Slashdot Mirror
California Microsoft Settlement
Lord Prox writes "From news.com.com: A California judge on Friday gave preliminary approval to a landmark settlement under which Microsoft will pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit that claimed it overcharged consumers for Windows.
More Townsend and Townsend and Crew is info from the law firm here. Also note... you get vouchers in settlement good for buying computer related items, not just Microsoft products and/or can be traded and converted to cash!"
California agrees to a ten year, $10 billion Microsoft contract.
A California judge on Friday gave preliminary approval to a landmark settlement under which Microsoft will pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit that claimed it overcharged consumers for Windows
I pirated a copy and feel ripped off !!
That's good and all, i'm glad to see they are trying to do something about it...but..why couldn't the price been just a little more? $5 to $29 is not going to make up for the companies who have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on microsoft products through the last 10 years or so. It's ridiculous.
fp?
your sins into me, oh my beautiful one.
1.1 billion dollars?
:)
I think Gates can pay that straight out of his pocket
what about compound interest on that for the period during the case and incured costs?
I wish i didn't live in a sucky country which wimped out of nailing Microsoft to a target and announcing open season. Is it too late to organise a class action do you think? They must have commited another antitrust violation today or something, or do they take the weekends off?
Here's hoping that exactly none of this money is used to buy upgrades to Windows XP.
Beep beep.
Cnet says : Two-thirds of the unclaimed money will go to California public schools in a mix of donated Microsoft software and cash grants."
Microsoft should make it a habit of getting sued by states so that it can spread its software into the schools more effectively. I'm sure that the cash is also tax deductible. You go Bill!
In linux libertas
Thats until SCO came along. Still good for 2,20,0000 LIEcences though.
They didn't want to risk having to deal with a Governor who's also a Terminator.
With this much money. We could
Kill SCO
'Liberate' Bitkeeper
Bribe the gnome developers to add split pane support into nautilus
Get the debian team to include a 2.6 kernel in potato
Get Adobe to port linux to photoshop.
Getting Apple to liberate their aqua gui (and their stupid patents on spring loaded folders and font hinting)
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
Although the maximum value of the settlement is $1.1 billion, Microsoft could end up paying as little as $367 in cash, which is what it would owe to California public schools if no vouchers are claimed.
2/3 of $1.1 billion is $733 million, not $367. Yay for math skills.
A California judge on Friday gave preliminary approval to a landmark settlement under which Microsoft will pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit that claimed it overcharged consumers for Windows.
Isn't it great when you're so rich you can break the law, then simply reimburse the people you scammed when, sometimes, they notice and react ? How many people got ripped off and never got their money back because they didn't have the time or energy to fight back big bad Microsoft ?
Did the hordes of people who wanted to buy bare computers but couldn't find any, and had a Windows license forced down their throats, get their money back yet ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This shows yet another advantage Linux has over Windows, no one has to pay any overcharging lawsuits. Then again, you wouldn't get free money with Linux...
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
Soon all corporate payouts will be in the form of court settlements. Payroll and stock options and dividends will go the way of Jury trials. This is more efficient anyway, because courts can set standards for how much each person should get, instead of having different salaries set abitrarily.
I think this forward thinking of MS. Other corporations are going arrive in the slave-holding court mandated christmas ham model only to find MS already there.
So Microsoft admits that they overcharged for the price of Windows--does this mean that the price of Windows will now go down?
"The lawsuit, filed in February 1999, claimed that Microsoft violated California antitrust laws by overcharging by as much as $40 for every copy of the Windows 95 and 98 operating systems."
"...consumers and corporations in the state will be notified that they may qualify for vouchers ranging in value from $5 to $29."
So was that the part where we settle for less and they still profit from crime?
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
Don't forget, California has a $30-40 billion dollar shortfall this year. They're stuggling to find any source of cash they can... I'm sure they settled because they need an infusion of cash NOW...
Remember... when you can't walk away from the deal, there's no negotiation.
MS Dos is included but not Windows 3.x.
Is this some kind of attempt to get M$ moving on the rumoured increases in its' dividend rate? Were the California shareholders just excessively impatient?
Of course, after living in California a few years now, I can assure you that you had better be a Microsoft-sized company if you expect to survive here. The place is insanely litigous, the State Senate and State Assembly routinely pass absurd legislation that inflicts high costs on companies gullible enough to do business here, and the cost of living is driving this place into a two-tiered society; the wealthy and those who serve them.
Consider this just one more warning to other businesses tempted by this fabled "market of 34 million consumers". Chalk up this settlement next to hundreds of others, the recent tripling of workman's compensation insurance premiums (which is driving out hundreds of small companies and manufacturers), and the recent brilliance of our state government regarding taxes. The state's income tax system is very "progressive" meaning that high earners are heavily taxed and lesser earners are not taxed at all. Our brilliant legislature recently opted only to increase the income tax rates on the high earners. This is the very approach that got us in such a budget mess in the first place. The low earners vote for dozens of unaccountable spending programs that are paid for by the high earners. When the high earners get clobbered (read NASDAQ collapses onto Silicon Valley), the state government goes begging to support all those programs. Eventually, the state will be entirely populated by a wealthy few, some inland farmers, and those who serve the wealthy and depend on government programs to cope with the uniformly high cost of living. At least the ailing public schools will have a few copies of Windows 98 "donated" by Microsith. Be sure to check out microsith.com!
Hey Californians, last one out, turn off the lights!
In principio erat Verbum.
Penisbird == Asshat // kicked from #gnaa, seek revenge one day * GAR * GAR * GAR *
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
Microsoft Corp announced it agrees with the ruling and will reimburse the plaintiffs with multiple licenses of whatever lovely Microsoft product they choose....
signatures are for fools with hands
that is how the settlements work. the only bigger winners are the lawyers (as usual).
Continuing sarcasm...
Gosh, we certainly don't want our kids to learn to use software that is actually out there in the real world! That would be disastrous! Then kids might actually be able to DO something with computers coming out of U.S. high schools, and the curricula of community colleges everywhere would have to be completely restructured... What is the world coming to?
Let's stop this now, teach them to use the Bash shell, and show them that they don't really need MS Word when they can have the power of vi and LaTeX...
End sarcasm...
Microsoft sued for copyright infringement over Windows XP shutdown music.
And On-Topic:
Software Giveaways should be assigned no value in a legal settlement!
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
lol, what are you going to do?
:'wwwwww:::'ww::: ww::::'www:::::::'www::::
:iiiiii::::ii::::ii::ii:::::ii::ii:::::ii::
:'wwwwwww::'ww:::::'ww:'ww::: ww:'wwwwwwww:
:iiiiiii::::iii::iii:::ii::::ii::iiiiiiii::
::::::'ww:::'wwwww:::::'wwwww:::'wwww:
:::::: ww::'wwii ww:::'wwii ww:: wwww:
:::::: ww:'ww:::: ww:'ww:::: ww: wwww:
:::::: ww: ww:::: ww: ww:::: ww:: ww::
:iiiiii:::::iiiii::::::iiiii::::iiii::
'wwiii ww:: www:: ww:::'ww ww:::::'ww ww:::
w:::ii::: wwww: ww::'ww:i ww:::'ww:i ww::
ww::'wwww: ww ww ww:'ww:::i ww:'ww:::i ww:
ww::: ww:: wwi wwww: wwwwwwwww: wwwwwwwww:
ww::: ww:: ww:i www: wwiiii ww: wwiiii ww:
i wwwwww::: ww::i ww: ww:::: ww: ww:::: ww:
'wwiiii ww: ww:'ww: ww: www:: ww:iiiii ww::
ww:::: ww: ww: ww: ww: wwww: ww::::: ww:::
ww:::: ww: ww: ww: ww: ww ww ww:::: ww::::
ww:::: ww: ww: ww: ww: wwi wwww::: ww:::::
ww:::: ww: ww: ww: ww: ww:i www:: ww::::::
i wwwwwww::i wwwi www:: ww::i ww: wwwwwwww:
'ww::: ww: ww:::: ww: ww:::: ww::ii:::
ww::: ww:i ww:: ww::i ww:: ww::'wwww:
i wwwwww:::i wwwww::::i wwwww::: wwww:
I love it. Part of the settlement administration website, managed by Rust consulting Inc., "... a class act in claims administration", located at http://microsoftcalsettlement.com/ is run on Microsoft IIS 5.0. I havn't seen the exact language of the settlement yet (does it cover Microsoft OSs more recent than Win05/98?) so it's hard to tell whether Rust Consulting Inc. will be filling out their own forms on their own website to claim their settlement coupons for their overpayment fot the OS running their website (or notifying their histing provider to do so).
-- CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
How is it that the US government can buy $90 million worth of software, when they know they are being overcharged and could be getting more a secure product for free?
1. Overcharge by $40/copy.
2. Agree to refund $5 to $29/copy.
3. Profit!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
$100 discount on each copy of the Linux kernel that they use in the future. And we will sell it to them at $101 a copy.
class action and antitrust issues are the thing to watch now as the government and precedent law must go either towards the people or the corporation (alas, legally, a singular entity with access to people protections and corp protections not allowed to people. like NAFTA, GATT, and the coulda been, probably soon to be, MAI). the fact that microsoft vouchers could be used like cash is an ominous note in economic underpinnings of civilized society and face value (ie- a buck) will exceed accounted value (cost to print, show the judge they're not cheating, etc- 20-50 cents on that buck) i'm sure. this smacks of another digital ripoff issue, the copyright riot act of the riaa. let's note for a moment that almost all record companies (majors) are owned by bigger companies, who in turn own electronics manufacture companies, like sony for instance. that one's easy, they don't even change the name from one unit to the next. recently (slashdot covered it, so i won't bother) record companies in an antitrust case were forced to pay everybody who applied, 13$, for cd price fixing over the last decade. now those same co's are suing the pants off people for using the equipment sold, and marketed, to them as digital entertainment centers. burn mp3's! watch a movie ripped from dvd and dropped on your laptop harddrive! hey, check out the rewrite dvd's, now !
so is this simply the new business model for these co's? ands don't even get me started on the losers in direc*tv legal....
Two-thirds of the unclaimed money will go to California public schools in a mix of donated Microsoft software and cash grants. Although the maximum value of the settlement is $1.1 billion, Microsoft could end up paying as little as $367 in cash, which is what it would owe to California public schools if no vouchers are claimed. If all vouchers are claimed, Microsoft would be required to pay the maximum, but schools would then get nothing.
.net developers tools. Wheres linux or bsd in the mix?
Long paste, but I have 2 concerns.
1. Are the software calculated at RETAIL. Very bad if they get to use these prices. Here in Redmond, if you have a buddy who works for m$ you can get stuff for dirt cheap, 15 bux for keyboard cheap.
2. This would just give all the schools Microsoft windows to run on all its desktops, with a copy of office and maybe even
Should the $1.1B per state be multiplied by the number of states or do you think it will scale by population. For cash strapped states it should look like a good way to get some funding for the high-tech equipment in schools. Also all the government agencies in the state should be able to claim cash back on purchases.
To bad they settled and there was no judgment. It will be harder for other states to get the same deal.
That's quite a spread! What has to happen to drop the payment to three hundred sixty seven dollars?
Does anyone else not have the same experience? Most recently was 200 discs from Office Max for, um I forget, but it was CHEAP, (after rebates).
And (reading between the lines) much to the chagrin of many /.ers, they have been used %100 for non-infringing use.
Most get used for system backups then get tossed after a while. (Tin snips handle security, I'm too cheap to buy a shredder that handles CDs).
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
A brilliant social-engineering DoS attack was perpetrated when thousands of closet WindowsXP using Slashdot readers were convinced to shut down their computers to listen to the XP shutdown music and compare it for themselves to the song "Eight Miles High".
Subtract result from Microsoft assets.
How exactly do they figure MS overcharged by $40 a copy? Where does this figure come from? I'll not be claiming any vouchers, not just because i'm lazy (which I am) but also on basic principle. I see a copy of windows for sale for $199, and I buy it, then it's my choice as an adult to buy it for $199. I think it's horrible that somebody can sue and tell a large company that their product is only worth $150, and sue for the difference. Let's all get together and sue apple for overpricing their computers! Why, iMac's aren't even worth $1000 in my opinion, so I need to get a refund from apple for the difference i've paid.
I can see pressing a case against MS for unfair business practices, though in most cases (like AOL) it's just whining from the losers in the software race. But the generic public sets the prices of stuff by either buying or not buying. If people buy it, then obviously they felt it was worth the money, otherwise they would have found another alternative (like Linux or MacOS)
Microsoft made it so expensive to buy comodity hardware that was preconfigured that they have trained up their doom. How many enemies have they made? Too many and all knowledgable. They have trained me and many other to know just how shitty their stuff is and how not to need it. I will gladly help others to avoid them at no cost. If you are in Baton Rouge, come join me and my friends Monday.
The revolution was not televised.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Look, I used my dividend to buy three or four nice boxed coppies of XP and put them on Ebay. They came from abroad, cost me nothing, yet still I do not prosper! Everyone just laughed at me and now I'm stuck with this sucky software. What't to do?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Windows 95 has fallen out of support and besides that, most people have gotten a new PC since then with ME or XP handcuffed to it. 98 is falling (has fallen?) out of support and even that has been largely replaced by newer versions (like it or not). How many people still hang on to their old licenses after the software is trash? There's gonna be like 10 claims from geeks swiping the license from granny's computer. Everyone else has trashed 'em or just don't give a crap about 16 bucks.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Many years ago Bank of America lost a class action lawsuit for some dubious practices. For example, make a deposit and write a check the same day. Odds are, the check will bounce and incur a hefty overdraft fee. After BoA settled I received a letter stating I could claim my portion by filling out the enclosed form, etc. etc., and I would receive vouchers good for banking services at BoA. Excuse me? What makes you think I would ever again trust them with my money?
I'll bet some lawyers made some serious money in the case, though.
-- Will program for bandwidth
"...can be traded and converted to cash"
Better hope the settlement money can't be converted into campaing funds!
(Inside joke. You have to be a Californian to understand what Gray Davis is going to do with that money.)
Townsend and Townsend and Crew, the law firm that filed the suit, described Friday's ruling as "the largest recovery of a monopoly overcharge ever achieved in the United States and the largest recovery ever achieved under the antitrust laws of California."
Uh, yeah, and like most of these types of lawsuits, the trial lawyers get the bulk of the spoils and the consumer gets peanuts. The firm partners all get to build new wings on their homes and the consumer get their $5 to $29. Big consumer victory, what a joke. Sorry, but my contempt for what the legal profession has become overshadows anything wrong Microsoft might have done. And of course, the geeks applaud this outcome, because they can't get over their hang-ups on Microsoft without seeing the bigger picture, which is how out of control lawsuits have become in American society and how the legal system has become a tool of legalized terror against businesses and individuals. You need not look any further than what the RIAA is engaged in. Think about that before you yell "yeah, fsck Microsoft!"
This is totally off topic, but look at the report at CAFR.
In short it says: "The State of California at the State-level has approximately $63.39 billion of the taxpayer's money it is not using, i. e. surpluses equal to $1,790 for every man, woman and child in California or $7,158 for a family of 4. This does not include all the additional surpluses that exist in the school districts, cities, or counties in California."
This is not made up - the information comes from the California State Controller's Office. Read the report and then get mad as Hell. They are struggling alright; struggling to get more of your money! Bunch of damned crooks - Democrats and Republicans alike.
It's a looter mindset. How can MS "overcharge" the public, when it owns no stores? Is there any way to let California secede? We really don't need those parasites.
...Freedom to Innovate? ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
good, now this can help make a small dent in our $38.8 billion budget
huh? if it was 10$ average per person then that eoule mean 110 million users get refunds. I dont think half the population of the united states lives in cananda
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I would PAY for seeing a fight Terminator vs The Borg !!
The article does not say how much the lawyers got from this. Perhaps their cut explains the difference between the $5-$29 and the $40 overcharge?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Wouldn't it be better to have put in safeguards that prevented MS from overpricing? I'm glad that the "little guy" won, but wee, vouchers... I'm surprised they didn't try to pay them off with XP licenses. /didn't RTFA
I would PAY for seeing a fight : Terminator vs The Borg !!
Ultimately, Linux will determine the price of Windows, which would be somewhere in between the present price and free.
Remember the German deal which was all over the news lately? The price of Windows was reduced somewhat and MS still lost!
I recieved a notice in the mail several days ago regarding a settlement in Florida.
Here are some links to relevent documents Applications.pdf is a list of covered products and a web site with more information for the curious Microsoft Product Settlement
I dont have the paperwork handy right now but if I remember the claims form correctly up to 5 products could be claimed wihtout documentation and if over 5 porducts were claimed additional documentation would be required. They even supplied a list of products that were registered by me during the time frame specified.
Cool, man. When the tobacco companies were getting sued left and right a decade ago, they should have negotiated a settlement where they donated cigarettes to schools.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
I'm going to turn in claims for all of the actual Windows CDs I found lying around on the street and go buy a nice 6 pack of beer with the money.
:D
Yup, I can finally move up from Coors and get me a 6 pack of Mickey's!
Yeah, life is good...
Watch it be spread sooo thin, you can't even get a happy meal with it.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Great! Glad you're happy. Please stay out of the settlement and let others who do care get a piece of the pie.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
...they'll just forgive $1.1 billion in pirated software currently being used in California.
Of course, that doesn't even cover Silicon Valley - but it's a start!
If you lived or had a business in CA during the time period dealt with, you're part of the class whether you're an individual or Hewlett-Packard.
HP can't claim the licenses they bought for resale, but they can claim every single license for Windows or Office or unbundled Excel or Word puchased for every single workstation they used internally as end users between 1995 and 2001.
MS is going to be less than pleased when some company that had 30,000 workstation seats shows up demanding compensation for 2 OS (2 x 16) + 2 copies of Office (2 x $29)=$80 X 30K... that's $2,400,000 .
Especially since thanks to their agressive pursuit of licensing offenses, those companies should still have the records of software purchase for every single workstation.
MS owes me $78, and something tells me that I'm not buying MS products with it.
One other thing. This is an out of court settlement. Apparently MS was afraid that it would have cost far more if this had gone to trial, so if you know anyone involved in a class action about this in another state, encourage them to go to trial.
Tech Public Policy stuff
MS owes me for ... DOS, W3.1, W95, W98SE, and Office 97... I'm still using Office 97 and W98 just like a shitload of people and businesses. Surprise, just because one uses Windoze doesn't mean one jumps through the hoop just because MS says to.
Though the processor and the hard drive in the box 98 is running on have been upgraded, and if this had come along earlier, it could have paid for the HD where Red Hat lives on this computer.
While $100 isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things, getting anything back from those scumballs puts me in a good mood.
Tech Public Policy stuff
1. Beg, borrow or steal other people's ideas.
2. Sell my own packaged version using illegal business practices.
3. Become the world's largest and richest distributor of said item.
4. When I get sued I'll only have to pay back a small portion of said profit, and create new customers in the process.
I'm not one for strict government regulation of businesses, but if the rules are there everyone should have to play by them or not play ball anymore.
MicroSoft overcharging consumers for Windows strikes me as an odd notion. If you can get an operating system for free, isn't anything they charge for Windows overcharging? And if that's not the case, doesn't MicroSoft have the right to charge whatever they please for their product? If you don't like the price, don't buy the product.
Arguably, Windows is a really valuable operating system. Because it dwarfs other desktop OSes, software gets developed exclusively for Windows. Thus, if you want to run this software, you need to buy Windows. MicroSoft would be right to charge more than its competitors.
I am guessing that the overcharging claim comes from the notion that you _have to_ buy Windows, even if you don't like the price. This is caused, for a large part, by the fact that Windows is usually shipped with new hardware, often not giving consumers the option to buy the system without paying for Windows. This is where the actual problem lies, not with the pricing itself.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Oh, I know it costs quit a bit to heat/cool a school, and teachers need to get paid, not to mention lunch and a few staffers. However that doesn't explain what they are doing with the money. The school I graduated from needed a new high school (growing area, the current one didn't have room), so they built an expensive new one of the same size, but room to grow. The extention will cost 30 million for 400 more students, and that is just more classrooms. (They already have gyms, library, lunch room, and so on) Why do they need such an expensive building?
By comparition, the origional high school (been jr high since long before I was born) was built in the 1930s, and isn't really fit to be a school anymore without major work. And the new schools are not proposed to be overbuilt with 3 foot thick walls like that one. Why can't a simple, boring steel building designed to last 50 years work instead. Got to be a lot cheaper.
Really what I'm saying is that if your school didn't have enough money for paper you should have gone to all the parents around you and demanded that the school board resigned for incompetency. Mind you new members might be allowed to stay because those buildings carry dept far into the future and that has to be paid by those far removed from the decision, but any long term members should have seen it coming.
And the only ones who win are the Lawyers.
What? Microsoft overcharged for their products? You're kidding me!?! I thought that all the microsoft products were worth the 100 fucking dollars I spent on it!
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Perhaps I'm being suspicious, but doesn't this claim process give the state of California the option of finding out those computer users who bought computers (eg. Dell, Gateway, PDA's) out of state, but didn't pay their local state tax? Claimants have to provide: proof of purchase, home address, and the software licenses purchased ....