Jobs cleared to raze mansion as Ive loses domain name battle
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has again been given the go-ahead to demolish his moldering mansion in the Woodside hills. Meanwhile, Apple design chief Jonathan Ive has lost a court battle to stop a crazed fan from using his likeness in a series of domain names.
Jobs OK'd to raze mansion
The MercuryNews is reporting that Steve Jobs can move forward with a decade-long initiative to tear down his 17,250-square-foot Spanish revival mansion in California's Woodside hills following a vote of 6 to 1 in his favor during a local council meeting on Tuesday.
Only Mayor Peter Mason, a licensed architect who has reportedly done historic preservation work, opposed Jobs' motion, saying he's troubled by the number of historic properties in the area that are being demolished rather than restored.
"It's an unfortunate thing that Mr. Jobs doesn't like the house," he said. "It's really sad that we're going to continue to tear down historic resources in this town because they're old."
Last year, Jobs submitted a revised permit application to the council showing it would cost approximately $5 million more to restore sprawling mansion built in 1929 for copper mining mogul Daniel Jackling than it would to raze it and construct a smaller home for his family.
Jobs purchased the blown-out mansion in the early 1980s and lived there -- sometimes eating his evening meals on the floor -- for about 10 years before renting it out and then leaving it to deteriorate.
AppleInsider recently posted an extensive photo gallery of the house taken a couple of years ago by a photographer that stumbled onto the property to find its gates, windows and doors wide open.
Ive loses bid to take over domain names
Meanwhile, Jobs' long-time design chief friend Jonathan Ive wasn't as fortunate in one of his own legal battles this month.
Bloomberg reports that the World Intellectual Property Organization denied his claim to block London resident and fan Harry Jones from using his name in a series of four domain names, including jonathanive.com and jonyive.com.
According to WIPO's domain name dispute resolution process, Ive would have had to show proof that his trademark rights were at risk in order to gain control of the domain names. However, a WIPO panel found that the evidence provided by Ive "indicates that the complainant (and Apple Inc.) do not promote the complainant?s name as a brand or trademark, and therefore do not use it in trade or commerce."
For his part, Jones claims to have first started jonathanive.com to pay homage to the designer as part of a project when he was in college five years ago. Though the site was never meant for profit, it grew over the years to receive hundreds of thousands of hits. Two years later, he came under pressure from Apple to surrender the domain names, as he explained in a recent post to the site:
In April 2006, Apple Inc. spoke to me to ask me to post a disclaimer saying that I had no links with Apple or with Jonathan Ive. I did so here, and Apple Inc. approved of the content of the website.
In February 2008 another Apple Inc. employee got in touch and I was put under great pressure to give up my website. That Apple employee offered me an iPod (and later a Macbook) in exchange. This upset me, as I had spent a tremendous amount of time building and maintaining the website. When I declined the offer, I was told I must name a sales price if I did not want to face litigation. I reacted emotionally to the pressure, and gave a high price of US$ 400,000 to dissuade harassment. I had no desire or intention to sell my website to Apple Inc.
I would be happy to reach an amicable solution with Jonathan Ive. I have told his lawyers this and that I would be pleased to discuss this matter with him in person and to try any process that would allow an amicable settlement of this matter (e.g., mediation). I have received no response to this request so far.
As regular readers will know, I have the utmost respect for Jonathan and am one of his biggest supporters. I just want to be left alone to carry on running this website, and I hope you will continue to enjoy reading it.
As part of his complaint with WIPO?s arbitration and mediation center, Ive claimed that he is a "very private person" who has turned down all sorts of offers outside Apple to design cars, cameras and movie sets.
"My reputation has been established by the work I do, not through self-publicity. I do not usually give interviews ? I seek to avoid publicity," he said, noting that the few pieces of notable work he's done outside Apple included "designing a character in a Pixar/Disney computer animated movie ?Wall-e? and designing a book cover."
For those interested, the Wall-e character conceived by Ive was Wall-e's girl pal Eve.
Jobs OK'd to raze mansion
The MercuryNews is reporting that Steve Jobs can move forward with a decade-long initiative to tear down his 17,250-square-foot Spanish revival mansion in California's Woodside hills following a vote of 6 to 1 in his favor during a local council meeting on Tuesday.
Only Mayor Peter Mason, a licensed architect who has reportedly done historic preservation work, opposed Jobs' motion, saying he's troubled by the number of historic properties in the area that are being demolished rather than restored.
"It's an unfortunate thing that Mr. Jobs doesn't like the house," he said. "It's really sad that we're going to continue to tear down historic resources in this town because they're old."
Last year, Jobs submitted a revised permit application to the council showing it would cost approximately $5 million more to restore sprawling mansion built in 1929 for copper mining mogul Daniel Jackling than it would to raze it and construct a smaller home for his family.
Jobs purchased the blown-out mansion in the early 1980s and lived there -- sometimes eating his evening meals on the floor -- for about 10 years before renting it out and then leaving it to deteriorate.
AppleInsider recently posted an extensive photo gallery of the house taken a couple of years ago by a photographer that stumbled onto the property to find its gates, windows and doors wide open.
Ive loses bid to take over domain names
Meanwhile, Jobs' long-time design chief friend Jonathan Ive wasn't as fortunate in one of his own legal battles this month.
Bloomberg reports that the World Intellectual Property Organization denied his claim to block London resident and fan Harry Jones from using his name in a series of four domain names, including jonathanive.com and jonyive.com.
According to WIPO's domain name dispute resolution process, Ive would have had to show proof that his trademark rights were at risk in order to gain control of the domain names. However, a WIPO panel found that the evidence provided by Ive "indicates that the complainant (and Apple Inc.) do not promote the complainant?s name as a brand or trademark, and therefore do not use it in trade or commerce."
For his part, Jones claims to have first started jonathanive.com to pay homage to the designer as part of a project when he was in college five years ago. Though the site was never meant for profit, it grew over the years to receive hundreds of thousands of hits. Two years later, he came under pressure from Apple to surrender the domain names, as he explained in a recent post to the site:
In April 2006, Apple Inc. spoke to me to ask me to post a disclaimer saying that I had no links with Apple or with Jonathan Ive. I did so here, and Apple Inc. approved of the content of the website.
In February 2008 another Apple Inc. employee got in touch and I was put under great pressure to give up my website. That Apple employee offered me an iPod (and later a Macbook) in exchange. This upset me, as I had spent a tremendous amount of time building and maintaining the website. When I declined the offer, I was told I must name a sales price if I did not want to face litigation. I reacted emotionally to the pressure, and gave a high price of US$ 400,000 to dissuade harassment. I had no desire or intention to sell my website to Apple Inc.
I would be happy to reach an amicable solution with Jonathan Ive. I have told his lawyers this and that I would be pleased to discuss this matter with him in person and to try any process that would allow an amicable settlement of this matter (e.g., mediation). I have received no response to this request so far.
As regular readers will know, I have the utmost respect for Jonathan and am one of his biggest supporters. I just want to be left alone to carry on running this website, and I hope you will continue to enjoy reading it.
As part of his complaint with WIPO?s arbitration and mediation center, Ive claimed that he is a "very private person" who has turned down all sorts of offers outside Apple to design cars, cameras and movie sets.
"My reputation has been established by the work I do, not through self-publicity. I do not usually give interviews ? I seek to avoid publicity," he said, noting that the few pieces of notable work he's done outside Apple included "designing a character in a Pixar/Disney computer animated movie ?Wall-e? and designing a book cover."
For those interested, the Wall-e character conceived by Ive was Wall-e's girl pal Eve.
Comments
They always say they are "fans" but at the end of the day the only entities they hurt are those they are supposedly fans of. They also always want money when it comes right down to it.
This went on long enough. The man is entitled to build the house of his choice and left alone. Life is short enough.
Steve Jobs better hurry and take down that old house before some other nut gets an injunction. He could order it wrecked over night. Does he need any more permits?
This went on long enough. The man is entitled to build the house of his choice and left alone. Life is short enough.
He needs a demolition permit which the town is supposedly drawing up now.
As regular readers will know, I have the utmost respect for Jonathan and am one of his biggest supporters.
Reading this, the picture I had was of Buddy from "The Incredibles".
"I'm you're number one fan!!!"
Yeah, I'm sure Mr. Ive is flattered nearly as much as he's creeped out by that kind of complement.
Both stories - utter nonsense. Not worth my commenting on.
Then I obviously can't be troubled to comment on your non-comment.
Then I obviously can't be troubled to comment on your non-comment.
Steve Jobs better hurry and take down that old house before some other nut gets an injunction. He could order it wrecked over night. Does he need any more permits?
This went on long enough. The man is entitled to build the house of his choice and left alone. Life is short enough.
I'm glad he won and I think he has the right to do with the house what he wants, but I hope he saves the organ and some of the other stuff inside before he tears it down. Irreplaceable things like that should always be saved if possible.
I can't believe SJ bought that old, ugly, beat down, claustrophobic "mansion", and actually lived in it.
It was actually a perfectly fine house before Steve walked away from it and allowed it to fall into ruin, and its architectural significance is not a matter of dispute.
It was actually a perfectly fine house before Steve walked away from it and allowed it to fall into ruin, and its architectural significance is not a matter of dispute.
I don't know that you are that accurate. Some of the information actually makes it look like that they started doing the asbestos removal and halted. Once you start opening walls up on a place like that, you are always in for a surprise. Then you end up with the question if you should dump more money in to try and fix up everything or just start over. Obviously the "start over" won out.
Word of warning to AI, calling this domain squatter a "crazed fan" could open you up to a libel lawsuit. You might want to reconsider your choice of words.
AI could just say they meant "crazed" as a term of flattery and honor.
Cudos to the photographer...those were some nice creepy pics of that old house..... Great work.
It was actually a perfectly fine house before Steve walked away from it and allowed it to fall into ruin, and its architectural significance is not a matter of dispute.
"Perfectly fine" or not, it can't be replaced and I have my doubts about the decision (though none of us know the full story).
What bothers me more is this:
sometimes eating his evening meals on the floor
Get a PLATE! Jeesh.
AI could just say they meant "crazed" as a term of flattery and honor.
Or that he just has a miriad of tiny cracks and scratches all over his body?
Both stories - utter nonsense. Not worth my commenting on.
I am upset. You couldn't come up with a great comment?