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Microsoft Misleads On Canadian Copyright Reform
An anonymous reader writes "As the battle rages over a Canadian DMCA, Microsoft Canada has published an op-ed in a political newspaper that Michael Geist describes as astonishingly misleading and factually incorrect. Microsoft tries to argue that Canadian copyright law provides no legal protections, even after it received one of the largest copyright damage awards in Canadian history just one year ago."
The MS article is factually accurate - copyright law does not protect ideas expressed in works. Mr. Geist even updated the posting to reflect this.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Granted, it's one of those "free to read the whole article" ones, but a PITA that kept me from reading further nonetheless.
Copy paste from someone else maybe?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
In years past, there was no way that Microsoft would have approved such a weak op-ed piece. Maybe some low-level manager approved this one, because it is simply an embarrassment to the company - with ridiculous examples that a high school student could rip apart regardless of the interpretation of their text.
Sadly, Microsoft is at the point where it needs to step up its game and change the way it does business if it wants to remain relevant. This piece, and the purchase of Yahoo, are all signs that Microsoft can no longer manage to design its own future - instead, it needs to look to the outside to fix its internal shortcomings.
To me, that means that Microsoft will be more apt to try to buy its way out of management failures - by buying companies such as Yahoo - which in turn will bring great new ideas and assets to Microsoft, but at the huge expense of making Microsoft substantially harder to manage.
It could work out, but it's a slippery, dangerous slope, similar to (but different than) going into massive debt. But instead of a direct financial debt, it will be a huge on-going management burden - one that could only be controlled with strong merger-centric leadership.
History is full of merger failures due to culture clashes. I doubt Ballmer is the guy that can pull it off. My prediction - Ballmer be put in the twilight in 2 years or less. You heard it from me.
Like this one:
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The claim against Linux is purely on patents, not on copyright. The SCO case was on copyright and that was very easy to disprove once some specific code claims were made. Microsoft can't accuse Linux developers of code theft based on patent violations. "Intellectual property" theft is a stretch even then, as patents can be infringed independently.
Sam ty sig.