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$5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 00:54 — kebernet

I suspect whatever the sale price is, it would be a much better deal than dealing with the legal and public relations repercussions of this.

Comments

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 09:42 — atrox (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

thats pretty damn funny

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 09:44 — atrox (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

And this is nonsense:

At this time, liability also appears to be unclear. "Ultimate financial responsibility depends on whether a copyrighted work was provided to Microsoft by a third party, who may be responsible to Microsoft, by contract or otherwise, for any liability Microsoft could face," Kern explained.

Oh yeah, I bet 10 bucks no matter WHO put it in Microsofts end product, third party, contractor, Santa Claus, whatever the hell, its Microsoft that gets sued. Thats where the cash is AND its their ultimate responsibilty for the end result they market and sell, regardless of how they came about it.

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 09:50 — atrox (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

You know what, just as devils advocate here, whats to stop a conctractor from making a deal with a third party company beforehand and doing this ON PURPOSE. What if programmer Joe has some buddies at company X and he says "hey, check this, I will put a few files in our end result product Y that are created with a pirated/cracked version of your product Z, then a few years after we sell the hell out of it we will "uncover" the use of the unlicensed program and sue, company X then stands to get not only damages relating to the actual loss but a PERCENTAGE OF THE PROFITS OF PRODUCT Y.

Great scam, stupid laws (stupid that when a non legal copy is used in the making of a product the liability extends to the profits of the product, not just the actual loss as in the cost of the software that was non legal and used in the first place).

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 13:11 — rothbard (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

Congratulation to atrox for finally solving the riddle of:

1) Write shitty code
2) ??
3) Profit!

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 13:28 — atrox (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

Ok, nice jab . . .

But seriously, this is different than just selling shitty software (and creating it), its a huge liability for all software companies if there were to be such collusion. And it would be close to impossible to prove if the perpetrators were even remotely careful (not associating with each other). By simply using a warez copy of whatever while working on a product and having some file denote that in the product you can then years later make the company that owns the product LIABLE not only for the cost of the warez but also for PROFITS to the product? What the hell am I missing?

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 14:30 — rothbard (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

Ideally the company can prove "due dilligence." Of course that just means whatever the judge thinks it means.

Barring that, the problem then becomes the fact that civil courts are allowed to award punitive damages (since that's usually where all the money is). In this case, even restorative awards could be substantial. Trying to figure out what "would have happend" if MS procured the files without the cracked software is going to be little more that gazing into a crystal ball. Again the decision left up to a judge.

More evidence proving Rule of Law is a myth.

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 16:21 — cooper (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

By simply using a warez copy of whatever while working on a product and having some file denote that in the product you can then years later make the company that owns the product LIABLE not only for the cost of the warez but also for PROFITS to the product? What the hell am I missing?

I believe the response to this is, when you are talking about toolsets specifically, the license to use the tool means the license to create royalty-free product of the tool. If you never paid for the license in the first place, the subsequent product is a derivative work.

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 19:50 — atrox (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

I would buy the derivative work if the toolset was a central tenant of the resulting product, maybe. But take this case, they used Sonic Forge in 9 wav files? Not really something that logically makes XP a "derivative" of Sonic Forge. Thats what I meant.

Fri, 02/04/2005 - 20:44 — cooper (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

Yeah, I mean, I think if there was an arguement made here it would come down to those WAV files represents X% of the Windows XP distribution, and that would be the percentage of sales MS owes Sony.

Sun, 02/06/2005 - 14:14 — anonymous (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

Cyber law is in its infancy. It needs good people who understand CYBER and LAW.

Sun, 02/06/2005 - 18:45 — cooper (not verified)

RE: $5 Bet: Microsoft Buys Sonic Foundry This Year

This isn't "Cyberlaw" at all,though. This is a very simple intellectual property case. Our IP law is fucked up, but it is at least well understood.

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