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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."
Competence differences are the real problem.
Every time I have to deal with products using Indian call centers for "customer service", I come away aggravated. They can't imagine any problem that isn't on their fucking script, they have no idea what to do when the problem isn't on the script, and when you ask to speak to their supervisor they either lie and put the guy from the next folding-table over on the line "yes this is supervisor" or else they just fucking hang up on you. Trying to get something advance RMA'ed? Good fucking luck hoping they ever write your address down correctly even after you spell it out letter by letter.
Chinese or Korean-manufactured? Might as well hang a sign on it saying "expect it to fucking break and not work properly after the first month, and good luck getting the company to ever bother honoring their fucking warranty." And yes that includes Apple, who dicked me around for 3 months trying to claim my ipod "got wet" (it didn't, Apple just deliberately uses hypersensitive moisture strips that trigger on their own if you live anywhere that the humidity gets above 50% with any regularity).
Oh, and you nice wonderful left-wing fucktards who love the "no borders, one world government" movement? Remember, those nice cheapy products come on the backs of slave labor, tiny wages, zero worker safety protection laws, and zero environmental protection laws.
"Free trade" is a tool of the robber barons, nothing more.