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Burst.com and Microsoft Settle
prostoalex writes "Microsoft and Burst.com announced a tentative settlement, where Microsoft will pay Californian company $60 mln for allegedly stolen multimedia streaming software. Robert X. Cringely provided the recap of the court case back in 2003 (and Slashdot discussion ensued). According to Burst claims, Microsoft entered a non-disclosure agreement with the company to learn about Burst's multimedia streaming technology. Later the technology, for which Burst has 37 patents, has been found in Windows Media Player. When aksed to present the archives of the e-mails and all communications within the company for the trial, Microsoft somehow presented all the documents that preceded before the deal and the documents that followed it. The e-mails during the 35 weeks that negotiations were held mysteriously disappeared. In court Microsoft claimed the e-mails were erased from employee's desktops, e-mail servers and server backups. The technology was not interesting to Microsoft, lawyers insisted, so the electronic trail of communications was erased."
In court Microsoft claimed the e-mails were erased from employee's desktops, e-mail servers and server backups.
I don't know how Microsoft's IT structure works but I know at where I work we have snapshots of all of our data done every week and held for a month. Then at the month limit we archive our data for another year. Not to mention the nightly incremental backups. Essentially we can go back to any time of a week for a month, then in month increments and recover that snapshot.
I guess what I'm getting at is how exactly does a company lose "uninteresting" data spanning a period of 35 weeks unless it's intentional?
It would be near impossible for someone to cover ones tracks without going through only God knows how many tapes and erasing said data.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
MS thieving==news?
There should be a law requiring/prohibiting that (Please circle one)
Strange, I found this one in my box a few years ago...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Microsoft should see its day in court for this. This case was so clearly predatory and demonstrates the continued belligerence of Microsoft and its corporate strategy. I'm not sure if Burst.com decided that it was too expensive to take this to court, or if Microsoft simply made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Just shows how fluid the law is when there's enough money in the equation. With settlements being the de facto standard response to criminal corporate behavoir, it's no wonder anti-social companies like MS are more and more common - meaining known to the public to be criminals. What really blows me away is the public acceptance, or at least apathy, of companies like MS because it's more practical to look the other way.
I Want To Believe
Not of interest. Because large corporations like that tend to destroy communications related to review of products under NDA when they produce similar software, and only for narrow periods of time.
OOTH, the laywer that actually had to say that with a straight face is probably going to have a successful acting career.
How they attack Microsoft, as their patents can apply to many other multimedia streaming. Who knows what else can be targeted? WinAmp? Hopefully not.
Companies that exist for the sole purpose of patenting ideas and sitting on them disgust me.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
We have always been at war with Eurasia
This is another way of starting a sig with this and ending it with that.
The missing emails were actually attributed to a rarely-used update to Outlook's Clippy-assistant:
"It looks like you're being sued. Would you like me to delete all correspondence related to the lawsuit?"
I'm a big tall mofo.
The reason they couldn't find the e-mails is that they didn't "aks" the right question.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Double standards, anyone?
Seriously, this is getting tedious.
This case had all the indications that MS workers would finally be found guilty of perjury and sent to jail.
And if they were found guilty of perjury, I would really like to see the crooks doing hard time. In fact, I wish some DA picks up the leads (even after the settlement) and investigate what would possibly be the most blatant case of lying to a Court Judge we have notice of.
Then comes money and it's all forgotten. Now they can go on and do the same thing to the next victim they can find.
Someone define Justice for me, please.
Is that money I smell? Welcome to Slashdot where we advertise gadgets and technology you must have and the lawsuits behind them. I love my iPod I couldn't live without it. Isn't the war in Iraq great? Oh yeah, Klerck is dead. Ho hum.
Materialism.
I spent my week putting in overtime because my job demands it. Spent 60 hours just so I would have a job to buy stuff I enjoy.
Petit Materialism.
I log into Slashdot to tell everyone the joys of Apple computing. I paid a lot for my Mini-Me Mac but it was worth it! I feel so great I must tell the world.
GDP is going up. Humanity is going down.
As long as you have enough money you are above the law?
A completely random, irrelevant, and non-clever reference to Clippy. It's a joke we've heard a hundred thousand times over. On Slashdot, that's a guaranteed +5.
But be sure to give in to the karma whore, mods. He's playing you like a fiddle.
I don't think I want to buy software from a company that randomly loses data... oh wait I dont
The Answer
I thought people only pronounced it that way...
Oh, wait. I get it. They axed the front (back?) door to Microsoft's Office and threatened to axe a few more, and *then* M$ 'found' the documents. That's about right.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Move along. -Microsoft. How convenient.
"The e-mails during the 35 weeks that negotiations were held mysteriously disappeared. In court Microsoft claimed the e-mails were erased from employee's desktops, e-mail servers and server backups."
Typical. Sounds like Nixon. I'm sure this goes on in the Shrub's administration as well. These people all think alike. ANYTHING is doable so long as the end justifies the means.
to losing emails. This isn't the first time. Surely there is a law for doing this. It seems like their get out of jail card. Whoops, we lost the emails so there goes *your* case. In any case, didn't Burst keep a copy either?
Jonathanjk.com
Once again Microsoft learns that laws are now impediment. Everyone complains about their illegal business practices, but why shouldn't they do what's illegal? It's not like they hide it. They simply say, yes we broke the law and we accept the penalty because the penalty doesn't even come close to the amount of money we've made from the illegal practice. Time and again they learn that our legal system is totaly incapable of punishment or correction for mega corporation like them. I say bravo for providing such a vivid demonstration of how broken our legal system is. If it's brokeness is not plainly revealed, it'll never get fixed.
Remember, way back in the Win3.x days, that whole thing about DoubleSpace and Stacker? These things have happened before, and they will probably happen again.
This is just like the seventeen minutes of silence on the Nixon tapes during the Watergate break-in investigation. Somehow, when Nixon died, he was "remembered" as a great American. How can we stand for this?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Companies which exist for the sole purpose of creating and making money off of patents are called RESEARCH companies.... Our government created the patent system on purpose, not by accident. It is supposed to, and in most cases, does stimulate creativity and research.
Companies that IGNORE other peoples' intellectual property and just take what isn't theirs disgust me.
They should have held out for more than a billion. The fact the MS deleted the e-mail says they were horribly guilty. In addition, this is one area that MS is trying desperately to win. It is easily worth several billions to MS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is that like in the old story, The Debil and Daniel Wevster?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
"With settlements being the de facto standard response to criminal corporate behavoir."
Much like music piracy, this wasn't theft. It's not a legal issue per se, it's a civil issue. Hence why it was a lawsuit and not criminal investigation. Cash settlements don't usually end criminal investigations.
--
RumorsDaily
After watching the great documentary The Corporation, all of this makes sense, since the government basically has given corporations all the rights of humans, but none of the responsibility or accountability. So Microsoft can blatantly spit in the face of court subpoenas and suffer virtually no consequences. Sad, but welcome to the 21st corporate-centric century.
it's no wonder anti-social companies like MS are more and more common
You really mean anti-socialist. Now, don't you?
Pinko!
Stacker was actually illegally included in DOS 6.0 as DoubleSpace. See here or here for an english translation. They removed it for 6.2 & created DriveSpace for 6.22. DriveSpace was used in almost an identical manner, but was incompatible wiht DoubleSpace, causing upgraders who were using drive compression no end of grief.
of course they lost the email , they probably use there own products, "Sorry your honor our exchange server went down and we lost everything incriminating " :-P
Have you ever worked with Exchange? In a large scaled environment?
It can happen.
As part of the settlement, they should be required to run GroupWise from now on. Good luck getting rid of a message then.
The e-mails during the 35 weeks that negotiations were held mysteriously disappeared. In court Microsoft claimed the e-mails were erased from employee's desktops, e-mail servers and server backups. The technology was not interesting to Microsoft, lawyers insisted, so the electronic trail of communications was erased.
If you learn something under NDA and want to make sure you don't break it, one way of doing that is to forget everything you learned.
Companies don't have conscious memory, but they do contain information, and destroying the information is a way of making the company itself forget, as much as that word can apply to a corporation.
Not the most unreasonable way of doing it, but I'm sure there are standard practices that do a much better job of ensuring you don't taint yourself with someone else's IP.
We had a policy of *not* backing up emails for that very reason.
Easy, it's also known as the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Microsoft has enough money to buy themselves out of the jaws of justice time and time again. The only way that won't happen is if a) someone goes after them where the motive isn't money and they can't be bought (sort of like what IBM is doing to SCO right now); or b) the government starts enforcing illegal monopoly regulations, and illegal business practices, or the like.
Until either of those occurs, Microsoft will buy their way out of justice every single time and laugh all the way home from the bank. Now remind me why people admire this company?
They aren't getting just $60 million. They're getting $60 million plus undisclosed licensing revenue - a big difference.
MS will eventually disclose what this amount is on their quarterly reports - it should be fairly simple for someone to determine the extra amount being paid out for royalties and licensing. It won't be a billion, but it'll be many, many millions over a short period.
Think of a fair, small sum for every copy of Windows or Media Player that has been shipped, and every one that ever will be. I have a feeling that Burst is now set for life.
jh
If you use Outlook with Exchange Server you can press shift and then delete the email. The deleted messages would then not go into deleted items and will not be in deleted item retention.
Maybe MS ordered everyone involved to destroy all the emails?
Of course if the email was on the server during at least one backup cycle it would be possible to restore it.
While I know we're all here to bash Microsoft and their mail retention policies, has anyone actually read what Burst technology is?
There are thirty-seven patents on queueing? Perhaps Microsoft felt that there was sufficient prior art such that they wouldn't need to license the patents.
Well, let's read on.
Similar code (which Burst would probably say infringes its patents, too) can be found in the latest versions of RealPlayer and QuickTime. Right now, bursting is a key component of almost every mainstream media player.
Those sneak bastards!
Gods damn it, you ADD children with your IM and SMS vocabularies need to stop making up your own abbreviations when talking with regular people. Appropriate abbreviations for "million" are "mil" or "M". Saying "mln" is just ignorant.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Did anyone else get this email today?:
Dear Open Source Programmer,
I am writing this (belated) letter just to say "Thank You". I have come to the realization that your past and current untiring efforts have significantly contributed to the success of Redhat, Inc. Without your keen programming skills, late night coding sessions, and inventive work, we would not have a software product line that is so compelling.
It has been a wild and fun ride since our IPO in 1999. The company has a current Market Cap of over $2 billion dollars. I personally have executed options and netted a cash gain of over $250 million dollars. But don't be afraid: I still have direct ownership of over 2 million more shares so I still have a significant stake in the company. I know that the other Redhat executives (and some of the rank-and-file members) have similar stories to tell. If they had the time I am sure that they would also say simply: "Thanks." Keep up the good work!
Your Friend,
Matthew J. Szulik
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President
Redhat, Incorporated
Time and again they learn that our legal system is totaly incapable of punishment or correction for mega corporation like them.
Enron would like to disagree with you.
The coolest voice ever.
...as a repeat offender? Corporations are legal constructs that have many of the same rights as people, so why not have some of the same responsibilities and punishments? I'd include a corporate "Death Penalty" for the most egregious offenders, because there are some companies (e.g. Enron) that should be take out and legally shot.
I am the COO of a Fortune 500 comany and have to decide wether or not to go with Linux or with Microsoft in the future.
My main concern is if data will be lost when I use Microsoft. Can you please proove to me that data will never be lost, because otherwise my company will switch to Linux.
Especialy emails are very important to s.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Seems to be a little too many legal stories appearing on slashdot. I came for the techy stuff and fun toys!
Justice is effectively a myth taught to children in school so that the students will remain mental children, and mature only into useful automatons.
Seriously - justice in the real world is effectively a myth.
Although we all may occasionally perceive real things in the world which might fit our personal conceptions of justice, these are subjective experiences, and at best are only fleeting manifestations of the diversity of reality. The world has so much white noise, it resonates with everything at some point.
If the world were software, "Real Justice" would be rare enough that you wouldn't even need to code an Exception handler for it. In other words, you can safely assume that it doesn't exist.
Microsoft got off cheap. Very, very cheap.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Turns out our email server crashed a few months ago and all emails pertaining to this trial got wiped out because of filesystem corruption.
We're really embarassed about it so we'll just say they got deleted because quite frankly, the technology from burst.com no longer interests us.
It's not our fault, really it's not, and we didn't steal their technology, really we didn't, but we're really nice people here, so we're willing to settle and forget the whole thing. Is that ok with you, your honor? We'll pay 60 million dollars in unmarked bills. Is that ok your honor?
The reason he was remembered as a great american is due to all the good things he did in his life.
One's life should not be judged by one mistake.
I really doubt you have led a perfect life either.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It would not have been a problem if M$oft had simply forgotten what they learned under NDA.
The problem was that they remembered enough of what they learned for the technology to find its way into their products.
Then they "forgot" the NDA itself!!
They should be charged with perjury and the destruction of evidence. Unfortunately, the current government would not approve and any case would likely be dropped.
C'mon people, RTFA!
According to the article, Microsoft will pay $60 million to Burst.com and will enter into a non-exclusive license agreement as part of tentative lawsuit settlement deal.
This means that Microsoft will pay now and continue to pay in the future.
Entering into a license agreement also means that Microsoft has acknowledged that Burst holds the IP on (at least part of) the disputed technology.
The only thing that's missing here is for Microsoft to admit that their behaviour during the trial (regarding the e-mails) was either criminally stupid or just plain criminal. And we all know that MS would never make such an admission.
Without seeing the details of the settlement, it seems to me like Burst may have gotten what they were asking for.
I thought she was dead.
What?
... rotten fish would have been far more effective
We all know Microsoft's buisness practices are evil but honestlu without them would we even be on the internet in the same way we are? Would we be able to email our aging parents and acually have them respond without calling us and asking how every time they do it? True Windows has its issues...some quite large but without it where would Linux be? Would it even exist? Cause whether you want to admit it or not they have done many great things for us, and they continue to inovate and I dont care what anyone says, no company in the world could do what they do better.
It could be just coincidence, but Burst.com is also a company held by Baystar Capital. These are the people responsible for $50 million in funding for the SCO legal case against IBM over Linux. But then you would have to believe that when Microsoft helped Baystar and SCO meet was a coincidence. And don't forget when Microsoft bought $12 million in SCO licenses when they didn't need them.
And who can forget when Sun bought SCO licenses too and then less than a year later, Microsoft and Sun were best friends and settled their lawsuits with each other.
Maybe some of this stuff is a coincidence and then again maybe none of it is. I find it hard to believe that all of it is a coincidence though.
I don't want to take M$ defense here, what they did is bad. But for all of those who say "How could they have deleted emails ?", well there are two school of thoughts around these days:
- keep all emails, so anything can be tracked back
- file anything that you are legally obliged to keep, and delete everything else, making sure that it doesn't even get backed up.
The second strategy has started to be used after the ENRON fiasco. Most companies still use the first one, but you do start to see more and more (still a small number though) using the former.No, the $60 million IS the licensing revenue. That's all we get (I'm a BRST stockholder). And $20 million of that goes to the law firm that represented Burst. And another $6 million of it goes to Lang as per the terms of his contract. We shareholders got truly screwed by this settlement.
Likewise. Microsoft have only bought a license for themselves.
e nsing/default.aspx/
Here's a start for information on this aspect:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/lic
Not sure how broad the IP coverage is, ie, how much sublicensing of relevant tech is actually worth to MS (now Burst).
The company gets $34million. That's not too shabby, and will go to help Burst create new products/technology to sell.
It's quite shabby, considering the strong position Burst held in the trial. They really and truly had the goods on Microsoft and let them off the hook for a sum that's pocket change to Microsoft.
will go to help Burst create new products/technology to sell.
No, there will be no new product development.
from an interview with Lang (Burst CEO):
He said instead of hiring more workers to develop more technology, the company will move to enforce its patents, which it believes several other large software companies are using.
I left a job where we had lockers and as I left one can of tuna went in a locker, and one can of tuna went under the locker, I understood that they found one can after a week, but it took a another month to find the other one
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Noone suggested software patents are good (except Microsoft). You just posted that without reading what people were saying.
People are saying that it's good that they are getting bitten by their own tactics because maybe they will realise that software patents are a bad idea.
There are no double standards there.
that work, like Livelink for E-mail Archiving, that are easy to use and very well integrated into Exchange. Also, there's a fulltext search available for that product that would make sure that 'lost' mails get found in a hurry.
without [Microsoft] where would Linux be?
Linux was not developed in response to Windows. It would still exist if Windows didn't.
Competition between products is good for improving all of them, but Microsoft have done a good job at making sure there is as little competition as possible.
If Windows didn't exist we would probably have a different monopoly instead. There are laws against abusing monopolies, but for whatever reasons, they are not being enforced.
Yes, email would still work even if Windows did not exist. Why do you think that it would not? There are lots of good email clients around, to suit all tastes and preferences.
Just because actions with evil intent may have unintentionally created a few positive side-effects, it doesn't mean that those actions should go unpunished.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
I still don't see how the stock holders were screwed. They're in a better position today than if Microsoft passed on the technology and did not infringe on the patents, and better than waiting several more years in the hopes that the court would award an even bigger settlement down the road.
It is usually the company officers (i.e., the board) who have the duty to show the company's affairs are conducted legally. The defense b efore was "We didn't know", know with Sarbanes-Oxley, a board-member no longer has that excuse.
Steal, modify and license. Most of us in the computer industry have all heard the story of Microsoft's rise to power. A young geek steals an operating system (QDOS) and renames it to MSDOS. They visit IBM and attempt to license (not sell) said operating system to be packaged with IBM's new home PC. Aquire, modify, license. Microsoft is founded on these practices. Practices that have made them an immense amount of money - so they have no reason to change. (At least nowadays developers are getting settlements for stolen work)
They have done this with countless technologies since then and they will continue to do so. Bill gates has seen 'the road ahead' and it seems he will stop at nothing to manifest his dream!
Yeah, most of us think this is wrong way to do business - but we can't help but be jealous of bill's ruthlessness. But we can always get him back by making copies of 'his' OS and product keys. (and run linux on a different partition getting ready to dump XP)
Religion, Politics, Big Business.
I seem to remember people getting their third strikes from things like shoplifting. Of course I could be wrong, but if shoplifting is considered criminal perhaps other things should also receive the same classification.
-- john
But nobody else is going to pay as much as Microsoft did. The lawsuit that was just settled was for patent infringement, but it was also for violating the NDA, and for antitrust violations, and for deliberately destroying evidence. No other company will be facing all these other charges so it's unlikely that they'll be paying anything near $60 million.
This isn't where the money is going to come from.
r ies/server/partners.aspx
:)
Microsoft has bought a license for Microsoft. They have not bought sublicensing rights. Which means people licensing this stuff from MS will now be licensing it from Burst. Here's a list from MS itself:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9se
-
A broad range of premium content providers are using Windows Media Services 9 Series in Windows Server 2003 to deliver fast streaming to millions of customers. Visit these sites to experience it today!
Cinema Now
FOX.com
FullAudio
MSNBC.com
NHL.com
NPR (National Public Radio)
Pressplay
Yahoo!"
-
And don't forget about one of the internet's biggest industries: PORN!
I do. The stockholders are getting less than 10% (and probably closer to 1%) of the value. That is getting screwed.
When the Paula Jones suit against President Clinton became an issue, it was estimated that there had been about ten to twenty federal prosecutions for perjury in a civil case. Is Civil Perjury Punishable?
I used to work for Burst, and I can tell you that in my opinion the patents are worthless, as the technology is obvious. If MS wanted to challenge the patents in court I think they would win. But MS settled this case over the email issue and the general PR effects of yet-another-anti-competitive-lawsuit.
I'm actually sad that the con-men "running" Burst got any vindication whatsoever. In the end, they made alot of money via shady business practices, a hopelessly flawed business plan and no viable product.
The only reason Burst even got it's own ex-employees to support the lawsuit is because so many of them were large owners of the stock and had alot to gain financially.
Sorry to support M$ here, but they were the ones getting screwed this time.