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MS Wants Laws To Block Products Made By Software Pirates
kaptink writes with this quote from Groklaw:
"Microsoft seems to be trying to get its own personal unfair competition laws passed state by state, so it can sue US companies who get parts from overseas companies who used pirated Microsoft software anywhere in their business. The laws allow Microsoft to block the US company from selling the finished product in the state and compel them to pay damages for what the overseas supplier did. So if a company overseas uses a pirated version of Excel, let's say, keeping track of how many parts it has shipped or whatever, and then sends some parts to General Motors or any large company to incorporate into the finished product, Microsoft can sue not the overseas supplier but General Motors, for unfair competition. So can the state's Attorney General. I kid you not. For piracy that was done by someone else, overseas. The product could be T shirts. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as it's manufactured with contributions from an overseas supplier, like in China, who didn't pay Microsoft for software that it uses somewhere in the business. It's the US company that has to pay damages, not the overseas supplier."
I'm cool with that. Let's add a law that says that if your company steals the source code from a partner's product that as punitive restitution they get a perpetual, non-exclusive right to your entire source control for the product which bundled the stolen goods.
Fair is fair, Microsoft.
"Unfair competition laws" == Laws against unfair competition.
The problem here is that GM is not competing with Microsoft.
...and it's not as insane as it seems. Regulation is usually to protect the small guy while the big guys have the lawyer power to avoid it. By phrasing regulation in terms on unfair competition laws, you end up with big businesses paying to enforce regulation. Which do you prefer:
(i) One big business forcing another business to abide by some law;
(ii) That same big business also ignoring the law.
Perhaps the underlying law is unjust. But then you tackle the underlying law - you don't tackle some principle which makes it harder to enforce a law. Let us have more rule of law and less rule of men, yes?
How are they going to prove that the foreign company used Excel instead of Open Office? Or is the idea to force the entire world have to purchase Microsoft licenses just to do business in America?
"On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle." -Linus Torvalds
Sure they can. Also if Microsoft engineer works on computer which contains a chip produced by Chinese company employing janitor wearing pirated Nike t-shirt. Why restrict chain of responsibility to one or two links?
Except, how is a business supposed to know if its suppliers are running pirated software?
This basically says that Microsoft now demands that anybody buying a widget from anywhere in the world effectively enforces a software audit on its suppliers. You know what happens if you tell your supplier they need to open up their stuff to you for scrutiny just in case they're doing something offensive to a 3rd party? They laugh at you, and cancel the deal.
If I'm buying foam packing peanuts from China, do you really think I have the clout to get them to prove to me they haven't pirated Excel? Because, that's what this bill is asking for. This is a stupid law, and one that tries to make enforcement of Microsoft's products the responsibility of people who might not even be in the computer industry.
It's just not practical or feasible.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In that case, Microsoft should no longer be able to blame business partners, contractors, customers, or whatever for their own problems, either.
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/01/20/244979/Microsoft-blames-third-party-for-excessive-Windows-Phone-7-data.htm
http://theregoesdave.com/2009/10/15/microsoft-goes-schizo-starts-blaming-danger-for-lost-data/
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/70560,microsoft-blames-vista-insecurity-on-third-party-applications.aspx
You can't have it both ways, Microsoft. You want GM liable for software piracy in China, then you should be liable for Windows 7 phone phantom data usage.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Their supplier is competing unfairly with US suppliers, though. I think we already have similar regulations for environmentally damaging suppliers? To my mind this is no different.
I am trolling
This is what these giant corporations want.
Big corporations _LOVE_ regulation, because the costs keep smaller, smarter, more innovative competitors out of the market. Big business and big government are not enemies, they're symbiotic organisms.
Try this hypothetical.
China wants to hamstring a US defense industry supplier like, say Lockheed Martin.
Chinese company A makes software.
Chinese company B is supplier to Lockheed Martin.
Chinese company B uses pirated copy of software from company A.
Chinese company A sues Lockheed Martin in the US.
Or try this: Airbus vs. Boeing.
${foreign car manufacturer} vs. GM or Ford
${foreign airline} vs ${US airline}
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
You really think that copyright law should be on the same level as basic human rights? Human rights should be universal on compassionate grounds. Even animals have compassion to an extent. Copyright law is something we as humans completely made up, and if some country chooses to not see "intellectual property" as US law proclaims it, it should not matter.
which is totally what she said
Democrats and Republicans are both populists.
An anarchist wants government out of everything. A populist wants government to control everything. An actual liberal wants government to control business but not morality. An actual conservative wants the opposite.
I think it's clear that both Democrats and Republicans want business laws that promote their own agenda, and equally, they both want to say what you can or cannot do in your home. Neither party is the party for less government involvement in any aspect of life; they simply both wish to tell you how the government will control you.
Even if you believe in a difference between the parties and don't see it as an elaborate game conceived to convince the masses that there is someone representing your interests, you have to see that both parties want total control over your life.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Their supplier is competing unfairly with US suppliers, though. I think we already have similar regulations for environmentally damaging suppliers? To my mind this is no different.
Yes. It's similar to safety standards and workers rights. If a clothing manufacturer for example, can outsource production to a country where workers can be denied decent health and safety or normal workers' rights, whilst a company that uses workers in the US does not, then the former company is essentially doing an end-run around the US laws. Now (more thanks to public pressure than anything else), US companies selling products to people in the US, have to be more careful about adhering to standards abroad that are set at home. The principle behind this proposed law isn't unique to this law. It's the same principle that underlies sex tourism, employee health and safety and working hours and various security laws. It's the principle that if you're a US business or citizen, selling to US citizens or business, you can't get away with illegal behaviour by just shifting the illegal part of the process to another country.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Umm, you realize that NAFTA was signed by George Bush 1 month prior to Clinton taking office, right? And that Clinton was just honoring the agreements and treaties already signed, right?
Don't let facts get in the way of your delusions, now.
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
LOL, those guys at Microsoft are quite the jokers.
So they cover their ass with an exception that says it is okay if their copyrighted material is packaged over seas by a company that pirates software so nobody can sue Microsoft under this law and then they block open source software from the same protection under the law even though the most popular open source software in use is protected by copyright.
Yep, scum bags will be scum bags, never fails.
In my experience both liberals and conservatives both want to control morality but disagree on what the morals should be.
It's a good thing Microsoft's hardware divisions do not use any parts imported from Asia.
Oh wait....
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
This would make the use of any MS product a huge possible legal liability. Why not minimize the risk and go opensource? Companies that strive to sell complete workflow & service packages or servers might use that argument in the future. Good for Redhat, Oracle, IBM.
But instead of being poor people working 14 hours in unsafe factories, they could be poor people working 6 hours a day on land they own growing food.
See, I don't want to call you ignorant, because this is pretty typical for someone who grew up in a big city, and never left except for flying to a resort for a vacation. I would suggest that you do some research on the subject of farming, especially as it's generally practiced in low-tech agrarian societies. I can't discuss the subject with someone who honestly believes that farming is a 6-hour-a-day job.
Working in a factory is inherently more work
See above. There's a reason why these factory jobs are sought out by the locals.
so it's up to you to demonstrate factory workers are better off
Sure! It's quite simple: with the exception of forced labor, people generally choose the best work they can find ("best", of course, being a balance between money and effort that's different for each individual). If there are people working at these factories, and they aren't being forced to be there at gunpoint, then it means that the factory jobs are better than whatever other alternatives these people have. QED.
but apparently you cannot read the word 'slavery', and think I'm just making that up.
Oh, I know you're making it up. That's not even worth discussing. It's your other ideas that I'm curious about.
Says the person who snipped every single historic reference I made
Yep - none of your historical references were relevant to the discussion at hand. Moreover they're selective; you overemphasize the dangerous conditions in the factories, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the workers were there willingly because their alternatives were worse, and ignoring the fact that one third of deaths during the "industrial revolution" were caused by disease. You have no grasp of what the situation was actually like at the time, because you can't fathom a society where malnutrition and the lack of awareness about basic hygiene are the norm. I mean, sure, maybe you've read about these things, but you clearly don't understand them if you're making these claims. To compare conditions during the industrial revolution to factories in China is so pigheaded that it's truly mind-boggling.