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Microsoft has another connection to the Abramoff scandal. Microsoft e.g. supports IPI, a right wing republican organisation which is involved in the Abramoff scandal - in fact its lobbyist Giovanetti openly had to admit it when his organisation was accused.

IPI represents MS interests at WIPO (euphemism for insults against NGOs), recently wanted to join the MS-EU antitrust case. This was rejected by the EU court of Justice for good reasons. See curia.eu.int

Further MS pays ACT, an SME association astroturf with the well-known lobbyist Jonathan Zuck. Close relations to DCI + ATL. I remind you of dead people letter campaigns of ATL... Guess for what company ATL did it?

Microsoft paid DCI's TechCentralStation journo-lobbying. TCS funds political radicals all over the world, spreads anarcho-capitalist ideas and insults France, Muslims, alledged socialists etc. The idea behind DCI is to inject radical views supporting their corporate sponsors into right wing sectarians and barraters.

My personal advice: when you hire the ... of US-lobbying and sent it all over the world, you'd better stop complaining about unfair reporting.

MS did not have luck before. Here at Germany Microsoft was involved in the Hunzinger scandal which forced a minister of defense, Mr. Scharping, to step down. Hunzinger's main corporate customer was Microsoft. I think it started when Hunzinger letters about a TV placement for Ms were leaked to the press and media professionals started to discuss the case. So Ms was involved in one of the few German lobbying scandals which had serious business consequences for Hunzinger. Microsoft quickly switched over to another lobbying firm but could not avoid bad press. This is a risk of MS lobbying: They burn lobbyists, they also burned Hunzinger, because smart people watch what MS does.

Last year a press worker for Microsoft Denmark, Marianne Wier, communicated to the Danish press (Borsen) a blackmail attempt of Mr. Gates himself, directed towards the Danish government. They were so sure of themselves that they even communicated it intentionally to the press. The scandal was echoed in the DK Parliament. ...

France is a sovereign nation. It is recognized as such by pretty much every other country in the world. The French Parliament can pass whatever laws it wants, and, unless they violate the French Constitution, they are the law of the land. End of story.

According to the EU's founding treaties, France is supposed to pass a law that implements the EU Copyright Directive because the EU Parliament has passed it, but the EU can't force France to do so. France will be in violation of the treaty if they don't implement the EU Copyright Directive. So what? That would neither be the first nor last time a sovereign nation breaks a treaty, and the EU will have to suck it up, expel France from its membership, or declare war on France. Somehow the first of those seems the most likely to me.

And by the way, there's no way to overrule this sovereign nation by taking the issue to an "EU Court", whatever it is you mean by that, because the EU Copyright Directive IS NOT LAW. It is a piece of paper telling the nations of the EU that they have to change THEIR laws, and that they're in violation of the EU treaties if they don't. If the movie industry whines to The European Court of Justice [http://curia.eu.int/en/instit/presentationfr/inde x_cje.htm%5D (as I'm guessing you mean by "EU Court"), all that will happen is that France will be assigned penalties, which it cannot be forced to pay, since it is a sovereign nation, and the only way the EU could force it to do so is to defeat it in war. Before you make about how France was overrun in World War II, remember that France now has nukes.

French law is French law, nobody can tell France what laws it can and cannot pass, and if you don't like this you don't have to live in France. Why don't you do 2 minutes of research next time before telling the world how ignorant you are of such a basic political concept as national sovereignty?

You completely missed the point. The Commission is Europe's most important antitrust authority. When they're fining a company, they're just exercising their powers under the EC treaty. They're not angry customers that want to have that documentation available for themselves. Their decisions can be, and are, reviewed by a Court. I think we can expect a new judgment on this case in a couple of months on http://curia.eu.int/

Actually, all public documents from the Community institutions (documents available for the public), are in pdf / html.
- see judgements and legislation

I don't see how it matters for the public, if these documents are created with MSO applications, as long as they can be opened with any browser / pdf-viewer.

OTOH, internal documents, and documents sent to i.e. the government institutions of the Member States, are often sent as .doc, and I agree that this is something that MS propably would like to hold on to.

The filing with the ECJ is here and previous documents can be found here.

Note that FSF Europe (among others) is listed as a supporting party to the commission in some of the earlier documents which is quite amusing.

The filing with the ECJ is here and previous documents can be found here.

Note that FSF Europe (among others) is listed as a supporting party to the commission in some of the earlier documents which is quite amusing.

Microsoft is going to have to stop their vendor lock-in crap.

Oh, and for all you M$ fanboys: Microsoft is going to unbundle Media Player by January. So, in 9 days over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Microsoft is going to be able to unbundle Media Player from the OS? Boy, it must have been really tightly integrated, eh?

Go ahead, fanboys. Mod me down. Won't matter, because the M$ single-product gravy train is in competition with a free alternative, and M$ can't undercut that price. M$ is fighting a losing battle against the commoditization of the software world, and commodoties sell for little more than the marginal cost to produce one copy....

So all you fanboys and MCSEs will eventually have to learn to do more than CTRL-ALT-DEL.

How nice to discover more and more about the EU, every single day, because of this kind of news.
Now at least we all know that the EU has its own Court of First Instance. Let's all be grateful to Microsoft!

...I know, EU, not US matter, but, doesn't it *kinda* fall under groklaws 'field of goal'?
like slashdot isn't all US-only....

If convicted by the European antitrust authorities, Microsoft could appeal the case to a real court (the European Court of Justice), which actually has a recent history of reversing commisioner Monti's decisions.

No court can "make law" (that's for politicians on European, member state and local level), the job of a court is to determine whether or not the law has been followed. In the case of the EU, case law and treaties dictate that the European Court of Justice has the final juristiction in disputes between member states where the treaties are concerned, and failure to implement EU directives as national law is breaching the treaties. Since the power to enforce the law is still with the member states, it's not like the EU Court could use force to get its will through -- but the whole framework of the EU depends on member states abiding by the rulings. Failure to do so can result in very heavy fines, as determined by the court, and the eventual exclusion from the Union.

Laws in the EU must be passed by the Council (governments of the member states), and sometimes the European Parliament, in order to come into effect.

In this case, the EUCP was already passed on European level last year, and member states are required to implement it in their own legislation.

The EU equivalent of the US constitution are the treaties that formed it, and other treaties that have been approved. There are a handful of them. Member state laws and EU laws can be challenged in the European Court of Justice (the EU equivalent of the US Supreme Court) on the grounds that they conflict with the treaties. For example, a far-reaching EU ban on tobacco advertising was challenged and thrown out on the grounds that the Commision did not have the juristiction to pass such a law.

The treaties are long and complex. No normal human being reads through them so I am not aware to what extent the EUCP may conflict with the treaties. Even if the EU as such can not pass it, there is nothing preventing the heads of state of the individual governments from coming together outside the EU and deciding to collective (try) to get this directive passed in each and every state (assuming the national legislatures agree).

The European Court of Justice, comprising judges from each member state, is traditionally used by member states or institutions to sue other states or institutions. It is rare that individuals challenge laws, but to the best of my knowledge this is possible -- I think recent case law confirms that.

There is also another possibility: some 40-50 countries of Europe are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has its own court. If the EUCP happens to violate any of the freedom of speech and freedom of expression guarantees found there, I imagine a motivated individual with the proper legal assistance may be able to try this as well.

Laws in the EU must be passed by the Council (governments of the member states), and sometimes the European Parliament, in order to come into effect.

In this case, the EUCP was already passed on European level last year, and member states are required to implement it in their own legislation.

The EU equivalent of the US constitution are the treaties that formed it, and other treaties that have been approved. There are a handful of them. Member state laws and EU laws can be challenged in the European Court of Justice (the EU equivalent of the US Supreme Court) on the grounds that they conflict with the treaties. For example, a far-reaching EU ban on tobacco advertising was challenged and thrown out on the grounds that the Commision did not have the juristiction to pass such a law.

The treaties are long and complex. No normal human being reads through them so I am not aware to what extent the EUCP may conflict with the treaties. Even if the EU as such can not pass it, there is nothing preventing the heads of state of the individual governments from coming together outside the EU and deciding to collective (try) to get this directive passed in each and every state (assuming the national legislatures agree).

The European Court of Justice, comprising judges from each member state, is traditionally used by member states or institutions to sue other states or institutions. It is rare that individuals challenge laws, but to the best of my knowledge this is possible -- I think recent case law confirms that.

There is also another possibility: some 40-50 countries of Europe are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which has its own court. If the EUCP happens to violate any of the freedom of speech and freedom of expression guarantees found there, I imagine a motivated individual with the proper legal assistance may be able to try this as well.

"Although the Commission makes the proposals, all the major decisions on important legislation are taken by the ministers of the Member States in the Council of the European Union, in co-decision (or, in some cases, consultation) with the democratically elected European Parliament."

It acts as the guardian of the EU treaties to ensure that European legislation is applied correctly

As the Union's executive body, the Commission manages policies and negotiates international trade and cooperation agreements