The birth of a copycat

On Friday 13th October, Jone Nikula and Ari Halttunen published the first edition of their brand new free magazine that will be distributed across Finnish cities and we hope that it will bring them bad luck. The familiar name of this new magazine is 'Ovi'.

Yes, they have stolen our name, a name we have built a reputation upon for three years and has become intrinsically connected with everything we do here at www.ovimagazine.com as the Ovi team.

We categorically state that the copycat has nothing to do with us and we ask for your continuing support,

The Ovi Team

Below is a copy of the mail we sent to the staff of the copycat magazine:

The Ovi magazine and the Ovi team feels obliged to say that the name of your magazine is simply splendid – we bet you gave great thought to its selection, after dismissing names like the New York Times, Newsweek, The Economist, you decided to send your creativity sky high using our magazine’s three-year-old name. Your graphic designer also did a splendid job as well; we bet their portfolio features other names like Leevi's Jeans, Colpa Cabana, Roleks and others.

Just as we have done over the last four months, we promise to answer all the mails coming to Ovi magazine and Ovi lehti, both names that are registered to us, but we suppose you already know that.

Actually, in a telephone call a few months ago with Ari Halttunen, he gave the rather entertaining answer, "We didn’t know you existed; we checked the internet!" You definitely knew about us since then and you know that we are the only true Ovi magazine and are one of the very few daily magazines in the world.

We wish you luck in the harsh world of free Finland newspapers, although we are confident you will find a niche among City, Voima, SixDegrees, V, Metro, Uutis 100, Nöjesguiden, Sue and Spektr. We're sure we missed four or five – oddly, we are so organized that we have carried out research into the future of free magazines and it doesn't look good.

We are certain you will finish on top of the pile…just before they are sent away for recycling. We're joking, although you are printing your magazine on recycled paper, aren't you? It is only coming out ten times a year, so you could always pass the cost onto your advertisers - let's hope the Green Party use you to promote their candidates in the coming elections. Ahhh, irony!

Luckily, you have the web edition of your magazine to champion yourselves online at the catchy URL of www.ovi-lehti-fi. Nice. Don't most of your competitors just have their title and dot fi? Oh well, we are sure it will work out through the search engines and your readers will not stumble upon any original titled online magazines…hmm.

Seriously, we wish you the best and if a copy happens to blow down the street and strike a leg then we may scrape it off the ground and have a read.

The Ovi Team

P.S. Despite the warnings, even from Roman Schatz, that you act as a copycat and our warnings that you shouldn’t base your future on somebody else’s work, you ignored everything. It's natural that we are going to publish the truth, warn advertisers and readers at every single chance.