Microsoft’s pirated software police were going after companies abroad for years , but getting those far-away folks into US courtrooms isn’t easy. What’s easy, however, is suing the oldsters to your own back yard — that is why Microsoft is lobbying to get laws passed in numerous states that’ll put US businesses at the hook for the pirating ways in their foreign suppliers. As an instance, if a manufacturer uses pirated software within the “manufacture, distribution, marketing, or sales” of goods sold in Washington, Microsoft could sue the seller of these products and get an injunction to prevent the products from being sold. So Washington widget retailers can be accountable for the piracy in their foreign widget manufacturers, even though the illicit act was merely creating the sales invoice on a counterfeit copy of Word.
The Washington state Senate and House have already approved different versions of the bill, and the legislature is within the means of merging the 2 together for final approval. Louisiana passed an analogous law last year, and analogous bills were proposed in Oregon and several states besides. Numerous companies — including Dell, IBM, Intel, and HP — oppose the laws, as they see them giving Microsoft the ability not to only drag them into court, but additionally futz with their supply chains. (There’s absolute to be some counterfeit software getting used in Shenzhen, right?) As Microsoft’s latest anti-piracy scheme unfolds, there have to be plenty more legislative action to return. Evidently the crew in Redmond doesn’t see piracy as an issue to be fixed by lowering prices .
LG’s upcoming MWC lineup runs into some Italians, gets documented on video
Everything Everywhere promises ‘small-scale LTE launch’ in UK by the top of 2012
