Microsoft Sues and Gets Sued

wubo writes, "Microsoft is apparently stepping up its anti-piracy measures by publishing the locations and specifics of their pending lawsuits. Check out the snazzy map — warms me heart and soul." And to even the scales of justice, one of the last remaining class-action antitrust lawsuits filed against Microsoft in a state court is set to go to trial in Iowa later this year. An anonymous reader writes, "Iowa consumers who purchased Microsoft products in the last 12 years are being represented in a class action anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft. The jury trial begins on November 13 and is expected to last 6 months." Bill Gates is on the witness list.

And of course

[Joel from Sydney]

The actual list [microsoft.com] of people getting sued.

Re:And of course

[remembertomorrow]

There was actually a computer repair/sales place in the town where I live that went out of business after being sued by Microsoft.

Apparently, they were including XP Pro for free with their bundles.

If you're going to offer your customers Microsoft products, at least make them pay for it. Not worth the risk. Either that or offer alternatives.

Re:Is this the best time?

[cskrat]

But if you'll notice, they aren't suing end users (ala RIAA), they are suing businesses or people that have made a business out of selling the pirated copies. I wouldn't be surprised if, in many of these cases, it was the end users that turned to Microsoft to report a bogus copy after having issues with their illegitimate and possibly cracked version that they purchased with good faith that it was a legitimate, albeit possibly discounted, copy.

The actions of Microsoft in these cases show that they are trying to improve their image with the end users by persuing the business that deceived them while simultaneously offering said end user a discounted or complimentary legitimate copy to help resolve the situation. Furthermore these actions are also considered to be defence of copyright so that they do not lose that copyright.

Re:ahahahahah

[Professor_UNIX]

Ummm, that guy is bitching that an 800MHz Powerbook with 1GB of RAM was slow running 10.2.x, which is a bunch of bullshit since I'm running 10.3.9 on an 800MHz G3 iBook with 640MB of RAM and it runs fine. Hell, we had 333MHz G3 B&W Powermacs with 384MB of RAM that ran OS X 10.1.x just fine when we still had those machines. The guy is a wanker, plain and simple.

Re:ahahahahah

[Eivind Eklund]

Newer versions of OSX are faster (also on old hardware) than older versions.

Basically, they improve the engineering rather than just add more features. Good call, in my book.

Eivind.

Re:And of course

[LaughingCoder]

Always, always run Sandra http://www.sisoftware.net/ [sisoftware.net] on any machine you buy or build.

Re:Go Bill!

[rob1980]

I looked at a couple of the cases they had listed and it seemed like most (if not all) were dealerships that sold a counterfeit copy to a secret shopper. At least it looks like they're doing their homework before filing a lawsuit, unlike certain other organizations that are out suing dead grandmothers that never owned anything made after 1962.

Re:Is this the best time?

[bogado]

I would mod you up, but as much as I hate MS and windows, and I do, they are doing the right thing here. Suing the people who make business out of pirating makes sense, it is the same with people that want to bundle GPL stuff and hide their changes.

And not suing the users and give them a way to legalize their machines is the correct way to deal with this. If MS were the [R/MP]IAA they would already have pulled the plug on pirated copies, making a huge number of people furious and many people would loose a lot of money and due to a software glitch many people who did payed for their copies would also get bitten.

Re:But this is good news and good news?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A lot of people have no problems with downloading software or other copyrighted materials illegaly, as long as it is for free. But a lot of people are against selling such items, or making a profit off of it. Unfortunately, the copyright lobby views both groups as filthy stinking pirates, but the public don't really care about the first group, and only view the second group as the real pirates that actually ought to be punished for it.

This is because until the 70's, non-commercial copyright infringement was not a crime. Most people still don't know that it is a crime or understand why. Of those that do know, a lot of them don't think it should be. That is what you get for electing scumbags to office who make laws based upon who gives them the most money. Until we get electoral reform and the legalized bribes from lobbyists are criminalized, you'll see more and more laws like this that benefit only big businesses.

Well, of course

[xihr]

Of course they're going to name Gates specifically in the suit. That doesn't really mean anything at all.