Tbh it's more likely that Microsoft offered MineCraft Consulting a pretty penny for the domain, as they wouldn't have any legal basis for pursuing a court ordered takedown. Cheaper and easier to just buy the domain off them as they clearly weren't using it to its full potential anyway
Everyone who dealt with MarkMonitor before knows that they don’t do this. I got a domain stolen by them too, and had no chance to argue against them. The domain registrar also didn’t offer me a chance to object. Fuck tucows and MM.
I still found it funny that an consulting company had the same domain name as the game minecraft. It's a shame that they had to give up on that domain. It was very funny not gonna lie.
@@letsgetto1millwithoutvids yeah I mean from their perspective they saw a game that kept growing in popularity so similar to stock trading, they probably just waited until it got popular enough to max the gains from from selling the domain
In all likelihood Microsoft probably offered Minecraft Consulting a large sum of money. And the firm didn't want to budge, but as time went on got tired of dealing with it. So they ultimately accepted the offer.
My theory is that Minecraft Consulting wanted to hold onto it for as long as possible for the sake of selling it later at a higher price, coupled with good old Australian shitposting
I certainly hope that Minecraft consulting wasn’t threatened to force them to give it up, and they were actually compensated fairly. Surely Microsoft would have no legal basis to demand the domain be handed over
Even with no legal basis, you can still sue people into poverty if you have enough cash yourself to keep the case running for long enough. Just look at for example Karl Jobst, an Australian youtuber, who got sued by Billy Mitchell and how much that cost him, even when the lawsuit was complete bogus. On a related note look up SLAPP suits, they work the same way, scare victims into doing what you want with huge bogus lawsuits that costs then a TON of money just to defend themself (which many can't afford).
Huh, the children really do yearn for the mines... Also I love the fact a company can just legally bully people into giving up something they rightfully own, solely because they now own something that shares the same name
@@yeetandskeet big corps like Microsoft can definitely do what they please. They have the money and resources to “convince” government officials in going in their favor.
i mean... surely they would be able to at least wiggle their way into a shitload of cash for a domain name that's not nearly as valuable for them as it is for microsoft/minecraft, literally game #1
Hi @SalC1 one point you missed in this is that MineCraft is part of the Glencore group - a company which would rank at the same level as Microsoft on global power.
The really interesting part of this story is the site changing to game reviews! Would love to know what the hell that was all about. Enjoyable topic this one Sal.
Could it be that the game review thing was just a hack to deface the website? Since minecraft was getting popular then, i think it's possible that people just started attacking the website just to troll
MineCraft Consulting presumably has a legal trademark on MineCraft in Australia in the domain of, idk, engineering consultation, so they couldn't just be totally forced to hand over the domain. More than likely they just got paid to hand it over.
That's the thing with the legal system. If you have a lot of money, you generally don't need to be right to get what you want. Just the threat of a long, drawn-out, and especially expensive legal battle, can be enough.
I think MineCraft Consulting should have been able to keep their domain. They owned it way before Minecraft was a game, and they were using it for a little while before Microsoft was even involved in Minecraft. MineCraft Consulting should have gotten original ownership priority or something because they owned it for such a long period of time before the game was even made Edit: grammar mistakes, screw you comments >:(
It's understandable that you may feel that MineCraft Consulting should have been able to keep their domain if they had owned it before the game Minecraft was created. In domain name disputes, there are often different opinions on what is fair and just. One of the principles of domain name registration is the "first-come, first-served" rule, which means that the person or organization that registers a domain name first generally has the right to use it, as long as it doesn't infringe on any trademarks or copyrights. However, situations like this can be complex, and the best course of action depends on the specific circumstances. For instance, if MineCraft Consulting was using the domain in good faith and not causing any confusion with the game Minecraft, they could have a strong case to keep their domain. In practice, many domain disputes are resolved through negotiation, as it can be more efficient and cost-effective than pursuing legal action. If Microsoft and MineCraft Consulting reached an agreement for the domain transfer, it is possible that both parties felt the outcome was fair. In any case, it's important to remember that the interests of businesses and individuals should be balanced, and domain name disputes should be resolved in a way that respects the rights of all parties involved.
This is one of the main reasons I love the internet. So many small and highly interesting pieces of history and things that are just there somewhere for us to find and document. Great video as usual mate.
My opinion is that the consulting firm should have been allowed to keep the domain. Yes, it was neglected and deliberately used poorly for many years, they did end up using it 'properly' well before the Microsoft buyout. That's not even considering it was acquired before Minecraft was a thing at all. 0% chance it was intentionally domain-squatted, but maybe opportunistically at worst - which I don't really think is the case anyways. I like to imagine if they weren't based out of AU, it would be potentially damaging for the business. I don't think there's a '.country' for America, and having to sacrifice the domain would suck. Really, though, for the average person them losing the domain is probably for the best. Minecraft is so well known even outside of gaming communities, that if they just had a website called minecraftconsulting or something it wouldn't seem out of place, and it would prevent the most incorrect website visits. I'd bet 99% of people who accidentally visited the consulting website had no use for it, so there was no business opportunity by having extra traffic. (compared to something like, let's say, a hobby store that stocks things for arts, crafts, and yardwork?) Nice video, Sal.
Yes, there's no country code top-level domain for America because America is not a country. But there is a country code top-level domain for the United States (.us)
I doubt they were forced to. They had no legal reason to, they had the name king before the game. It’s more likely the website was just bought from Microsoft
@@k327dev you know what else isn't a country? Mexico (Mexican United States), Brazil (Federative Republic of Brazil), China (Popular Republic of China) and, of course AmERicA (United States of America). Don't play dumb, man, America is literally an abbreviation, just like any other country name, so you don't need to call it fully.
I live in Australia, so when I first saw this as a kid I assumed they'd replaced minecraft with some random mining business and got super confused when I could google minecraft and get the correct website. Interesting to see that they did finally buy it out, I thought the domain was still up, but maybe I get redirected to the australian version because it makes more sense.
Aaand my reply is gone… Again 😔 Not after half a minute but more like after half an hour now. YT gets more and more sneaky when it comes to deleting people's comments. It's freakin' disgusting
@@sneakin. Honestly, i don't think i will, i was like 2 min in and it already felt like highly stretched out video of people finding out "Minecraft" was an actual word before it being a kids game so i left.
Tldr: local Australian mining-consulting company has same name as best selling videogame years before it came out and multi-Trillion dollar corporation bullies them into selling their domain name.
my guess is they got rid of it because the bandwidth bill was killing them. My guess is putting their site up on it was a sort of test they let run for a while to see if the exposure would counter the hosting bill. It probably didn't quarter over quarter, so they made the offer to microsoft, took a fair payout, and both sides signed nondisclosure agreements because that's just pro forma.
I doubt Microsoft forced them into giving up their domain, otherwise they would've done so years ago. I really can't imagine the lawyers being able to do anything when the consulting company literally came first and bought the domain first as well. It was probably a long negotiation that resulted in the mining company selling the domain for an insane price.
Maybe that is why it took so long, Microsoft tried to buy it many years earlier but the Mining company held their grounds on a steep price tag, Microsoft ended up caving and just buying it. This is what I think happened.
@@thephoenixking1086 microsoft has enough money to just send lawsuit after lawsuit for any number of reasons even if those reasons arent valid. and for each one the company has to send someone to go and refute the lawsuit costing them time and money. so eventually they ended up just giving up and caving to microsoft
I can definitely see a scenario where MineCraft consulting realized the value held in their domain name and simply held out selling that domain until Microsoft was willing to pay them some big money for it. A figure like, say $10m, is next to nothing to a massive corporation like Microsoft, but $10m could mean bonuses and raises for all employees, a brand new office building and a state of the art website for a smaller consulting company like MineCraft. They likely weren't forced to give the domain up, they just were waiting for Microsoft to offer them something worth their while.
You would be surprised….. A company like that probably makes around 100 million a year. Mining consulting is no joke. I hope they got a lot more than 10 million lol
My kids keep talking about Minecraft. This video helped me understand what they mean. So weird how they talk about their consulting services all the time.
My guess is that their company didn’t really have a large IT team and they had one guy doing all of the work so they have a website and he turned out to be a gamer and used the uptick in traffic to cater to the visitors for a while before taking it down and planning strategical changes at the right times to make bank off of microsoft
While it’s unfortunate they lost their original domain, the (what I hope was a) transaction helps both sides, as it prevents excessive bandwidth usage for MineCraft consulting, and helps Minecraft players get to the website they’re trying to get to. Also, there’s no possible way the company was domain squatting, cause I’m a 100% sure they weren’t making any money off of the Minecraft players accessing the site
It's actually insane to me that I started playing Minecraft in 2012 and, to my memory at least, I have _never_ heard of this in my life until this day.
I have always wondered about this mysterious site. I first stumbled upon it when I was trying to go to the Minecraft website at school. I was so confused but I didn’t think to explore it further like you. Good job!
Now we need someone to book a Genuine appointment with them and talk about the game hah, SOMEONE has to do this (as 1 - It proves if they are indeed legit and 2 - it is a bit of fun, they get paid either way so it is not like they are losing out).
I remember this, I also remember some people held mw3 domain (before it was even announced) and asked Activision a lot of money for it and free copies of the game.
Why assume Microsoft was suing them for it? Any competent lawyer would realise that is a very hard case to make given the age and maturity of the domain name.
Bro it would be fair if Minecraft consulting still had this domain because their company and website excisted BEFORE the game Minecraft was even a thing.
7:31 they were fully aware of the domains value after 2011, but never wanted to sell because they didn't know how to monetize it. Cue a back-channel drama where lawyers try to bully a company,, until they give up and offer absurd money in return for the domain and an non-disclosure agreement, [allegedly]. I wonder why they never replied to your e-mail 🤔
Microsoft 100% forced them to do that. They obviously wanted to keep the domain, but you know, it’s Microsoft. You ain’t beating them no matter how in the right you are
Yup, Just like how the UK is trying to ban them from buying Activision, so someone made the joke that Microsoft will just Ban XBOX in the UK then. The thing is, Microsoft is Microsoft so this joke is not so much of a JOKE anymore and may infact hold some credence.
@@Sivanot well, when you have hella expensive and "good" (shady) lawyers and are a company worth billions and spent said billions to purchase a game I think you can some way or another find a legal loophole. One way that I have thought about is that they can use the argument that they for a few years didn't use their website for their company and instead used it to gain free views on their review site hence cybersquatting.
@@Sivanot The thing about companies like Microsoft with effectively infinite money is that even without any real legal basis, they can still just keep filing suit over and over forever and MineCraft consulting has to show up every time to get it dismissed, which costs money and wastes time, and Microsoft can just do that until they give up
microsoft better have paid fairly for the domain name. minecraft consulting had both the company name and the website first, doesnt matter if microsoft and the game are bigger and better known wouldnt be surprised if they bullied them out of it tho
Sorta, but I think something to consider is that most of the time that minecraft consulting owned the domain they didn't even use it for their company's site, and at one point even just used it to host game reviews unrelated to the company. In this sense, it is a little selfish to hold onto the domain.
I remember getting confused but immediately finding it hilarious once I saw it was a company. Maybe they can offer me diamond mining consulting. It is their craft, after all.
im pretty sure you cant sue a company for having the same name as long as its in different industries. Its why Mitsubishi the car company and Mitsubishi Pencil co can both exist
Let the mining company keep it. If I owned the mining company I would have simply put at the top of the page "If you're looking for the block game, click here, other than that we're a company who specializes in..."
I dont think its that confusing or complicated. The info you provided already says it all. It probably seems like the company just got the site early on, but used their AU site for trust and reliability for its domestic customer base. They probalby forgot or didn't care to much about the main siste, but held on to it for future plans. I bet those game reviews started happening because of an uptick of traffic due to minecrafts popularity. Somebody there probably found out the site was getting an influx of traffic due to minecrafts popularity blow up. People likely contacted them to complain or rant about their site not being minecraft game related. They probably thought it was a great business venture to try out, and write game reviews if the traffic is mainly peopl ewho are coming for the minecraft game. Obviously they didn't konw anything aobut the gaming industry and didn't put to much effort. Them reverting to using the site is pretty easy to see that they saw what was happening. That they were going to get sued for the domain name if they didn't actually use it. So they started making it more official for their company. I think it was just fortunate for them that they did this a bit before minecraft being bought out by microsoft. I doubt microsoft had to battle hard and likely just paid off the company for the domain name. It is interseting to see that you coverd this. Would have been a piece of minecraft history that would have been forgotton. Now that info is immortallized here.
Would have been nice if they kept it. Sure some kids might get confused, but if they can't learn the difference soon enough then that's on them. If the actual MineCraft owned it first, they should have been able to keep it.
They would have had no legal grounds to force the mining business to give it up since they owned the website years before Minecraft the game even existed.
Definitely. And it's also very much explained in a way to make us side with Minecraft the game, with no understanding or exploration of the mining company's side.
@@SalC1 oh also whilst rewatching so I can actually do this spotted an error at 4:48. He's a father of a two year old as it says on screen, not father of two as you said aloud.
@@SalC1 You know better how to make videos. I admit that. But we can still try to give constructive critisism when something bothers us about the video. For example the intro felt very repetetive, I remember looking down at the time around 1 minute feeling as if not much had been said at all. And the section saying first that Notch may or may not have attempted getting the site and then Mojang alone may or may not have done the same could easily be summarized to "Before Microsoft acquired Minecraft it's unclear whether there was any attempt at taking over the website." Instead I would have loved to see more information about the mining company. For example that its website claims that it is doing business internationally or that its Linkedin says it has 2-10 employees and specialises on underground coal mining (not the big machines you showed).
I think personally, that MineCraft AU should have been able to keep it, or at least should have come to some fair agreement because with how the world is now and how much is online, first call first dibs is how this should be. Not some billion dollar company trying to gobble up any domain that could even possibly relate to it.
My guess is that MarkMonitor just used a bot to claim the domain when it expired before the Aussies had a chance to. That would kinda suck for MineCraft Consulting, as they wouldn't get any payout, but it is almost certainly the route they took as there is little to no legal precedent for domain squatting.
Brings a new meaning to 'my dad works at Minecraft'
Hhahahhaa
that actually made me laugh
🤣
It sounds better than working with the Nigerian Gasoline company. According to urban legend,someone did a shortening of the name. :]
@@wolfsokaya Nig-Gas?
Tbh it's more likely that Microsoft offered MineCraft Consulting a pretty penny for the domain, as they wouldn't have any legal basis for pursuing a court ordered takedown. Cheaper and easier to just buy the domain off them as they clearly weren't using it to its full potential anyway
microsoft is definitely using minecraft.com to its full potential by just turning it into a redirect to minecraft.net
@@epearl_tv I mean, for their purposes, yeah that's basically the exact thing they need it for.
@@epearl_tv what did you expect? A different Minecraft site?
Everyone who dealt with MarkMonitor before knows that they don’t do this. I got a domain stolen by them too, and had no chance to argue against them. The domain registrar also didn’t offer me a chance to object. Fuck tucows and MM.
It's Microsoft. They almost seem to try to find the most evil way of achieving their goals.
I remember going to this site as a kid, felt like a jump scare at the time.
One of those: 'don't play this game at 3 am' stuff lol.
Man I mis childhood
Same
mine consulting jumpscare
what
@@scattagain Mine consulting moment
"So, where do you work?"
"Minecraft."
"Oh, so you're a Mojang employee?"
"...No."
I need consulting about my mining business, Minecraft does a good job
"So you made your wealth from Mojang?"
"Na mate, mining"
"Oh so way more than Mojang?"
"Yeah mate"
"the hell is mojang"
Bruh. I read the whole other side of the conversation in an Australian accent
@@jonavene12Everyone did
I still found it funny that an consulting company had the same domain name as the game minecraft.
It's a shame that they had to give up on that domain. It was very funny not gonna lie.
They hadn't expected a game name using minecraft with the website. Probably caused chaos as they didn't know how much fame the game got.
They probably didnt give it up as microsoft wouldnt have a leg to stand on so microsoft probably bought it from them for a pretty penny
@@letsgetto1millwithoutvids yeah I mean from their perspective they saw a game that kept growing in popularity so similar to stock trading, they probably just waited until it got popular enough to max the gains from from selling the domain
@@Jwellsuhhuh
That sounds very reasonable.
@@Jwellsuhhuh well I think they genuinely wanted to keep the name and domain plus that's pretty hard to prove those intentions
In all likelihood Microsoft probably offered Minecraft Consulting a large sum of money. And the firm didn't want to budge, but as time went on got tired of dealing with it. So they ultimately accepted the offer.
My theory is that Minecraft Consulting wanted to hold onto it for as long as possible for the sake of selling it later at a higher price, coupled with good old Australian shitposting
1¹1111111111¹111111¹1¹1111111111¹1
@@belnonaodh1520 1¹11¹¹¹11¹111111111¹111111
@@belnonaodh1520 111¹¹¹1¹1¹1¹¹1111¹1¹¹1
@@belnonaodh1520 11111111111111¹111111111
I certainly hope that Minecraft consulting wasn’t threatened to force them to give it up, and they were actually compensated fairly. Surely Microsoft would have no legal basis to demand the domain be handed over
Bold of you to assume Microsoft didn't pay the courts to make the company give up the domain without them paying them anything
it's microsoft, they will buy the entire australian political system to come up on top
microsoft is a shitty company, don't feel bad about them, never
Even with no legal basis, you can still sue people into poverty if you have enough cash yourself to keep the case running for long enough.
Just look at for example Karl Jobst, an Australian youtuber, who got sued by Billy Mitchell and how much that cost him, even when the lawsuit was complete bogus.
On a related note look up SLAPP suits, they work the same way, scare victims into doing what you want with huge bogus lawsuits that costs then a TON of money just to defend themself (which many can't afford).
@@SawyerWX That's not how the US legal system works. It isn't Romania.
@@MikeSturgeon22 If you think corruption isn't a thing in every country you're very naive.
That minecraft consulting worker/father using the domain to review his favorite games is honestly so wholesome
Wow.
Yeah!
Huh, the children really do yearn for the mines...
Also I love the fact a company can just legally bully people into giving up something they rightfully own, solely because they now own something that shares the same name
We don't know that they forced them
They prob just bought it off them
They cant, it was likely paid for
@@yeetandskeet big corps like Microsoft can definitely do what they please. They have the money and resources to “convince” government officials in going in their favor.
i mean... surely they would be able to at least wiggle their way into a shitload of cash for a domain name that's not nearly as valuable for them as it is for microsoft/minecraft, literally game #1
Hi @SalC1 one point you missed in this is that MineCraft is part of the Glencore group - a company which would rank at the same level as Microsoft on global power.
@nezuai also what was the point of the video game review site portion? Just kinda glanced over that detail. Seems like the most interesting part.
Yep, I've worked with some people from the company in the coal industry
@@sidelkinsprobably either a test or someone at the company using it as a personal site
it was only up for a short time so both are possible
Microsoft wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Glencore and Freeport's cobalt
😮@@myalt3019
The really interesting part of this story is the site changing to game reviews! Would love to know what the hell that was all about. Enjoyable topic this one Sal.
I think maybe who ever worked on the site was just like well we don't use this domain so they decided to screw around a bit.
@@CaptOfWolves Or they thought that it's an opportunity to appeal to some gamers and build a new thing
Yeah I can't understand why they did that. It's very strange, especially for a mining consulting company to do.
Could it be that the game review thing was just a hack to deface the website? Since minecraft was getting popular then, i think it's possible that people just started attacking the website just to troll
Seems to me that the domain was hacked for a bit before it got retaken by Minecraft consulting
MineCraft Consulting presumably has a legal trademark on MineCraft in Australia in the domain of, idk, engineering consultation, so they couldn't just be totally forced to hand over the domain. More than likely they just got paid to hand it over.
That's the thing with the legal system. If you have a lot of money, you generally don't need to be right to get what you want. Just the threat of a long, drawn-out, and especially expensive legal battle, can be enough.
They actually still have a website if you add ".au" to the end.
Knowing Notch, he didn't mind that the company used the same website name but different domain.
Now, Microsoft though..
0:37
The best quote:
"Why play a game to mine when you can do it IRL!"
L O L
I think MineCraft Consulting should have been able to keep their domain. They owned it way before Minecraft was a game, and they were using it for a little while before Microsoft was even involved in Minecraft. MineCraft Consulting should have gotten original ownership priority or something because they owned it for such a long period of time before the game was even made
Edit: grammar mistakes, screw you comments >:(
It's understandable that you may feel that MineCraft Consulting should have been able to keep their domain if they had owned it before the game Minecraft was created. In domain name disputes, there are often different opinions on what is fair and just.
One of the principles of domain name registration is the "first-come, first-served" rule, which means that the person or organization that registers a domain name first generally has the right to use it, as long as it doesn't infringe on any trademarks or copyrights.
However, situations like this can be complex, and the best course of action depends on the specific circumstances. For instance, if MineCraft Consulting was using the domain in good faith and not causing any confusion with the game Minecraft, they could have a strong case to keep their domain.
In practice, many domain disputes are resolved through negotiation, as it can be more efficient and cost-effective than pursuing legal action. If Microsoft and MineCraft Consulting reached an agreement for the domain transfer, it is possible that both parties felt the outcome was fair.
In any case, it's important to remember that the interests of businesses and individuals should be balanced, and domain name disputes should be resolved in a way that respects the rights of all parties involved.
@@kendallcagna7448chatgpt response 😂
@@kendallcagna7448 This reads very much like a ChatGPT response.
It's always "should have" should of doesn't exist
native english speakers and their grammar mistakes smh
As a real Minecrafter, I really root for the Mining Company
This is one of the main reasons I love the internet. So many small and highly interesting pieces of history and things that are just there somewhere for us to find and document. Great video as usual mate.
Yes I do think the mining company should have held on to it. There were completely in their right to do so.
They still have a website if you add ".au" to the end.
My opinion is that the consulting firm should have been allowed to keep the domain. Yes, it was neglected and deliberately used poorly for many years, they did end up using it 'properly' well before the Microsoft buyout. That's not even considering it was acquired before Minecraft was a thing at all. 0% chance it was intentionally domain-squatted, but maybe opportunistically at worst - which I don't really think is the case anyways. I like to imagine if they weren't based out of AU, it would be potentially damaging for the business. I don't think there's a '.country' for America, and having to sacrifice the domain would suck.
Really, though, for the average person them losing the domain is probably for the best. Minecraft is so well known even outside of gaming communities, that if they just had a website called minecraftconsulting or something it wouldn't seem out of place, and it would prevent the most incorrect website visits.
I'd bet 99% of people who accidentally visited the consulting website had no use for it, so there was no business opportunity by having extra traffic. (compared to something like, let's say, a hobby store that stocks things for arts, crafts, and yardwork?)
Nice video, Sal.
@@scott420 Oh awesome, good to know. I've never bumped into it (clearly)
Thanks!
Microsoft probably wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court so they probably bought it from the mining company for a lot of money
Yes, there's no country code top-level domain for America because America is not a country. But there is a country code top-level domain for the United States (.us)
I doubt they were forced to. They had no legal reason to, they had the name king before the game. It’s more likely the website was just bought from Microsoft
@@k327dev you know what else isn't a country? Mexico (Mexican United States), Brazil (Federative Republic of Brazil), China (Popular Republic of China) and, of course AmERicA (United States of America). Don't play dumb, man, America is literally an abbreviation, just like any other country name, so you don't need to call it fully.
"Digging a bit deeper I ran a whois search" Buddy that should be the first thing you do when investigating a domain 💀💀💀💀
Fr💀
I live in Australia, so when I first saw this as a kid I assumed they'd replaced minecraft with some random mining business and got super confused when I could google minecraft and get the correct website. Interesting to see that they did finally buy it out, I thought the domain was still up, but maybe I get redirected to the australian version because it makes more sense.
@@mskiptr or maybe it's the browser autocompleting the address last second
Aaand my reply is gone… Again 😔 Not after half a minute but more like after half an hour now.
YT gets more and more sneaky when it comes to deleting people's comments. It's freakin' disgusting
sorry, i haven't watched the video but what does Microsoft buying a domain has anything to do with you being Australian?
@@cyr0_gd just watch the video???
@@sneakin. Honestly, i don't think i will, i was like 2 min in and it already felt like highly stretched out video of people finding out "Minecraft" was an actual word before it being a kids game so i left.
Tldr: local Australian mining-consulting company has same name as best selling videogame years before it came out and multi-Trillion dollar corporation bullies them into selling their domain name.
my guess is they got rid of it because the bandwidth bill was killing them. My guess is putting their site up on it was a sort of test they let run for a while to see if the exposure would counter the hosting bill. It probably didn't quarter over quarter, so they made the offer to microsoft, took a fair payout, and both sides signed nondisclosure agreements because that's just pro forma.
I doubt Microsoft forced them into giving up their domain, otherwise they would've done so years ago. I really can't imagine the lawyers being able to do anything when the consulting company literally came first and bought the domain first as well. It was probably a long negotiation that resulted in the mining company selling the domain for an insane price.
Maybe that is why it took so long, Microsoft tried to buy it many years earlier but the Mining company held their grounds on a steep price tag, Microsoft ended up caving and just buying it. This is what I think happened.
I mean with what Monster is doing with Monster Hunter and Pokemon it wouldn't surprise me
@@thephoenixking1086 microsoft has enough money to just send lawsuit after lawsuit for any number of reasons even if those reasons arent valid. and for each one the company has to send someone to go and refute the lawsuit costing them time and money. so eventually they ended up just giving up and caving to microsoft
@@craftyplayz_ not really, they can counter-sue Microsoft for frivolous lawsuits
@@rya1701 and Microsoft has the money to buy the best lawyers in the world so they don't care
I never knew Minecraft Consulting was a thing that predated the game.
I can definitely see a scenario where MineCraft consulting realized the value held in their domain name and simply held out selling that domain until Microsoft was willing to pay them some big money for it. A figure like, say $10m, is next to nothing to a massive corporation like Microsoft, but $10m could mean bonuses and raises for all employees, a brand new office building and a state of the art website for a smaller consulting company like MineCraft. They likely weren't forced to give the domain up, they just were waiting for Microsoft to offer them something worth their while.
You would be surprised….. A company like that probably makes around 100 million a year. Mining consulting is no joke. I hope they got a lot more than 10 million lol
raises for employees, let's hold our horses now
6:42 finally, a heroic company to protect the poor, poor multi billion dollar corporate abominations from not getting what they want.
MineCraft Consulting must've been very confused why there was a sudden large increase in traffic to their website
Imagine a kid who thought you would pay these people to find your diamonds, and would wonder why he suddenly became homeless.
My kids keep talking about Minecraft. This video helped me understand what they mean.
So weird how they talk about their consulting services all the time.
I was kinda rooting for MineCraft consulting this video ngl.
The oldest Minecraft server was just discovered and its a miners consulting company!
The MikeRoweSoft story is actually pretty interesting, I'd recommend anyone who wants to know more to do some research about it.
I don't understand how this works. MikeRoweSoft domain name is mine, how can you sue me? On which basis?
@@Deniil2000 "trademark infringement" thats what microsoft said.
@@Deniil2000Because it sounds like microsoft, which is trademarked.
My guess is that their company didn’t really have a large IT team and they had one guy doing all of the work so they have a website and he turned out to be a gamer and used the uptick in traffic to cater to the visitors for a while before taking it down and planning strategical changes at the right times to make bank off of microsoft
Unrelated, but as an Octopath Traveler fan, hearing OT2 music after so many FitMC + Sal videos with OT1 songs makes me happy
i never thought someone would make a video about this, I remember stumbling upon this site a few years ago
While it’s unfortunate they lost their original domain, the (what I hope was a) transaction helps both sides, as it prevents excessive bandwidth usage for MineCraft consulting, and helps Minecraft players get to the website they’re trying to get to. Also, there’s no possible way the company was domain squatting, cause I’m a 100% sure they weren’t making any money off of the Minecraft players accessing the site
Plus, they registered the domain name 6 years before Minecraft was even made. It was clear they had plans for it
Imagine if there was an employee at MineCraft Consulting named… *Steve*
"Father of 2" the test: "Father of a Two Year Old"
It's actually insane to me that I started playing Minecraft in 2012 and, to my memory at least, I have _never_ heard of this in my life until this day.
4:49 some people might use the . and , keys to frame-step, but i can just press the space bar with extreme precision :). anyways, cool video, saul!
I never knew you could frame step ty!
what? so?
edit, nvm i see it now
I remember laughing my ass off and screaming at my friends whenever I would mistype the domain name sending screenshots in our chats
I have always wondered about this mysterious site. I first stumbled upon it when I was trying to go to the Minecraft website at school. I was so confused but I didn’t think to explore it further like you. Good job!
Haha even the title and thumbnail made me confused 😆
Keep up the good content Sal
I remember trying to buy Minecraft and getting really confused before someone told me the actual link lol
thanks for starting to use the octopath 2 soundtrack, its so good, honestly might beat the octopath 1 soundtrack in my eyes
8:05 Trillion. Multi-trillion dollar company.
1.958T. Not multi-trillion
I have tons to do today but a new upload from Salc1 is a perfect excuse to make another cup of coffee and procrastinate a bit longer lol
SalC1 are you real?
No he is not
He’s obviously not
The accident was three years ago. You have to let him go.
No he is a spirt.
clinically insane
7:30, Just shows how long this video has been in the making! Great one as always SalC1!
Finally someone covered MineCraft Consulting
Now we need someone to book a Genuine appointment with them and talk about the game hah, SOMEONE has to do this (as 1 - It proves if they are indeed legit and 2 - it is a bit of fun, they get paid either way so it is not like they are losing out).
That's a truly funny story. I was pleased to hear about it. Thanks!
it takes you to minecraft now
This just really shows that money actually can buy you everything
_You can sell your values but you can’t buy integrity._
Yea money can buy you internet domains that's like kinda what money is for.
The happiness?
@@brentoyisaac2538 Maybe you can't buy happiness, but happiness needs money.
@@BlackLivesMatter1414 yeah you can also buy juice with it.
Nice to see a new upload from you, Sal! Great job as always
Is that Internet Explorer? Love the content man!
the entitlement to assume no one could possibly have the name minecraft and must immediately be squatting
I like the logo design with the low poly Australia inside of a rotary digger
0:25 why are you using internet explorer in 2023
Stop being web-browser-ist!
why not
@@SalC1 care for your privacy
@@RedStone576 security vulnerability's
@@Edward-pw6zz says the guy who uses chrome
It’s just scary how big companies have this much power
Minecraft consulting is apart of glencore which has about the same or even more global power than Microsoft
Nice video as always!
I remember this, I also remember some people held mw3 domain (before it was even announced) and asked Activision a lot of money for it and free copies of the game.
Ending hit me like a bullet in the chest, I wish they held on to the com domain, ever since Microsoft bought MC it doesnt feel the same anymore
@Reapiu homosexual
i see this confusion as a way of adding a little more fun and history to the game itself i think this is a gem
Why assume Microsoft was suing them for it? Any competent lawyer would realise that is a very hard case to make given the age and maturity of the domain name.
U are forgetting that microsoft is worth 100+ billions
Bro it would be fair if Minecraft consulting still had this domain because their company and website excisted BEFORE the game Minecraft was even a thing.
This video is literally "How long can I make a 1 minute explaination"
Ok. Download the video, paste it into a video editor, and speed it up until it totals 1 minute in length. Then watch it.
@@SalC1 dudes a hater lol. video was great, definitely needed the time u spent making the video to explain it
9 minutes of talking ahhhhhhhhhhhh im screaming in lava right now i need some parkour gameplay or else my brain will turn off
@@SalC1 You did go on for a bit, especially at the start where you just repeated yourself loads.
@@dantisekpointing out that you could’ve explained this faster ≠ my attention span is too low, just shows he is padding out the length for no reason
7:31 they were fully aware of the domains value after 2011, but never wanted to sell because they didn't know how to monetize it. Cue a back-channel drama where lawyers try to bully a company,, until they give up and offer absurd money in return for the domain and an non-disclosure agreement, [allegedly].
I wonder why they never replied to your e-mail 🤔
Upload man
its always a good day when salC1 uploads
its always a bad day when u see this coment
The correct solution is for the page to be turned into a disambiguation website.
I think its a good thing because if that domain got into the wrong hands it could be used for malicious phishing attacks
God I love to see you use Octopath2 music!!!
“Where do you work?”
“Minecraft”
“Oh cool! Did you work on the new update?”
“….?”
Sup checkmark
MineCraft Consulting actually be doing minecraft irl frfr
Microsoft 100% forced them to do that. They obviously wanted to keep the domain, but you know, it’s Microsoft. You ain’t beating them no matter how in the right you are
Yup, Just like how the UK is trying to ban them from buying Activision, so someone made the joke that Microsoft will just Ban XBOX in the UK then.
The thing is, Microsoft is Microsoft so this joke is not so much of a JOKE anymore and may infact hold some credence.
They have no legal basis for forcing them to do anything. Microsot must have just purchased it from them completely legitimately.
@@Sivanot Well i'm talking about putting legal pressure on them with lawsuits and stuff
@@Sivanot well, when you have hella expensive and "good" (shady) lawyers and are a company worth billions and spent said billions to purchase a game I think you can some way or another find a legal loophole.
One way that I have thought about is that they can use the argument that they for a few years didn't use their website for their company and instead used it to gain free views on their review site hence cybersquatting.
@@Sivanot The thing about companies like Microsoft with effectively infinite money is that even without any real legal basis, they can still just keep filing suit over and over forever and MineCraft consulting has to show up every time to get it dismissed, which costs money and wastes time, and Microsoft can just do that until they give up
I learned more about the Australian Mining Managements than about minecraft today, thanks salc
Suing feels extremely biased. That mining company had it first and so he deserved it. That kind of shit makes me mad ngl.
Website: "Father of a two year old"
SalC1: "Father of Two"
microsoft better have paid fairly for the domain name. minecraft consulting had both the company name and the website first, doesnt matter if microsoft and the game are bigger and better known
wouldnt be surprised if they bullied them out of it tho
Sorta, but I think something to consider is that most of the time that minecraft consulting owned the domain they didn't even use it for their company's site, and at one point even just used it to host game reviews unrelated to the company. In this sense, it is a little selfish to hold onto the domain.
@@iminumst7827what selfish? It was theirs to begin with, you can’t tell someone how to use something they own
I remember finding the site in middle school, being a bit confused and then forgetting about it ever since
I remember getting confused but immediately finding it hilarious once I saw it was a company.
Maybe they can offer me diamond mining consulting. It is their craft, after all.
7:00 Totally unrelated thing but as soon as I heard that tune I knew that the Overcooked theme was playing lol
4:47 father of a two year old, not father of two ;)
Nice video and very nostalgic for me!
I'm surprised neither Mojang nor Microsoft got sued yet for one of their products infringing on the company name
im pretty sure you cant sue a company for having the same name as long as its in different industries. Its why Mitsubishi the car company and Mitsubishi Pencil co can both exist
@@siltdoctor3478add to the fact that Mitsubishi Pencil is unrelated to the Mitsubishi Group. So it still can use the name.
they fought good. rip MineCraft Consulting! love you :)
Let the mining company keep it. If I owned the mining company I would have simply put at the top of the page "If you're looking for the block game, click here, other than that we're a company who specializes in..."
😂
That's very unprofessional from a business-perspective.
My life will not be complete without a SalC¹ LONG
I dont think its that confusing or complicated. The info you provided already says it all. It probably seems like the company just got the site early on, but used their AU site for trust and reliability for its domestic customer base. They probalby forgot or didn't care to much about the main siste, but held on to it for future plans.
I bet those game reviews started happening because of an uptick of traffic due to minecrafts popularity. Somebody there probably found out the site was getting an influx of traffic due to minecrafts popularity blow up. People likely contacted them to complain or rant about their site not being minecraft game related. They probably thought it was a great business venture to try out, and write game reviews if the traffic is mainly peopl ewho are coming for the minecraft game. Obviously they didn't konw anything aobut the gaming industry and didn't put to much effort.
Them reverting to using the site is pretty easy to see that they saw what was happening. That they were going to get sued for the domain name if they didn't actually use it. So they started making it more official for their company. I think it was just fortunate for them that they did this a bit before minecraft being bought out by microsoft. I doubt microsoft had to battle hard and likely just paid off the company for the domain name.
It is interseting to see that you coverd this. Would have been a piece of minecraft history that would have been forgotton. Now that info is immortallized here.
Would have been nice if they kept it. Sure some kids might get confused, but if they can't learn the difference soon enough then that's on them. If the actual MineCraft owned it first, they should have been able to keep it.
here from ai sponge
They would have had no legal grounds to force the mining business to give it up since they owned the website years before Minecraft the game even existed.
Ai sponge mentioned you
SFX
I remember seeing a weird construction site "minecraft" was thing in 2016, well guess it's part of nostalgia
The video could literally end at 2 minutes saying "MineCraft consulting existed before Minecraft (game) so it makes sense they'd have the domain."
gotta have that sweet watchtime
Brother, this video is talking about the history of the domain, not why the domain exists to MineCraft consulting.
This is giving me flashback to the whole 'Burger King' debacle in Aus, where they're called "Hungry Jacks' instead
this entire video couldve been summarised in like 30 seconds bro
Definitely. And it's also very much explained in a way to make us side with Minecraft the game, with no understanding or exploration of the mining company's side.
Then make a video covering every single point I just did in 30 seconds.
@@SalC1 oh also whilst rewatching so I can actually do this spotted an error at 4:48. He's a father of a two year old as it says on screen, not father of two as you said aloud.
@@SalC1 You know better how to make videos. I admit that. But we can still try to give constructive critisism when something bothers us about the video.
For example the intro felt very repetetive, I remember looking down at the time around 1 minute feeling as if not much had been said at all. And the section saying first that Notch may or may not have attempted getting the site and then Mojang alone may or may not have done the same could easily be summarized to "Before Microsoft acquired Minecraft it's unclear whether there was any attempt at taking over the website."
Instead I would have loved to see more information about the mining company. For example that its website claims that it is doing business internationally or that its Linkedin says it has 2-10 employees and specialises on underground coal mining (not the big machines you showed).
@@SalC1
Here you go king
ua-cam.com/video/Qcoy9NIUQsY/v-deo.html
I think personally, that MineCraft AU should have been able to keep it, or at least should have come to some fair agreement because with how the world is now and how much is online, first call first dibs is how this should be. Not some billion dollar company trying to gobble up any domain that could even possibly relate to it.
My guess is that MarkMonitor just used a bot to claim the domain when it expired before the Aussies had a chance to. That would kinda suck for MineCraft Consulting, as they wouldn't get any payout, but it is almost certainly the route they took as there is little to no legal precedent for domain squatting.
And it wasn't even domain squatting, they owned the domain before Minecraft was even a thing and before Microsoft even owned the game!
I doubt it, if markmonitor had a bot then so would a bunch of other hacky teen losers trying to squat a domain.
0:40 goat really used marimba of frozen bones