarrassing Documents
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