Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Pays $440M to License InterTrust Patents
theodp writes "Microsoft is paying $440 million to InterTrust to settle a three-year-old patent infringement lawsuit over DRM technology for protecting music, movies and other digital content against piracy. Under the settlement agreement, customers can use Microsoft products and services without a license from InterTrust. Developers, however, may need a license from InterTrust for other uses, including the combination of Microsoft technology with third-party technology." C.J. adds a link to the New York Times' coverage of the settlement.
Under the settlement agreement, customers can use Microsoft products and services without a license from InterTrust.
Arent' those the same basic promises as the HP "license" from SCO?
what is the cost benefit analysis of this? would microsoft have saved money if they had simply licensed everything first, or is the $440 million cheaper? i imagine that big software companies do the same kind of CBA that auto companies and the FAA do.
You don't understand. This is $440 Million that Microsoft gave to InterTrust so that InterTrust would have a big warchest to go after everyone except Microsoft who tries to compete with Microsoft. It's a drop in the bucket to Microsoft (see the last few weekly Cringley articles), and it is an even better way to grab position than to give SCO money under the table to have them try to kill Linux.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Except for the fact that Microsoft has been touting how many choices you have for their DRM protected content. Now they've landed themselves in the same boat they are accusing apple of being in wrt FairPlay/iTMS.
Sorry but that rings a few bells there, Big-Ben sized bells. If it was really tha important to them in the first place wouldnt they have sorted it out when it was first found to have occured? It seems to me that microsoft are completely willing to put individual people in jail for minor acts of copyright infringement but when it comes to a whole company theyre more than happy just to pay them off and hope it all goes away.
1/2 billion here, 1/2 billion there, 1/2 billion everywhere (btw, that was EU, not UK), EIIOU. If this sort of thing keeps up, Microsoft will, eventually, run out of cash (I seem to remember reading somewhere they're not actually earning any profits at the moment).
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
3rd monitary payout from them in a pretty short period of time. Makes me wonder if they think they can just pay everyone off (has worked so far).
Microsoft® has a new head of it's leagl department. Thats what up. Settling and trying to hold on to it's money. If they had lost ( just might have) they would have spent more. This make good business sense. I still hate their guts but it makes sense.
Look for them to make more settlements.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Patents are also there so that some company doesnt just go off and say take apart an ipod and make a complete copy of it and sell it as their own. Patents arent EVIL, its the people that abuse the parents that are dipshits.
Not to worry. India and China will be more than happy to pick up the slack!!! (really!, I'm not trying to troll here!)
Three drops in a very large $40 billion bucket, unfortunately.
I know they are a huge company...but I really don't see how they can afford to keep losing money like they do. A few billion to Sun here, millions to BeOS here, $440 million for some patents, losing millions on X-Box, millions in lawsuits and fines, funding SCO, etc. It seems that eventually they'd run low on cash to throw away on stupid crap...but I've never had billions of dollars so I guess I wouldn't know.
Dammit! It seems like everything bad that happens to Microsoft, Microsoft turns around and uses it in their favor...
I mean:
- States sue Microsoft for abusing monopoly powers; Microsoft pays lawsuit with Microsoft products that indoctrinate kids (future buyers) into Microsoft products.
- Microsoft sues Lindows for it's impossible common word trademark of windows in US courts. Microsoft loses. Microsoft sues Lindows in other world courts; Lindows is forced to change name. Microsoft loses, yet wins. Lindows runs out of lawsuit money.
- States sue Microsoft over alleged undocumented Windows routines that allow MS software to run better on Windows than other software. Source code is released later on that shows MS lied in court. Nothing happens to MS!
How is this new lawsuit good for anything but Microsoft? It's like Microsoft basically paid $440million to ensure that 3rd party software has a disadvantage - something Microsoft has already been sued for! This, once again, screws consumers by causing 3rd party manufacturers to pay more for licensing and allows MS to eat another market.
MS is really clever at screwing us all in the ass as efficiently as possible.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
If nothing else, this really indicates to me just how much money Microsoft has, and what a slap on the wrist the potential EU anti-trust fine is.
Why must every minutia related to Microsoft always be front page material for slashdot?
Because free as in blah blah blah and teh Micro$oft Windoze if for teh lusers and blah blah blah and patents are evil and blah blah copyrights are bad mmmkay blah blah DRM blah blah blah and the worst thing of all is for corporations to profit!!! Does that answer your question?
A patent is a gun that costs $10000 to buy, and a million dollars to shoot. You've just solved the $10k problem -- for New Zealand only. If you want a worldwide patent, you still have to pay out that $10k.
Kindof reminds me of the lightbulb. According to Scientific American, Edison's notebook includes a cutout article about Swan's use of a carbon filament. On the next page, "It works!"
http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/SWAN_BIO.html
Anyhow, Swan managed to maintain his patents in England, but Edison essentially won for the rest of the world. So I guess that a NZ patent would be okay in NZ.
Except that to reasonably defend a NZ patent, you probably have to be a NZ resident...
Let's face it. The powerless are not going to use power to steal power from the powerful. It just ain't gonna happen.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
It certainly seems to be the new Mictosoft strategy: license dubious technology, giving money to companies to sue and harrass their competitors!
Or they will release Longhorn, starting a wave of upgrades, some forced. And a new version of Office. I don't think anyone that owns significant stock in Microsoft, or anyone working at Microsoft, has missed a meal lately.
Microsoft is definately making a profit, and a large one at that. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply wrong.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
"NY Times Reg-free link"
Seeing as how Slashdot is benefitting from NYTimes' work, isn't it a bit unprofessional to mod people up for telling people how to sneak around their registration system? I wouldn't mind but NYT doesn't have a bad reputation for abusing registeree's.
"Derp de derp."
This is Microsoft's new method for getting around the DOJ and EU requirements that Microsoft license their protocols to others.
Microsoft pays InterTrust a lot of money, and then InterTrust refuses to license to anyone else (unless Microsoft approves), thus giving Microsoft a monopoly on the protocol, just as if it was Microsoft's own secret/patented protocol.
But if the court tries to say that it violates the DOJ or EU settlement, then Microsoft just responds, "Hey, we're the victim here. It's InterTrust that won't share the protocols."
The money not only pays for InterTrust to give up their other potential licensees, but also for the legal risk that InterTrust is taking, by helping Microsoft to evade the law.
As I've said before, any court settlement that depends on Microsoft's honesty is going to fail miserably -- Microsoft's leaders are corrupt to the core, and will always find a way around any promise.
The only proper solution is to remove Gates, Ballmer, et al, from the company, and to put them in jail.
Software built in India or China will not be legal in the US if they don't adhere to these ridiculous software patents.
It will be almost impossible to sell software in the US, whether it's made domestically or internationally, because it's practically impossible to make software that's legal in the US.
The US will become a software 3rd world country if you don't repeal the software patent law.
- -- Truth addict for life.
"The US will become a software 3rd world country if you don't repeal the software patent law."
In most third world countries a handful of people control virtually all the wealth. There are just a few very powerful companies and tons of little mom and pop grocery stores.
Seems to me we are well on our way.
evil is as evil does