Digital Trends
Last week in court, Boston college student Joel Tenenbaum admitted illegally downloading and sharing music files. As a result, he’s been hit with a fine of $675,000, payable to four major record labels.
Tenenbaum told AP he was initially happy the fine wasn’t in the millions:
"That to me sends a message of ‘We considered your side with some legitimacy’."
However, his lawyer is planning an appeal.
Once again Microsoft has been forced to dip into its wallet to pay a fine in Europe. This time it’s in Germany, where the BundesKartellamt, or competition authority, has fined the company nine million Euros (almost $12 million) for price fixing on its Office Home and Student 2007 software suite.
In a statement, the BundesKartellamt said:
“The product in question was heavily advertised in the autumn of 2008 in stationary retail outlets. Amongst others, a nationwide active retailer advertised the product with financial support from Microsoft. Even before the launch of the advertising campaign in mid-October 2008, employees of Microsoft and the retailer in question had agreed on at least two occasions on the resale price of the software package “Office Home & Student 2007”.”
Microsoft is battling to have the massive $1.4 billion fine imposed on it by the EU after violating a 2004 antitrust agreement set aside.
According to court filings obtained by Reuters, the company claims the fine was excessive and unreasonable. It was imposed after the European Commission decide that Microsoft code licenses were too expensive for most developers, which made the code inaccessible, and therefore violated the antitrust agreement.
According to the filings, Microsoft has asserted:
"The Commission failed to take due account of the fact that the contested decision only concludes that the royalties allegedly established by Microsoft under one particular license."
Software giant Microsoft has filed an appeal with the European Court of First Instance contesting the $1.4 billion (€899) fine the court levied against the company for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust settlement. In late 2007, Microsoft 3 on the case, deciding not to appeal a decision that upheld the terms of the 2004 agreement. In doing so, Microsoft agreed to provide information so third party developers could build products which interoperate successfully with Windows server operating systems, with one result being the Open Protocol Specification area of Microsoft’s MSDN Web site, where the company is publishing tens of thousands of pages of protocol documentation.
In a move which clearly indicates their patience sis at an end, regulators for the European Union have fined Microsoft €280.5 million (about US $357.7 million) for failing to comply with the terms of a 2004 antirust settlement.
And that’s just the first step: the EU plans to hit Microsoft with bigger fines starting next month if the Redmond software giant doesn’t toe the line. The current fine covers the period from December 16 2005, to June 20 2006 at a rate of €1.5 million a day—and the meter’s still running. If Microsoft doesn’t comply by July 31, the per diem charge increases to €3 million.
“In March 2004 the commission imposed a record fine of 497 million euros on Microsoft, a fine paid in December, but on Thursday the commission accused the company of not applying some other measures against it. One of these decisions was that Micosoft market a version of its leading software Windows without video software Media Player. Another required the company to divulge information about its product operating system needed by manufacturers of competing products.”
Read more at Yahoo! News
Found VIA TechIMO
Lindows, based in San Diego, California, said it had withdrawn from the three countries after it received legal papers demanding that it pay a fine of up to 100,000 euros a day for failing to comply with an earlier court order.
Microsoft, which is often embroiled in legal battles with competitors, has pursued Lindows in courts around the world, alleging trademark infringement of its Windows brand name by Lindows, which offers a Linux alternative called LindowsOS.
Read more at Reuters.
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