Microsoft Settles Korean Antitrust Case

Channy writes Microsoft announced on last Friday that it had reached a settlement with South Korean Internet portal Daum in antitrust case of IM bundling. Daum had complained to the South Korean Fair Trade Commission in 2001, accusing Microsoft of breaking the law by tying its instant messaging software to Windows. A lawsuit on the same grounds was filed in 2004. By the settlement, Microsoft will pay Daum $30 million, including $10 million in cash. In return, Daum would drop its lawsuit. Before this decision, Microsoft has threatened to withdraw its Windows software from South Korea if the country's antitrust agency orders it to unbundle its instant-messaging and media player software from the operating system. Despite this settlement, KFTC announced plans to continue investigation of this case and conclude the final decision within this year."

Comments

Re:Obligatory Comment

[Anonymous Coward]

In Korea, only old people sue Microsoft.

FROST PIST

[Anonymous Coward]

don't want to feel time I'm done hEre, a way to spend

Re:consumers

[WhiteWolf666]

Copyright, and the entire notion of intellectual property, represent government sponsored monopolies. Copyright is not some innate human right.

In my view, the very notions of copyright, trademark, and patent protections stand in the way of a purely free market.

On the one hand, intellectual property rights helps promote new product development. On the other, maintaining these monopoly rights allows select individuals to collect monopoly profits. If Windows went out of copyright in 2 years, Microsoft would still turn a profit on it, but after 2 years, anyone would be able to get the software for free.

And if you think that there isn't a for-profit development model with 2 year copyright lengths, think again. For one, embedded systems would still be golden; development work is necessary on any such system. For two, think consoles, and media centers. This is a place where the latest and greatest will sell, at ANY cost. Plus, its not like it would ever be possible to buy a console without an OS.

Think of driver development. System integration. Hardware development. Software development. These are all tasks that an organization could charge money for, and be responsible for, in a world of limited copyright.

Would MS be the behemoth it is today? Probably not; would MS vanish overnight? Probably not. But its not a criticism of my argument to say that radically curtailing copyright would reallocate resources; of course it would, you'd be breaking the back of all these government monopolies.

Don't be so critical of the free market. I'm not one to say that market failures don't happen, however, pointing to copyright holders as a 'market failure' is misleading, at best. The standard "solution" of the free market to this sort of government interference in a black market, where suppliers and consumers 'route around' these artificial regulatory schemes. Hilariously, these black markets should be distributing goods at close to the competitive market value.

You get pirates selling CDs for $1 a disk (software & music). This is far closer to the distribution cost for a CD.

You get people downloading this stuff for free. This is far closer to the distribution cost online.

Is purely free the 'right' answer? Should Intellectual Property be totally abolished?No, probably not. There is a good argument saying that the individual should be permitted to profit on his work, as that encourages him to create.

However, the emergency of these HUGE black markets suggest that the free-market is indeed 'groaning' under the weight of these overly broad property protections.

The U.S. needs radical intellectual property reform. Given that the cost/time of capitalizing on inventions and media has gone down, copyright and patent protection should NOT last as long as it does. Certain fields probably don't even deserve this sort of protection. (Software patents? Hell, copyright on Music! Muscians can make money on live performances; everything else is just gravy. Same with film; shouldn't need copyright for more than 6 months->1 year)

We live in a society with the technology avaliable to make ALL media avaliable to nearly everyone at almost no cost. As such, the government interference in the market, the 'grant' of monopoly profits to content creators, should be reduced based upon the reduction in distribution costs. There is every reason to believe that we should heed the free markets call, and allow this proliferation of media to occur.

How does this apply to your position?

Without monopoly protection from the government, MS would not be an entity which we would NEED to fight in court.

Ultimately, the entire MS fortress, the bundling, the incompatiblity, the security problems, the upgrade treadmill, is built upon a government grant of monopoly copyright, forever.

The free market does have a solution to these problems. Not that there aren't market failures, but pointing at a government granted monopoly is NOT a good way to find one.