MS Wants Laws To Block Products Made By Software Pirates 617
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."
Good for US economy (Score:1, Insightful)
If something this prevents even more work force and money going out of the country to cheap countries like China and puts US companies to a better position again.
I understand that some of you people want to allow piracy for personal use, but this is business. You're making money off pirated products. If such activity wasn't punished then companies could just set up sister companies or even pure proxy companies in countries like China and ignore all and any copyright. Now that US businesses can't just do that, they might even start hiring US work force again and get the economy better. Microsoft and other companies are right in doing this.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for US economy (Score:3, Insightful)
"Unfair competition laws" == Laws against unfair competition.
The problem here is that GM is not competing with Microsoft.
this is an EU concept... (Score:5, Insightful)
...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?
Re:Good for US economy (Score:0, Insightful)
Sure sure, that all makes sense and I agree with you. However now you owe MS $100 for posting on /. because slashdot had communication with someone in China who used a cracked IE browser to post an advertisement and a cracked excel to track the income that made the guy in China money. What you don't believe me? Well you're going to have to spend a few tens of thousands of dollars to prove your innocence.
Please make your check out to
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Re:Good for US economy (Score:0, Insightful)
I see a bigger problem: patents.
If this is projected out to its logical conclusion, Microsoft could effectively shut down any business using Linux because as we all know, Linux is just chock-full of Microsoft intellectual property. This will allow Microsoft to extract license money like never before until it shuts down FOSS entirely.
Just silly... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:More complicated than a carbon tax. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [computerweekly.com]
http://theregoesdave.com/2009/10/15/microsoft-goes-schizo-starts-blaming-danger-for-lost-data/ [theregoesdave.com]
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/70560,microsoft-blames-vista-insecurity-on-third-party-applications.aspx [itnews.com.au]
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for US economy (Score:1, Insightful)
Centrist.
The left-wingers "open borders" types are the bleeding-hearts who conveniently forget the damage caused all around by their policies. These are the idiots like Clinton who thought NAFTA was a good idea.
The right-wing robber baron types (that run the Retardican party these days) gleefully exploit "free trade" to ship jobs away and re-create slavery wherever they can.
The end result is, the people in the middle get fucked over.
Of course, it wasn't always this way. Before the robber barons started in with union-busting (Wisconsin is just the latest in a long line of that sort of crap, most of which has flown very much under the radar), the left wing used to stand against "global free trade" and actually did things to protect the working class. Now, good fucking luck with that one.
Re:Free Market Economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:this is an EU concept... (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally, I'm pretty OK with a lot of EU regulatory concepts (their banking rules a notable exception). But, if this is a common idea of EU regulators, I'm going to have to rethink my support of them...
This "principle" breaks one of the foundations of modern law - that you should be held responsible for you own actions, and not actions of others which you neither had controller over, nor knowledge of (which is one of the big reasons I hate the "felony murder" laws here in the US). The "principle" of which you speak isn't a good one, and I'm fine with being rabidly opposed to it. Just because it may be bad for Big Business, doesn't make it right, or even good for anyone else.
I'm not excessively worried, though. The laws don't fit the "consumer protection" mold, and pretty obviously overstep Constitutionally-set boundaries - they regulate interstate commerce (which is a federal area), and also likely are to be looked at as attempting to set Copyright and national import standards, neither which are allowable by states. That is, these type of laws most likely would have to be passed at the Federal level to be Constitutional. Given the potential enormous impact on large manufacturers, you can be sure that if they actually get passed, they'll be some Big Corp with Deep Pockets funding a challenge in US Federal courts.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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}
Re:Possession of Stolen Goods (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:4, Insightful)
In my experience both liberals and conservatives both want to control morality but disagree on what the morals should be.
Re:/. News Network (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing Microsoft's hardware divisions do not use any parts imported from Asia.
Oh wait... [wikipedia.org].
Good for Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for US economy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.