04.16.09
Posted in Fraud, Microsoft at 5:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
‘On August 23, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported, “Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff earlier this year, imploring him to go easy on Microsoft Corp. for its conduct as a monopoly. The pleas, along with about 400 others from Utah citizens, are part of a carefully orchestrated nationwide campaign to create the impression of a surging grass-roots movement.” (“Another letter came from ‘Tuscon, Utah,’ a city that doesn’t exist,” noted the Times.)
‘The letter drive was carried out by two Microsoft-funded front groups, called Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) and Citizens Against Government Waste. According to the Los Angeles Times article, “To assist it in the grass-roots campaign, Microsoft turned to two of the nation’s top political advocacy groups: Boston-based Dewey Square Group, co-founded by Al Gore campaigner Michael Whouley, and Phoenix-based DCI/New Media, led by Republican strategist Tom Synhorst.”‘
–Dewey Square Group
Summary: Without severe punishment, crimes will repeat themselves, and the Dewey Square Group is just one new example
THE Dewey Square Group is one of those lobbies that make one wonder if there is effective law enforcement in the United States (c/f Microsoft lobbying). If there was, then people from Dewey Square Group would probably be sentenced to prison. As a bit of background (relating to Microsoft alone):
- Quick Mention: Dewey Square Group Still Caught AstroTurfing
- The Microsoft Connection with Dewey Square Group and DCI/New Media
As time goes by and illegal activity is exposed, nothing changes. Read this new report:
Across Massachusetts, senior citizens are writing letters to newspapers demanding that their representatives in Congress protect a form of health insurance called Medicare Advantage.
At least that’s what newspaper editors are supposed to think.
Some of those seniors are unaware that they have sent any such letters to newspapers. Some of them hadn’t even heard of Medicare Advantage.
“I did not write a letter to the editor. It’s not from me,” said Gloria Gosselin, 75, of Lawrence.
[...]
A tip-off to the true origin of the letters came when The Eagle-Tribune received a call from a man who turned out to be an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group, a national political marketing and consulting firm.
The man, who identified himself as Noah, wanted to know if Gloria Gosselin’s letter had been published. Asked what interest he had in the letter, Noah replied that he was Gosselin’s grandson.
Concerned US citizens should stand up and put an end to this. Microsoft too has used the services of the Dewey Square Group, among other groups that sent pro-Microsoft letters ‘on behalf’ of dead people [1, 2, 3]. Jonathan Zuck’s group was involved as well and needless to say, Microsoft has never been a small and gentle company, despite the words “micro” and “soft” inside its brand name. █
“Microsoft retaliated against industry participants that supported DR-DOS. For example, when Z-Nix Inc. bundled DR-DOS 6.0 and Microsoft Windows 3.1, proclaiming no incompatibilities, Microsoft’s Brad Silverberg wrote: “look what znix is doing! cut those fuckers off.” Within three weeks, Microsoft demanded an audit of Z-Nix’s entire business and then commenced a copyright and trademark infringement action. Z-Nix was forced to file for bankruptcy in or around 1995″
–Comes Petition [PDF]
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Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 4:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers.”
–Bob Muglia, Microsoft President
Just found in the blog of Novell’s technical chief:
We’re continually impressed by Miguel de Icaza and the entire Mono community—to see how quickly they add Mono features. It has reached the level of maturity that we are supporting SLE Mono Extension as an innovative, supported version of Mono.
Well, isn’t that just lovely?
“I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue”
–Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Here are some photos from yesterday’s demonstration at the European Patent Office. Press coverage will come soon. █
More photos here.
“Staff at the European Patent Office went on strike accusing the organization of corruption: specifically, stretching the standards for patents in order to make more money.
“One of the ways that the EPO has done this is by issuing software patents in defiance of the treaty that set it up.”
–Richard Stallman
“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway.”
–Marshall Phelps, Microsoft
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Posted in Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Patents at 1:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Preliminary analyses of the impact of the ACTA (still a secret draft)
NOW that ACTA drafts are out there for people to read and assess, we know for a fact that patents too are included. Digital Majority took a look and highlighted the required proof.
Wikileaks has published some drafts of the secret ACTA treaty, which aims to give better guns to Patent Trolls. The draft mentions that it covers all the rights covered by TRIPS, so it will cover also patents.
Glyn Moody, who watched the ACTA very closely, has just published: “Goodbye WIPO, Hello ACTA?”
What is really remarkable about this is that Greve can even be asking WIPO to consider free software and open standards: a few years ago, such a thing would have amounted to blasphemy.
Sadly, there is another sign that WIPO is becoming more accommodating to the ideas behind free software: the fact that there seems to be a move to come up with an alternative forum for promoting intellectual monopolies where it will not be so easy to participate.
Cory Doctorow, whose interests are slightly different, focuses on the fact that “ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and activists.” He cites Michael Geist, whose expertise seems to include open access, DMCA, copyrights, and other such territories.
Michael Geist sez, “The World Intellectual Property Organization may be best known for the Internet treaties that led to the DMCA, but in recent years groups like EFF, KEI, and Public Knowledge has helped to open things up and move toward a Development Agenda that better balances international intellectual property policy. That progress may be threatened by the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which officials now acknowledge is designed to exclude WIPO, developing countries, and NGOs.”
Unsurprisingly, TorrentFreak focuses on the impact on file sharing.
Leaked ACTA Draft: More Power to the RIAA
A recent draft of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) surfaced on Wikileaks this weekend. Among other things, the draft aims to strengthen the power and rights of the entertainment industry and other copyright holders, by letting them choose how they want to be compensated for copyright infringements.
Obama and Biden have already put at least 5 RIAA lawyers in charge. Moreover, Obama refuses to granted people access to the ACTA (never mind if it inevitably leaks anyway). █
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