Tech firm takes its name and logo from the IT Crowd

You might charitably call it a homage. Or rather a blatant rip-off …

But one tech company seems to have taken its name and branding straight from Richard Ayoade's character in the IT Crowd.

Moss, an automatic administration system for web servers, features a familiar-looking bespectacled, afro-sporting figure as its logo.

Promising to do more than simply switch your computer off and on again, the company has a .sh domain address, registered to the British Overseas territory of Saint Helena yet appears to operate out of Spain.

IT Crowd writer Graham Linehan has been a victim of such 'homages' before.

Sketches from his series Big Train, co-written with Arthur Mathews, were variously echoed in adverts by Playstation, Kellogg's and telecommunications firm Tiscali. And the pair's masterpiece Father Ted inspired the live dining show Ted & Co, an unofficial theatrical recreation.

Fortunately, The IT Crowd has already shown one means of dealing with intellectual property theft:

Published: 10 Oct 2017