Roxio Threatens Developer Over 'Easy CD' Use

Staking its claim on the term "Easy CD" Roxio has sent the legal hounds after Poikosoft, maker of Easy CD-DA Extractor - a title which Roxio claims is "confusingly similar" to its own trademarked Easy CD Creator. Roxio first contacted Poikosoft, a one-man company named after its Finnish founder Jukka Poikolainen, last October and demanded the name of Easy CD-DA Extractor be changed within thirty days.

"We do not need to show actual confusion, only the likelihood of confusion, to stop this infringing use," Roxio's lawyers wrote in a letter. "If you refuse, we are instructed by Roxio to take all necessary steps to protect its trademark and prevent confusion, including filing suit for trademark infringement...If we are forced to bring suit, we will ask for injunctive relief, damages, and attorneys' fees."

"I will not change the name of my software. The name is known in MP3 communities as a quality CD ripper because of the hard work I have put into it," Poikolainen told BetaNews. Poikolainen is confident because he is not the only developer using the "Easy CD" moniker, as it is utilized in numerous other freeware and shareware titles. But Roxio says "it appears that the CD Extractor software product is designed to perform the same functions as Roxio's Easy CD Creator," which puts Poikosoft directly in the company's sights.

Poikolainen attempted to contact Roxio to explain that his product performs a different task than Easy CD Creator, but did not receive a response. Easy CD-DA Extractor was designed to copy CD audio to a hard disk and encode the audio into compressed formats such as MP3. Easy CD Creator on the other hand was designed to create audio, video and data CDs, although recent versions of the software contain the ability to also convert songs to MP3.

Dates could prove to be a hindrance for Roxio, as Easy CD-DA Extractor was first released in February 1998, months before Easy CD Creator 4 made its debut with limited MP3 support. Roxio also did not register its trademark with the European Union until August 2001.

Poikolainen says he was surprised to receive the legal threat because Adaptec -- the parent company from which Roxio split in September 2000 -- had previously requested he remove instructions for installing ASPI drivers, but made no complaint about the name of his product.

The letter, which first surfaced on the CD-RW.org Web site, additionally demands Poikolainen cease offering downloads of his products via ZDNet and CNET - even after complying with a name change. Poikolainen sees such a requirement as punishment since Roxio itself does not offer its software for download, thus any chance of confusion is highly unlikely.

Roxio recently settled a dispute with CDDB owner Gracenote for access to the online database of album listings. Gracenote filed suit against Roxio over royalties and Roxio then countersued, attacking Gracenote for "attempting to misappropriate and monopolize access to public information."

Roxio did not respond to requests for comment, but told The Register that it had not yet decided whether to go forward with the case. "I don't think they have a case," said Poikolainen.