Microsoft Subpoenas Thrown out of Court 172
liliafan writes "Following Microsoft's attempt to subpoena documents through US courts, relating to their ongoing anti-trust case in the UK, the judge in California has thrown the case out of court citing: 'As a matter of comity, this court is unwilling to order discovery when doing so will interfere with the European Commission's orderly handling of its own enforcement proceedings.' as his reasoning."
Judge Dread (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if only we could have this guy ruling on patent cases, things might look a bit better...
Re:Ah, the backdoor approach. (Score:2, Insightful)
It works, empirically speaking. That's why we keep doing it.
Re:Well, Microsoft wins (Score:2, Insightful)
Which I am sure every MS-hater here on
Re:Well, Microsoft wins (Score:3, Insightful)
They were told that they couldn't have the documents by the EU court because they were irrelevant, so they went to the US to try to get their hands on the documents. The judge saw what MS was trying to do, and said no.
That's like running to your neighbor's house and asking them if you can have a brownie you mom just baked, because she already said no.
Re:Ah, the backdoor approach. (Score:5, Insightful)
But as another poster said, your orginional post is a straw-man argument. This is a civil matter that deals with the business laws internationally. It has NOTHING to do with human rights, which by the way are protected by international law. As the world becomes more intermestic (the idea that domestic or international issues have internation or domestic implications, consquences and effects), nations respecting other nation's laws will become more and more important.
Re:What documents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except... wait... you didn't. Not one. You just called it a name and decided you were right.
Quite likely. (Score:2, Insightful)
But what if they never sold a single program again, their stock froze in value, they had no investments whatsoever and their land value stayed constant? Then they'd have enough reserves to last about 50 to 60 years, assuming they paid every single day and neither side backed down.
If we assume the youngest employee at Microsoft is in their early 20s, that would be enough cash to see them through their entire career and the first 15 years of retirement and pensions.
Given that a fine is unlikely to alter behaviour if it inflicts no effective consequences, I'd argue that this fine is not nearly enough. I'm not sure a stronger penalty would help much, though - Microsoft is at the point where their reserves are so vast that it is utterly impossible to exact a penalty that would change their conduct without utterly destroying their business in the process.
The only possible way I can see this doing any good is if the EU rolls some reasonable percent of all the fines collected into a fund for Open Source development/sponsorship of some kind. It won't hurt Microsoft directly, but at least it can mitigate the anti-competitive actions by boosting one of the more dangerous competitors Microsoft has.
(As much as I have developed a dislike of some of the OpenBSD developers for their trolling tendencies on Slashdot, I would be the first to encourage the EU to donate perhaps 10% of the first day's fine to the OpenBSD group. I think that could make a real difference to IT security worldwide and - because it's from a fine - it wouldn't effectively cost the EU anything to do.)
Re:Does MSFT even sell 200M Euros a day? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does that matter? (No. That was a rhetorical question.)
That seems like a rediculous amount, no matter how evil MSFT may be. Isn't that more than 2x MSFT world-wide REVENUE, much less, EU PROFIT?
Where are you getting your numbers? Do you even have sources? Or are you just pulling numbers out of your ass?
"What if they don't pay?"
Their assets within the EU will be seized and auctioned off to pay for related debts, treated as though the company were to go bankrupt. The employees of said assets would be left to look elsewhere for companies to remain loyal to, ergo lose their jobs at EU-MSFT.
What if they said "screw you, I'm going home" and stopped officially selling product in the EU?
See above, as well as their stock price falling sharply because their stock holders wouldn't like their company to refuse business with an entire continent.
As much as many do not like MSFT, this stinks of some sort of politicical extortion, plain and simple.
It has been debated until the cows eventually came home that MSFT deserves this punishment. I don't know how you managed to get modded up to 3, Insightful.
Re:What documents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft subpoenaed the documents. Competitors said they were irrelevant. The determining justice reviewed those documents, and agreed. Microsoft tried to find out what they were anyway - why on earth should they be able to hunt through confidential documents of a competitor that have been ruled to be irrelevant, just because they're involved in legal action? Discovery is a regulated process, not one of "All your document are belong to us."
Re:Does MSFT even sell 200M Euros a day? (Score:2, Insightful)
And what legal basis is there anyway? MSFT has secured copyrights, you can't remove them unless there is a copyright infringement or some other IP-related issues. Dropping IP just because the company won't sell in your market, is stupid, stupid, stupid.
What's stupid is using the term "intellectual property". Do you mean "copyright"? If so say "copyright", for which there are ample laws. Or do you mean "patents", for which there are laws, even if not very good ones.
There is no such thing as "intellectual property". There are no laws about "intellectual property". There are no "IP-related issues", as you can have things existing that are all related to something that doesn't exist, unless the relation is non-existant - i.e. there is no such thing as "intellectual property".
Re:Does MSFT even sell 200M Euros a day? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid is relying on The Register as a source. It's Euros a day. [bloomberg.com]
Does that really matter? No. What matters is that the law is enforced. What's your bright idea to get businesses to follow the law then, if not to fine them?
What if they don't pay?
Then they can expect even harsher penalties.
What if they said "screw you, I'm going home" and stopped officially selling product in the EU?
Then they don't have to follow EU laws. Fine by me.
As much as many do not like MSFT, this stinks of some sort of politicical extortion, plain and simple.
Bullshit. Or do you really think foreign companies shouldn't have to follow US laws in their US operations? They do. And there have been antitrust suits against foreign companies in the US. And in case you missed it, Microsoft was found guilty of antitrust violations in the USA too.
You assert that the thing is "political extortion" without any proof - as if it's obvious that any foreign court which takes action against an American interest must be doing so for purely political reasons. As if the USA had a monopoly on justice and fairness. That's a blindly nationalistic and xenophobic form of reasoning.
Re:What documents? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Judge Dread (Score:2, Insightful)
That's like saying to someone "You always think you're right", to which the logical reply is "Of course, if I didn't think I was right, I'd change my mind"
To have an opinion means that you think people who disagree with it are wrong. You may accept the possibility you are wrong, and be open to learning, but you will live as if you are right until you are convinced otherwise. Then you will change your mind, and go on as if you are right, thinking people who disagree with you are wrong.
Re:Seriously, this is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
This has NOTHING to do with price or what the consumer *could* do if they were knowledgable enough. Don't forget - we still have warnings on packets of nuts that say "may contain nuts". This has everything to do with competition law and monopolisation.
MS bundled apps of a certain type *unnecessary and extraneous to the operating system* which has destroyed/limited/damaged the business actions of companies in a seperate part of the industry. This is a complete misuse of monopolistic power (using your monopoly in the OS market to enforce monopolies in other computer software markets).
The browser issue destroyed Netscape, not because IE was technically superior, not because IE was cheaper, not because IE was "chosen" by more people but purely on the fact that it was put into Windows as the default and *people reasonably assumed that it was the only/best browser to work on Windows*.
Windows Media Player similarly seriously injured places like Real Networks, Quicktime etc.
It isn't about what a consumer *could* do, it's about how easy it is to do it and whether MS gets an unfair advantage from having a monopoly in the OS market - it does. With Microsoft bundling antispyware now, this will have damaged the sales of companies that were not competing with MS and now, instantaneously, cannot compete fairly because MS can push antispyware automatically onto millions of PC's worldwide.
Monopoly is bad on many scales - on the scale of the little people who "have to" use IE because they have it already and it would take (to them) enormous effort/skill to install other software that does exactly the same tasks. On the scale of small business which, overnight, can lose their entire business because MS "owns" several millions PC's and the people who use them. On the scale of large businesses who see massive losses based not on MS's innovation but on the power of their existing installed base IN ANOTHER PART OF THE INDUSTRY. On the scale of governments and nations who watch all their computer industry fade and die and their IT costs rise because a foreign company has made it impractical to use ANYTHING but their software.
Monopoly is not good for anyone but the monopolist. Unchecked, they just get more and more powerful until you're buying Microsoft Barney Cereal to go into your Microsoft Breakfast Bowl with your Cowsoft (a subsidiary of Microsoft) Milk. Or until your local Microsoft Law Enforcement Officer comes to knock on your Microsoft Door.
Monopoly stifles innovation (you can invent the best browser in the world but 90% of people will never even SEE it in an unfair market, let alone install it or use it in preference to their browser), destroys competition (what's the point in fighting for the 5% of the market you *can* get when you could just let yourself get taken over by MS or sell the product to them instead?), limits new business startup (where do you even BEGIN to break into a monopolists global industry if they can do all that they can to stop you even starting up?), raises prices (MS can pretty much charge what they like because you "have to have" MS) and continues to reinforce the monopolists position.
I work in a primary school (ages 5-10) - the kids call any word processor software Word or Microsoft Word. They only ever look for a "blue e" to get on the Internet. Changing the icon blows their mind. Unfortunately they do this because THE TEACHER HAS TAUGHT THIS. Every teacher in my area teaches like this and every adult who works in a primary school works the same way and gets similarly confused (I've met one person who knew what Opera was and one who used OpenOffice out of approx 200 adult staff?).
As far as they are concerned, Word is the only wordprocessor, Excel the only spreadsheet, Outlook the only email program (apart from Hotmail). I tell them I don't run Windows at home and they are absolutely dumbfounded as to what other options there are! Some don't even understand what I mean by that because Windows *is* computers in their mind.
Can you not see just how dangerous that is, from a social, economic or teaching our future kids viewpoint?
Re:Seriously, this is stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows Media Player is a red-herring here - MS have ALREADY COMPLIED with that section of the ruling.
Re:Does MSFT even sell 200M Euros a day? (Score:3, Insightful)
What if they said "screw you, I'm going home" and stopped officially selling product in the EU?
The EU would instantly stop using all computers, and everyone will die.
No, stop, wait, that's not what would happen. In the beginning nothing would happen, all those computers running MS would continue to work just fine.
But new computers will not be running Windows. They will run something else, probably Linux or Mac OS. As soon as the EU starts using anything else, a lot of companies will start writing software for the new platform. This would instantly solve the (perceived) problems with the availability of applications and support.
Retreating from Europe (or any other big market) would be the best gift Microsoft could give there competitors.
Besides, MS would still be required to support there older products. Contract is contract. If they didn't the EU would sue them again, and the US would probably agree that MS has to stick to there contract, and help the EU to punish MS.
This way the EU would become a pure money sink, without any rewards whatsoever.
Re:Does MSFT even sell 200M Euros a day? (Score:3, Insightful)
"What if they said "screw you, I'm going home" and stopped officially selling product in the EU?"
...No, stop, wait, that's not what would happen. In the beginning nothing would happen, all those computers running MS would continue to work just fine. But new computers will not be running Windows.
Actually, none of the above would happen. What would happen would be the MS shareholders would hold an emergency meeting and fire whoever made that decision. Then they would put a new person in charge who would apologize for his predecessor's insanity and go back to business as usual. No one passes up billions in profit to avoid less than a quarter of that in fines. No one strategically gives one of the largest markets in the world to their competitors.
Even if they did, they would still be violating EU law and refusing to comply with a court order, they'd just be breaking more laws as well. If ever there was a more blatant antitrust violation than refusing to do business with all of Europe, I've never heard of it. MS has people and a huge number of assets in Europe. The people can be thrown in jail if they don't comply. The assets can be seized. MS can't move their property out of the EU. They can't convince all their employees to illegally emigrate somewhere. They certainly can't somehow move their "intellectual property" out of the EU, since it is controlled and enforced by the EU governments.
Most likely in that event, MS europe would be ordered to divorce themselves from their parent corporation and would operate as a separate company (or companies). They would be forced to abide by EU law or they'd be tossed in jail. The intellectual property rights owned by MS would be granted to them within the EU.