Microsoft Fined For Abusing Power to Harass Pirates
Written by Ernesto on December 14, 2009The Delhi High Court has fined Microsoft for harassing alleged software pirates by taking them to court in the national capitol, instead of the cities where the crimes had supposedly occurred. According to the ruling, using money as a power tool is not condoned without repercussions.
To protect its intellectual property, Microsoft recently sued four software pirates who allegedly used the company’s software without permission. However, the outcome of this action was quite unexpected.
The Delhi High Court decided to fine the software giant, after it found out that the cases the company had initiated in India’s capital were related to alleged copyright infringements that occurred in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai.
According to the Court, Microsoft is needlessly abusing its unlimited cash flow as a power tool to financially hurt the defendants, who will have to travel all across the country in order to defend themselves. This abuse of “money power” to “harass” defendants is unacceptable according to the Court.
“When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of money power or lobbying power,” Judge Dhingra commented on the case.
Aside from the harassment angle, the Court found that Microsoft chose Delhi because the High Court can order compensation up to $40,000 for the alleged crimes.
However, instead of taking on the case directly, the court chose to fine Microsoft $4,000 for each of the four defendants instead. If it turns out that the software piracy claims are unfounded, this money will go directly to the accused. In addition, Microsoft was ordered to pay a local commissioner who will investigate the piracy claims.
Although it was not illegal for Microsoft to file the four cases in the national capital where the company is headquartered, the Court found that something had to be done to prevent shear abuse of power by the software giant.
“On the strength of its money power it [Microsoft] has the added advantage of choosing a court of its own liking which is so far away from the defendant that it becomes problematic and a harassment for the defendant to contest the suit itself,” the Delhi High Court ruling read.
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127 Responses
Judge Dhingra, i salute you sir.
good news here
The definition of irony. hahahaha
btw 1st
#3
crap epic fail there
:DDD
poor ms, they forgot it’s india not indiana
Pwnd!
I can see the court choosing to order the charges to be handled locally to the defendants (though how that can be determined to be ‘fair’, I’m not sure; is it always that it should be in the court system closest to the poorest of those involved? Or…?), but choosing to fine the plaintiff for filing locally to them? That seems…extremely questionable.
LOL Owned
16k to microsoft is like less than a toilet flush to them. they probably use only the finest virgin tears as a water supply there.
Irony Overload eh?
Wasn’t it Microsoft that was notoriously known for hiring employees from India because they were quote: “Cheaper”
microsoft go fuck a dog…. pirates and torrent shall sail the boats forever… say “The Pirate Bay will stay afloat for ever and ever for time to come”
Dope story. I wish throwing your financial weight around were illegal in the US. Microsoft really failed to pay off the right people on this one.
@selfhelplessmov
Microsoft is horribol
IM 12TH TODAY SWEEET
Hmm, they’ve got a point. I wouldn’t have thought about that otherwise. That’s pretty cool for India’s system.
@ #10 rony Overload eh?
*Wasn’t it Microsoft that was notoriously known for hiring employees from India because they were quote: “Cheaper”*
Perfect defense for the accused, they were just using the OS’s to educate themselves so they could be their very best as MS employee’s
Now why would MS punish anyone because of that… Bill is an old Pirate himself, MS was founded on it…bastard
@7
In order to make your case you should be at the court at the exact time and date the procedure is held. I’m not sure about Indian law, but in some countries the right to defend yourself against crimes is forfeit if you do not have a representative.
Now, for the record, the distance between Mumbai and Delhi is 1.400 kilometers. A single way flight would cost you around 154$, with a to way flight costing around 300$. Also, you will need lodgings, an advocate to represent you, food, water, local transportation and so on. The GDP per capita is just a thousand dollars in India, so it is safe to assume that you would have to spend half a year salary and more simply to defend yourself against a claim made. In other words, incredibly hard to pay for by the average Indian, thus placing them at a gross disadvantage for a fair legal proceeding.
Similarly if their are courthouses closer to the site of the crime those should be used. After all, is there any sense sung someone in the Carolina for an offense (s)he committed in New York? There is something called jurisdiction as well.
M$ got pwned. Awesome.
Fantastic!
There are more of such courts needed in the world.
Hey TF, do you have any idea how many times the MS graphic you used for the article is being ..Hmmmmmm… pirated…LoL
yeah proud to be indian…..
with as such no restrictions on downloading anything and now microsoft being fined back by the court india is the place to go !
22nd SWEET!
M$$$ has become a money whore since Gates left…
Since when does accountability for one’s action qualify as harassment?
My microsoft copies went out the “windows” years ago :)
@20
I believe it would fall under fair use
Doesn’t Microsoft also use pirated software?
Like, oh, I don’t know, the whole Deepz0ne audio thing from a few years back?
Its interesting that they would choose India to pull this crap! What do they hope to accomplish with these lawsuits? I mean really, if the GDP per capita is a thousand dollars in India, how much can they expect to get? Macrosloth has an annual revenue of $58,437,000,000. Do they really need to get a few more dollars from these people?
Maybe they are taking the example set by the media cartels. Sue the ones least likely to have the means to fight and you will win. Then you can claim a victory against the evil pirates of the world!
Why would you pirate Miceosoft stuff anyway? I wouldn’t use it if they paid me.
I say we all buy Macs or use Linux like good nerds… And, that, my friends, was my fucking idea.
Any chance we in the US can outsource our judiciary to India?
@7
Also, as per the original article from the Times of India, MS does have offices and operations in the cities mentioned. So, if both the plaintiff and defendant are in the same city, why bring it to court in a city nearly 1500Kms away?
29th! finally!!
we are a left wing generation! hehe
screw ms
@17
If the law dictates you must make your case in a location convenient for the defendant, that is one thing. And the court saying “No, the court will not hear this case here; you must present it in a location convenient to the defendant” is also acceptable, especially if it is also convenient to the plaintiff. But even when it’s Microsoft, to -fine- the plaintiff for something that is not against the law, rather than merely ordering them to do it differently…is not really just. You can argue Microsoft intentionally filed the cases in the capital to try and win them by default, but that’s not provable, and if it’s not also against the law, punishment for it is unfounded.
@25
The whole Window’s based platform was pirated. Gates and his crew stole it from Mac(who stole theirs from Xerox) years ago!
@31-CDXX
*Exactly….
There is a docudrama people, it’s called Pirates of the Silicon Valley,Im sure if you took a look around you might find a copy (I would try ISOHunt)
It shows you the history of Bill and Steve and how each company was built…
God bless India.
Well of course the will act like they care. Do they really care? no.
Microsoft make their money with OEM installations in new PCs and Company upgrades. They know that us, pirates (Yeah I’m a pirate BTW and will be forever!!), crack their OSes for 1 reason. They know that if we crack it, it means we will NOT BUY IT.
Though, they have to make like they care to scare a few of us, but no, they don’t care.
sheer abuse
Haha why bother pirating Microsoft with Linux as a BETTER alternative? And it’s free! :P
I also recommend Pirates of Silicon Valley. It’s a made for tv film from 1999. It is very good. I also recommend a documentary called Revolution OS about the GNU project, free software, and the rise of Linux.
Its a shame these poor indians tried to ‘pirate’ a MS OS. It’s hardly worth all the pain it will have caused them. Of course I mean using windows, the lawsuit is a minor inconvenience when compared to that pain.
Check out: http://en.windows7sins.org/
This case is just one of many reasons to boycott microsoft. There are many free OS alternatives.
Mera Bharath Mahan!!
Salute
@31…
Which bit was stolen?
The look?
mehh, then someone musta stole from Geos, the GUI that ran on a C64…
<3 is all i can say . . . <3!
$4000 for 4 people? To Microsoft, thats like shilling out $2 for a cheeseburger. It’s nothing. They’ll make that back while taking a crap.
@ 38
salute…
M$ got pwned lol
Oh my. While I don’t condone software piracy, I wish every court in the world would do this.
So, the court acuses Microsoft of abusing it’s money and then abuses it’s own position to try and drain their money.
Really, the money goes to the system if the people are guilty (which is probably about 100% in India).
This is as bad as the Chinese suing Microsoft for blanking screens on pirated software.
These pirates should be thrown away. We sure as hell have to pay for crap from India and China including software; they should have to pay for the few things that we still produce.
Fuck you Microsoft!
I’m from India, and this makes me feel safer.
Is India new home for humanrights, it sounds fair.
I’m with #30 and others. Sure, it wasn’t fair for the person getting sued, but that isnt microsoft’s fault – its the indian court systems fault for allowing lawsuits to be filed anywhere they want. If they want lawsuits to be filed in the jurisdiction of the defendant, then they should make that the rule. Not arbitrarily fine some company for following the existing rules that didn’t require that. If the system lets this crazy judge get away with this it could set a precedent that could open up appeals to anyone who didnt appear in court cuz it was too far away. Plus what about all the other people who filed lawsuits and didn’t get fined. Not that I’m defending microsoft; Im definately not an msfanboy; I’d say the same thing no matter who the crazy judge tried to fine.
Amazing.
District-shopping is standard practice in the USA. Everyone does it, including the government.
The Federal Government is especially bad, because they can literally go anywhere in the country to try a case, choosing a place where the the odds of conviction is most favorable. (which is almost never where a person lives)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
—Mahatma Gandhi
One of the few times I am proud to be an Indian..
Last line of the second-last paragraph, it should be “sheer”, not “shear”.
Glad to see M$ getting their underpants pulled up and over their heads. They deserve it. ;)
Honestly there’s no point in pirating M$’s CRAPPY products anyway.. :p
Seems every so often they get busted for GPL opensource violations. Typical of M$ greed. ” }:> ”
I agree with everyone else.. screw’em, M$ SUCKS.
SOMEBODY LEAVE A PIRITBAY INVITE FOR ME ON THE NEXT POST THANKS IN ADVANCE
lol
atlast my country did something on which i could be proud of lol
i didnt know microsoft was on the rage..
thought they were happy if you were using there software.. i dunno mabye cause we uhh support it?
Found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQCLCpyM_rM
Quite interesting really …
Microsoft must have found some rich shots to fine thier cases on but guess things backfired
I just downloaded Win 7 installed it and test it for few days then removed it because this is another big piece of bloatware compared to Linux or OSX and computer speed no longer rises very much these days.
i wish that court was in america. would put an end to A LOT of lawsuits :)
@55 by Jigsy
Ahaha! I got this! This is why developer can get MS software for free into of the corporate edition!
Without piracy of window China would probably be running on Linux by now.
Oracle is doing the same thing. As a student or a developers you can get the software for free but to actually use it on production you have to pay for the license.
M$ Stole their OS
Pirates made the M$ OS popular
M$ is what it is today because of pirates.
Seems they want their cake and eat it.
Shame on them!
bahy
I read this piece of news in a local paper, but i didn’t think of it as clearly as the way TF has put it in .
Proud to be an indian!
Finally a functional court system.
Now THAT’S equality with perfect logical sense.
LOL @ #3….1st Tard! ROFFLE! xD
@32
M$ is fined for ABUSE of the court system which is probably based on their “intent” which in turn is used frequently as a weapen by the industries themselves to win court cases against ‘piracy’.
TPB, Mininova, FTD are also doing nothing illegal, still they get fined for, guess… doing nothing illegal but only for “intent”. (usual statement: 90% of torrents is illegal so it must be the desire of the site to make money on illegal filesharing)
Ofcourse i dont have all the facts so i might be misinformed reading only TF on this. Still the main point is that everyone is equal for the law that seems absent in Western countries.
Jai Ho !!!!!
HA!
take that moneysoft.
proof not everything has its price.
a few things i hate about M$.
1 i hate about M$ is their price gouging.
i mean WTF how can you charge 180 AUD for a wireless adapter when i can get one for my PC for less than 40.
i thought price gouging was illegal.
2 they NEVER admit to their stuff ups and are always pretending there not happening.
like the RROD it took forever to acknowledge it, and longer to get them to start resloving it.
another example windows 7 and the black screen of death.
ITS HAPPENING M$ WAKE THE $#@% UP PULL YOUR SELFISH MONEY GRUBBING FINGER OUT OF YOUR LAZY A$$.
ADMIT IT, APOLOGIZE FOR IT AND MOST IMPORTANTLY
FIX IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 there constantly talking shit about their competitors.
arron greenburg a PRIME example or dan greenwalt another prime example.
always talking shit about their competitors.
in stead of saying were offering this and this and thats why you should choose us.
they say the other competition does not have this and does not do that and something else completley irrelevant to the topic.
like arron recently said reach will be bigger than god of war 3.
and offered NO explanation.
how?
sales wise?
thats a given.
but quality wise, graphics wise, reviews wise?
OH PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the only thing halo reach can do better than GOW3 is sales thats it.
in every other aspect GOW3 kicks the living daylights out of halo reach.
the other 2 ninty and sony are not perfect, they also talk shit but no where near as often as M$.
Bring back BeOS…now!!!!! I mean it…or else!!!! xD
oh no, 16000$ fine, I suspect there will be no more updates for win xp, too sad.
fantastic!
India & File sharing FTW
Haha sweet M$ got screwed by my country! Jaayahe India! :)
Has anyone noticed that Indians upload ancient crap…and they all have crappy blogs too. I dislike them intensely.
Hmmm…courts should use P2P video conferencing to avoid all those costs.
This way you could field a complaint anywhere and people just need to go to the nearest court room to be heard.
LoL
Is India new “Land of the free”? :)
RESPECT, INDIA!
M$ will think twice before they try something like this again.
China, Brazil, etc — hope you are taking notes!
“Money power” = “financial strength”, but agree with the judge — it’s immoral to have it and choose to abuse it.
Respect also to the Indian justice system for not letting Microsoft bribe or bully them into doing it’s dirty business.
Frankly, would have thought that justice COULD be bought with “money power” in India. I am very impressed to learn that this is not true.
Go India.
Its Democracy Power so u see… people have the power :D
at last..sanity wins
DOWN WITH MS
Down with MS
Ha ha ha…..Xbox 360 is so shit and now Microsoft are losing more money on it!!! Better try having some exclusive games with decent graphics and then this won’t happen!!!
i’m all for sharing, but this case is more like india sticking two fingers up to USA. if it was a company in india the law would have been dealt normally.
@ 78 system here is good but people are corrupt u saw this good judgement but there are 100d’s of bad as well but situation here seems to be better then before
MF’s! What do do when Microsoft becomes the copyright culprit :
http://blog.plurk.com/2009/12/14/microsoft-rips-plurk/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Windows-7-RTM-USB-DVD-Download-Tool-Pulled-Down-126704.shtml
When Microsoft talks about ethics, they must see this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
@32
Of course you have a point that immediately fining Microsoft is overly harsh. We would deem it incredibly offensive if any of our torrent sites got sued just because they “Might” be doing something illegal.
What matters here is context. If the defendants communicated with Microsoft requesting the trial to be moved, with Microsoft refusing, it is an entirely different case.
If Microsoft regularly wins because of the default judgments man might question their intent as well, same in case they have been cautioned against this behavior before.
Even so… A bit of common sense from a company that earns millions and millions would also be nice. Slapping them with immediate fines is over the top, but demanding that people travel across the country just to defend themselves against charges is just as bad.
Okay so.. What is wrong with some people here? If you were a paid software developer, wouldn’t you fight to slow down cracks a bit? I mean, man… c’mon
Seems like they worked really hard on Windows 7 and I highly recommend it for those who can afford it. If you can’t afford it, well, umm.. Google is your friend.
Read my reply 36.. And this is not what I think, but what some MS friends I have say. (I’m from w7v to those who know what w7v means :D)
didnt know the city i live in is pro-piracy!!! :\
well, good for me ;)
ROFL XD never saw that coming
For once, the vested interests lost to the common man.
News like this just makes my day.
@88
So your friends assume “guilty until proven otherwise” should be deemed more important then justice?
Remember that we are talking about little more then a charge against someone, not about a guilty person. If i charge you for something random would you deem it fair that you have to travel 1.300 kilometers just to be able to defend you against the charge made? Also, seeing this traveling would cost the same as half a year salary in India, (See 17) would you assume it is fair?
If Microsoft wants to sue then let them do so. But they should not abuse their monetary advantage so that they might win the case by default because the defendant is unable to defend himself against the charges made.
hahahah ms go get laid rofl
@ 92
I’m 100% with you I was just saying that it’s normal (well kind of) from them to try to scare a few people, but yeah I agree with you.
Look at Adobe, and some other companies.. They call home if you’re using a crack.. o.0 (Well a bad crack that is)
@39 – HMS
Thanks for the heads up on- Revolution OS
Definitely a piece of history any serious computer user should explore..
3 of my relatives got their 1st PC by taking a loan in a bank back in the 90’s.they could not afford Microsoft’s asking price for the OS so were forced to use a pirated OS
now 2 of them are doing their PHD in the US 1 is in london now all they buy is ORIGINAL stuff be it music ,music ,software tell me how did piracy affect microsoft in this case.
Fail.
I personally respect M$ because they have good customer support and so far I’ve got intelligent people on the other side of the line who can actually solve your problem. Which is damn rare.
However, they should know their prices are very far from fair and even further from SANE. And they should aim their lawsuits at people that actually take loads of money away (such as companies using pirated M$ software). If they want common folk like us to use their product they’ll need to drop the prices. At least they kind of fixed the failure from Windows Vista with W7, it’s much better.
I’m not hypocrite, I do use Windows a lot and for that reason I bought it. Unfortunately I did something I don’t usually do and bought Vista without ever using it… In any case, I managed to get my hands on a legal copy of W7 for less than half of the price otherwise I’d just use a pirated copy to compensate for the huge failure Vista was.
It’s good to know there are still honest judicial systems out there.
woohoo!!
yeah baby.
http://www.Epictorrents.com
Ha!
Good news all round.
Judge Dhingra, I salute you.
Microsoft, lol
Http://www.Gamerzonez.ws
Caveat Emptor
@ 96
Ninja, you’re the man.
Brilliant. I fucking love it.
@post re: http://en.windows7sins.org/
I have used just about all types of OS and systems. I’m not an MSfanboy as I give just about every OS I can get my hands on a fair shake when they come out. However, this webpage does make some rather outlandish claims. I mean, complaining that MS ‘Poisons Education’ because a lot of school computers run on it? MS gives price breaks to schools for computers. This could just as easily be viewed as NICE. Next up is the “WGA.” Sure, it’s a pain. Sure, it’s ineffective. But people have reverse engineered it six ways to Sunday and discovered that, no, it doesn’t send all kinds of info to MS about your hard drive, just whether or not you’re using a poor crack or not.
The list goes on. MS has a lot of issues and is pretty evil, but the particular points this site chooses to touch upon are not the right points and are ill-conceived borderline slander.
Micro-Fail!
I love it when the little guy wins.
@88: No they have enough money already compared to other fields. Hardware devs are working just as hard if not more (designing hardware is much more of a challenge than software, trust me on this one, I have experience), and less than half of the revenue is profit. In software, of course, revenue is almost exactly profit.
oh and hardware is CHEAPER.
hmm I wonder why a software dev is the richest man on Earth?
>38
What he (and others) said.
WITHOUT PIRACY, WIDESPREAD USE OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS WOULDN’T BE A REALITY.
THAT’S THE ONLY -REAL- DOWNSIDE OF PIRACY, FOLKS: THROUGH DECADES WE HELPED THEM SELL THEIR PRODUCT.
BASTARDS.
What a great judge! Someone who stood up for the little guys and didn’t presume guilt before the case was tried. Wish our US justice system was as fair. Too many legal cases are decided by who has the most money to throw at it.
This is great news. About time people learn something from the oldest, smartest and greatest civilization on the planet.
India rocks.
The Jugde is a mac users thats why… xD – Nice one :D
Microsoft has been screwing people since 1980
Apple is like Microsoft’s younger brother, still screwing people at half the older brother’s age.
+1
Also, why don’t you go linux ppl…
I don’t get it.
Down with capitalism!
@116- xdudex
people dont go linux because it can be a pain in the ass, especially for people that aren’t that computer literate….
Face it, it is *Not that user friendly of an OS, you need to have at least a grasp on programming if you have to have any hope to get things working… There is Linux, then there is wine, a few other add-ons to allow for other things to “jive/work”
Allot of people would rather stick to what they already know and are comfortable with…
Personally I think Linux is great!, but I do understand why people are hesitant…
Sounds like another “Nigerian Scam” lmao, naw Microsoft needs a kick in the balls once in a while.
Ubuntu is a pretty easy migration to Linux, even for strictly Windows Users, Windows 7 is almost exactly like some linux distros from a couple years ago.
india is so lame. again. there is just no justice in the world.
Yet another example of how the “third world” is more advanced or civilized than we are.
Am I alone to think this may be a bit stupid? What are you supposed to do when a crime is committed across the country? Though you applaud Microsoft losing money because of anti-piracy efforts I see this as India being corrupted and needing money everywhere.
They should have just asked Microsoft representatives to travel.
yeah now this is news ….. in india fighting piracy will never work its our culture …
our teachers parents every one of us get materials from the net because we cannot afford all those hard bound tech books and music which is not released in india ….
i completed my engineering by reading pdf’s (soft copies ) od techinal books and journals
now m doin my masters in network engineering and all thanks to tpb mininova and all other torrents
this is how we india s learn and develop
Freedom!
Where is piracy in sharing? i dont find it there….
If anyone here had even cared to read the goddamn article, they would’ve known that the court did not fine MS for merely causing inconviniance to the defendants.
The court found out that “another reason why Microsoft was found to have chosen the capital to fight the cases was that the Delhi High Court has the jurisdiction to order compensation of up to Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 million).”, which the Bangalore, Chandigarh, Hyderabad & Bombay High Courts lacked.
@126 i lold and was about to post that then i read yours
it seems people can read
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