[Reader-list] Microsoft convicted of software piracy

[shaji john]

Hi All,

Just in case if you all haven't seen it already.
CheersShaji
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 19:43:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod <portsidemod at yahoo.com>
Subject: Microsoft convicted of software piracy

Wednesday May 08, 2002 - [ 09:32 AM GMT ]
by Tina Gasperson -
<http://linux.com/article.pl?sid=02/05/07/2234251>

Did you know Microsoft was convicted of software piracy
last year by a French court? Not many people do. The
Commercial Court of Nanterre fined Microsoft 3 million
francs because it illegally included another company's
proprietary source code in SoftImage 3D, a top-of-the-
line animation package.

The only authoritative report on the event was written
by Lionel Berthomier and first published in the French
paper, Le Monde Informatique. An English version was
reprinted at PCWorldMalta on November 28, 2001 -- about
two months after the court's decision. Both Le Monde
Informatique and PCWorldMalta are affiliated with IDG,
the parent of InfoWorld and LinuxWorld. Yet, neither of
these sites published a word about Microsoft's
conviction on September 27, 2001.

And nobody else in the segment of the tech media that's
traditionally anti-Microsoft picked up the story,
either -- not Slashdot, nor LinuxToday, nor NewsForge.
Neither did any of the mainstream tech outlets. Nobody
noticed this news. Nobody except Peruvian congressman
Edgar David Villanueva Nu�ez. He's the man who is being
hailed by some as Free Software's version of St. Thomas
Aquinas because of his "Summa Compulogica" reply to a
recent letter sent by Microsoft's Peru general manager,
Juan Alberto Gonz�lez. That letter was deemed necessary
by Microsoft because of a Peruvian bill that if passed
would require its government to buy and use only Free
Software.

Buried within the brilliant missive penned by Nu�ez is
this arrow:

"Questions of intellectual property fall outside the
scope of this bill, since they are covered by specific
other laws. The model of free software in no way
implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the great
majority of free software is covered by copyright. In
reality, the inclusion of this question in your
observations shows your confusion in respect of the
legal framework in which free software is developed.
The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in
works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has
been noted in the free software community; whereas,
unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary
software. As an example, the condemnation by the
Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September
2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of 3 million
francs in damages and interest, for violation of
intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate
term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity)."

Nanterre? Microsoft? Violation of intellectual
property? Piracy?

Yes, the corporation that created the term "software
piracy" was actually found guilty of committing that
crime. Using the facts in our reference article at
PCWorldMalta, we put together a basic timeline of the
events leading up to the court decision:

Late 1980s: Syn'X Relief, a Paris-based CGI animation
company, develops Character, a proprietary animation
tool, and registers it with the French National
Intellectual Property Institute. 1992: SoftImage signs
a contract with Syn'X to integrate the unique functions
of Character into SoftImage 3D in exchange for
royalties. 1994: SoftImage presents Syn'X with some
nasty changes to the agreement: sign over your rights
to the Character source code, or the deal's off. Syn'X
refuses, and shortly after that, the news breaks that
Microsoft has acquired SoftImage. 1995: The contract
term between Syn'X and Microsoft/SoftImage is over, and
Microsoft asserts that "some or all" of Character has
been removed from SoftImage 3D. According to Syn'X,
Microsoft/SoftImage has only removed one function, and
there are at least eight others still remaining. Syn'X
sends cease and desist letters and toward the end of
the year files suit in the French courts. 1996: Syn'X,
drained of resources, files for bankruptcy and goes out
of business. 1997: "Character" authors join the fight
to preserve their rights against SoftImage. Sept. 2001:
The court issues a verdict: Microsoft is fined 3
million francs (a paltry USD $422,000). Microsoft says
it will appeal the decision.

What the article doesn't mention is that in 1998,
shortly after the trial started, Microsoft rid itself
of the burden of SoftImage by passing it on to Avid, an
entity in which MS ended up owning a minority share as
part of the deal. Avid now owns the trademark for and
sells the product that was once known as Microsoft
SoftImage 3D. Avid's published legal information shows
that it claims to own all copyright for all software on
the site.

The biggest mystery is the obscurity of the story until
now. "It looks to me as if the whole U.S. press missed
the story," says Joe Barr, a technology journalist who
frequently writes for IDG's LinuxWorld. "IDG has never
held me back in writing stories about Microsoft, and I
have written a few." Officials from IDG and SoftImage
were not available for comment.

 

 

 

 

 



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