How did they expect their customers to react when they are essentially taking over the rights of the customer’s PC? … And when customers complain they keep singing that old, worn-out song of piracy problems even though nothing in the ever-booming sales numbers of videogames supports this! Let’s be realistic here. This has nothing to do with piracy and the company already knows this. They are instead fighting a market they have little or no control over and which costs them millions of dollars each month: The second-hand game market. Normally you would not be against the forces of the free market and just be happy that you are in a market that keeps growing with incredible speed in the midths of a major financial crisis… but not in this market! They want to control the customer, their PC and instead lease their products for full price…

Of course when you act that way in the face of your customers you better not mess up and that’s exactly what Epic did with their major title “Gears of War”. Of course EA had already created a great fuss on the market by creating some of the most restricted DRM on the games market ever on their release of their major hope, Spore, which was suppose to take over the success of The Sims. However, they quickly found out that in this digital age gamers will let their voices be heard quickly once you try to screw them like EA did. It didn’t help that the CEO of EA came out and showed the whole world what little understanding of their customers and how much arrogancy EA had at that point. Later on EA put the same titles on Steam – now without the DRM…

Now, there’s no denying that piracy exists to some degree, but since the numbers can never be validated it will always be used as a poor excuse. However, as Valve and others keep reminding us: Pirates are just unsatisfied customers! Why not try to find out at what price mark pirates vanish, like you do with other software in third world countries? Why not offer the choice between a cheaper copy with DRM and the “normal” game for a normal price without DRM – thereby letting customers show their intent with their vallets. Naturally this can only be done if the companies start to make it clearer on the boxes for their games what restrictions actually applies when they sell DRM-ridden titles.

Ubisoft has already had its trouble with DRM and are now searching for new alternatives. They have now released their newest Prince of Persia game for PC without DRM to see how it fares. Naturally it can easy become a quick excuse for Ubisoft: “See… We did it without DRM and we didn’t sell 100 million copies over night! Pirates will never change!”. A poor game will never sell – even without DRM.

At this point in time gamers are fed up with non-functional DRM schemes that only hurts the paying customers. Pirates never feel the poor quality of DRM since their version never contain any, which in itself is the clearest point one can make in this matter. The DRM doesn’t help because every title is out there in a pirated version – WITHOUT DRM – so only the remaining paying customers are being screwed. Lately gamers, together with the EFF, have started speaking out publicly about the many problems in DRM, which are illegally taking away user-granted rights without consent.

Let’s hope that some headroom is finally made. The situation is unacceptable. We all know that DRM is doomed to fail. A perfect solution doesn’t exists and never will. It is clear now that this situation with ever increasing strictness of DRM is a passing period – however, one that is annoying to be living in. In five years time everything will be digitally sold and shipped and at that point those silly schemes will have been replaced by a few centralized, transparent dsitribution solutions, like Steam. God, I wish I had a time machine… and so should many of the game publishing companies! EA and Epic aren’t the last to make a big public scandal on DRM and who knows which company will end up being remembered as the Sony of the gaming world with their version of the XCP copy protection and the following massive lawsuit, followed by a publicity nightmare… I can’t wait

Well, frankly I don’t quite agree! I hate piracy as much as the next guy. No, I don’t find it to be an “okay demonstration against some big business, who is doing you wrong!”. People that pirate are just freeloaders! They do not understand the massive commitment and work it requires to make a game these days – even a poor game (which the market is apparently filled with). I don’t like demos myself. They always leave all kinds of crap on my computer and I hate those regular re-installs. I can, to some degree, understand those people that claim that too many titles these days are utter crap, wasted money, or just not enough bang for the money (like Mirror’s Edge with only 6 hours of gameplay) and therefore try out the pirate version before shelling out good cash. However, guys that use this excuse over and over and never actually buy anything as they keep claiming that there are no good titles: Shut the fuck up! If there were no good titles how come you spend 20 hours plus every week gaming?!… I hate those guys! Stop complaining about game quality when you don’t support good games! Stop complaining about poor performance, too many bugs, poor service when you are using a pirate version, riddled with malware and virusses! Buy good games … it’s that easy!

Games are often good value for money – especially compared to movies, where you get 1,5 – 2,5 hours of entertainment for the approx. same price where the games often deliver 20 – 40 hours of gameplay and a more immersive and often better social experience!

However, the one area where I hate the conclusion of that article is on DRM… I refuse to accept that crappy DRM schemes on my computer! I am not a pirate, i am not a thief… I have 60 plus original titles on my PC alone, not counting my console games… I refuse to receive a copy of a game that denies me much more than the pirate version, which is available for free! Instead offer some free extra stuff and good online parts for us paying customers – NOT CRAPPY DRM-schemes! Hint: they don’t work and they are a nightmare to support! Just give it up and let the market decide! Then it will be easier for the companies to expose the ever growing freeloaders! Yes, I know… companies like EA will still make a lot of poor value titles or easy follow ups on public franchises without any proper content or gameplay, but then don’t buy them … And don’t go for the pirate version of a game you claim is poor!

I hate those double standards… It is easy to shout your moralistic view all over the internet and find a common voice… It is a bit more difficult to live by those beliefs! And believe me when I say that you fucking freeloaders don’t make it anymore easy on those of us that actually pay for good games and don’t pirate! So grow up and smell the free market! Vote with your wallet, not your sorry cry-baby voice!

Now, another reason I personally hate DRM is something that is rarely mentioned in the internet article, but matters a lot for me. I take backup of my games. I hate having to have the physical disc laying around everywhere. In the fully digital distribution age this will not be a problem, but we are not there yet, so it is! Therefore I make backups on my NAS, which is a nice way to access my games when I want to play them. A nice solution, I like to think. The problem is with titles that contain DRM that I have to go to shady sites on the Internet to get noCD patches to get them to work without a DVD in the drive. Why should I be punished for being a faithful customer compared to the pirate? Why shall I be forced onto shady sites to get noCD patches to be able to make backups? How come the industry themselves aren’t offering my this as a faithful, paying customer? There is a reason I complete stopped buying games with DRM… They do not supply me with the options I need. This is a digital age – I should be able to handle my product in a digitally flexible manner!

So, instead of pirating games because you don’t want to pay for the honest work of men and women in the gaming inudstry stop playing games. If you want to change the industry start paying for games, but only those that do it right!

If companies, like EA, doesn’t listen to you then… well… they’ll find out in the one language that company can understand – MONEY!

It is never a pretty sight when a company suddenly consists of 80% lawyers, 17% marketing and only 3% people actually doing something… It happened with the music business and now EA can join them as the first of the gaming publishing company!

However, one would think that a company consisting of 80% lawyers could at least read the law, instead of sitting on that strange planet of theirs and making up their own rules?

EDIT: Now at least some of their 80% lawyers will have something to do up to Christmas

The music industry earns billions upon billions every year – even though they haven’t adapted or at least their business model in more than 60 years. Imagine that in any other industry? Imagine if the hardware producers had done the same. Rejected the Internet outside their control completely. None of their goods were to be sold outside a physical store in their complete control. They would have surely died. Imagine if the authors had sued Amazon out this world for selling tons of their books online and tried to disable the internet because they found a book online that had been made illegally available? Such thoughts are today unimaginable and still the Greedy Business ™ tries to do this. The ridiculous thing about their attempt is that politicians listen to this.

Lets make one thing perfectly clear: I’m against illegal copying of copyrighted or otherwise protected work… but I am not against copying, information freedom, technology advances. File copying is not automatically illegal downloading. Torrents does not equal illegal download, but an excellent technology that could be used in many different contexts. The Internet is way past the hour where we can just start to disable people’s access to it. It is simply a human right. Why do I say that? Well, as long as the Greedy Business ™ sees nothing on the Internet but illegal copies everyone agrees that it isn’t beneficial to keep. However, in the same moment we call out for the “Three strikes and you are out” adaption we also critize China for not allowing its people free access to information through the Internet. Perhaps soon China will come out saying that they are just regulating against illegal copying and everything will be allright then?

The main problem facing the Greedy Business ™ is that they are no longer functioning as a free market, where the forces of the market regulates. If it had been the case then one or more of the Big Four would have adapted to the Internet more than a decade ago and perhaps even sooner than that – offering people an alternative they were clearly asking for. Take a look at how many portable media devices being sold every year. Then try to go out and find a service that can offer them the media they want, regardless of the platform they have at home (Windows, Linux, Mac)? There are none! Then take a look at what the Greedy Business ™ does offer (after being forced to try something)… Complicated stores, filled with forms that needs to be filled out, again and again, slow download times, extremely low bitrates and quality, DRM, DRM and DRM… and for the same price as you can buy the physical alternative! Don’t try to explain those prices! They simply has nothing to do with the cost of production – as it would in a working market.

If you started to see where all the money goes inside the music industry you would be appalled – and they know this. How come a CD costs the same as a DVD? You cannot try tell me that the price of production is the same for making 12 small tracks of music compared to a large Hollywood blockbuster involving several major stars and thousands of people involved. Then comes the price of a downloadable version of an album cost the same – and should I be so stupid that I wanted to pay for a tune for my mobile phone the price would be one fifth of the entire album. Don’t tell me that it is representing the true cost in any way. It represents that too many people needs to earn too much money inside this great pyramid where the musician sits at the bottom… An entire industry build up of managers and lawyers that imagine a world that cannot live without their product and therefore keep claiming that they must be loosing money to illegal downloads because every person on Earth doesn’t buy a CD every month, like they did in the 80′ies. Could they only offer some real proof of this, instead of the lying, bullshitting statistics they publish now and then, which are always shot down immediately as being at least of factor of 3 over the top or outright lies…

Instead of focusing on making music they are now spending their time on two things: suing their customers for illegal downloading without proper evidence and spreading lies about technology they do not understand themselves.

The conclusion is simply, if you think of it. Technology doesn’t stand still – people sometimes do, however. What we have is a disfunctional industry that needs to die and be reborn immediately. Instead of trying to disable people’s access to the Internet we should instead disable the Internet access for the Greedy Business ™. This would solve all the problems. They don’t need the real world to make their statistics anyway. Then when they have come up with something that acutally moves technology and the Internet forward, instead of back into the Dark Ages, they should be allowed back on. Now, all I need is a politician that wants to listen to the people and reason, instead of listening to the money of the Greedy Business ™.

After a decade of darkness in the minds of the Greedy Business ™ ’s CEOs they finally started to realize that calling your customers pirates, suing your customers while at the same time locking their systems full of DRM might not be the best way to win their hearts. Then Apple along with EMI launched DRM-free MP3 music on iTunes and suddenly Amazon followed with the two more of the Big Greedy Four. All that was left was Sony, who still couldn’t believe why the others would ever want to abandon DRM. After pressure when every blog and newssite on the planet had written about the DRM-free campaign from the other three Sony decided to make their own “DRM-free” option. However, true to Sony’s way of handling their customers it was an extremely poor and difficult way to implement DRM-free, which forced you into a physical store, thereby removing half the incentative. Why would Sony ever want to implement it in such a horrible way? The answer is simple: It is the only way to “prove” that DRM-free doesn’t work. If their silly “DRM-free” attempt was a fiasco they could go out and claim that people didn’t want DRM-free and that the Big Greedy Four should go back to DRM – ensuring Sony a good deal in royalties for their tons of non-functional DRM-schemes.

The main problem the Greedy Business ™ is now left with is their legacy from this decade of DRM and customer-hating. Many analysts predicts that DRM especially will haunt the Greedy Business ™ for a long time. Meanwhile the Greedy Business ™ continues to sue its customers, however meeting a lot more resistance now! The problem with companies like RIAA/MPAA is that their only interest is to make the customers of the company that pay them look criminal – how did anyone ever expect a business model like that to work? EMI has already seen the problem in this constellation and are asking RIAA what it is getting for its annual 250 million dollars, while being prepared to leave the RIAA should their response not fit the bill! RIAA is in dire straits already for showing sides that the music industry shouldn’t like too much. RIAA itself is for some reason not ready to pay artists anything even though they claim to this in their behalf – nor do they ever expect to do this… Why should anyone pay them then? Why not pay directly to the artist that has been exposed to piracy? At the same time they are eager to stay in control in their role as gate keepers and constantly battles individual and independent artists to keep them and the Big Greedy Four in control of the entire music industry, which is also something that would never be allowed in any real free market. Their public announcement often creates hate among music customers and clearly shows that they haven’t got the slightest basic understanding of how a free market should work or what their customers want – or even what they are actually doing!

What is more of a problem is the fact that these “organizations” react so differently which has become painfully obvious in the many lawsuits against college students in America these recent years. The approaches and understandings of RIAA, MPAA and the TV-series are so different you wouldn’t think they even know what they really want – apart from more money. When their lawsuits hits prime news sites like Businessweek with a story of a poor mother who is innocent and who fights back against the Evil Empire ™ of RIAA and the cursed music industry it is a PR nightmare from day one. Of course with their lawsuit approach they are sure to create hate towards the entire industry from the next-generation consumers, which shows their understanding of business. How could the CEOs of the industry miss this? They are once again left with a PR nightmare, which they leave to their owners to clean up, while they still claim their annual wages for ruining the future market for their owners.

If they instead started to look at statistics – instead of “inventing” them – they might see that pirates sometimes actually help companies sell more products… A concept no CEO in the Greedy Business ™ would ever come to understand with their 1980′ies way of thinking. They haven’t even reached Web 1.0, while the rest of the world is ready to leave Web 2.0 and go forth.

What strikes me as particularly inconsistent is how RIAA for example handles its money. They claim to be doing this on behalf of the artists, who pay them quite handsomely to do this horrid job. On the other hand RIAA wants to use a method of pay themselves they refused to the webcasters, while at the same time doesn’t actually go out and support the song writers who is claimed to be their first priority. The RIAA is suppose to be the best lawyers the Big Greedy Four can get, but why are their methods then called into serious question? The same methods are called into question when it comes to the BSA, who are actually forcing companies to turn away from the software-producers who pay the BSA and turn to open source solutions – loosing them for the long run! A company like MediaSentry also quickly removes the earlier proof that they were using illegal methods from their homepage showing that all these companies are breaking the law to “uphold” what they consider to be a righteous cause! All in all these companies are no better than the mafia – and until the Greedy Business ™ understands that they customers will continue to hate them – continuing this PR nightmare!
These days are interesting days. Especially when a hacker found his way into the Media Defenders company and proved that companies like RIAA knows that their actions have zero effect on piracy. This is interesting as it proves that the RIAA isn’t actually working on the side of its employer, but rather is trying to stack up money for themselves while laying to their employer. And what would the BSA do when they see companies like Sony caught pirating software themselves? Sony are refusing to make amends, even though they have forced thousands to do this in a similar situation. How come they only respect copyrights and patents when it helps their own cause?

What are they even doing in the courts? The obvious have absolutely no sense of how to act as a lawyer or how to prove their desperate cases, clearly proven when the RIAA “expert” witness was deemed “borderline incompetent” by real experts in the courtroom, while all their “proving” techniques was called into serious question as well… Why do the Greedy Business ™ hire these guys and pay them so much money for being incompetent? They expect nothing in return, do no real statistics or analysis and still expect customers to buy from them after being sued!

When they cannot win in the markets or in the courtrooms what do they do then? Well the obvious answer if you lived in the 1940′ies Germany or in China today would be to secure a law that indoctrinates the next generation about their view and their view ONLY on file-sharing – ignoring all technological progress made the last two decades all together at the same time. Thank god I live in the real world … and not a country where a new law can make it possible to demand 1,5 million dollars per copied CD – even though no physical pierce has yet to be stolen and all evidence can be falsified digitally! Naturally such a law is made while a large company like Wal-Markt goes out saying that they will no longer accept the far too high prices on CDs as they are experiencing that neither will the customer! Of course a good CEO would know such a thing – if they didn’t read the statistics of companies like MPAA, which are at least a factor of 3 exaggerated and so are those from the college piracy numbers, which they have already admitted!

The grotesque part in this is that even though they are lying wildly and they admits it the CEO’s do nothing. They do not act on this, like a normal CEO would – and therefore they are lost in the digital race completely! The companies are offering no real alternative to piracy. Even the dumbest CEO should know his numbers so well that when he sees that the two biggest piracy nations of the world, China and Russia, bring down their piracy numbers and it doesn’t affect the CD or DVD sales, which continues to fall that this is not a major contributing factor! What a good CEO would do then is to find the REAL contributing factor – instead of relying on statistics that has already been proven false from day one! An industry led by so poor leadership is doomed to fail – and they will… sooner than those poor CEOs will ever realize!

What they completely failed to understand was that DRM in fact had an impact – it was just a negative one. One example is the PC gaming market, which is slowly being killed by DRM technologies. So what the Greedy Business ™ is actually doing with their technology is ruining their future markets and offering an ideal situation for the pirates. Why they couldn’t see this is beyond my understanding. My guess is that they simply wasn’t ready to accept that their old way of distributing, which has not seen change in more than 25-30 years, was threatened and they needed to renew. This is seen clearly in the way the Greedy Business ™ have handled every new attempt at a renewed digital distribution model, which they have been extremely efficient at overtaxing and overlicensing.

While they were busy shooting down every alternative they got and kept throwing bad technologies that took basic rights from the digital consumer it soon became apparent to everyone but the Greedy Business ™ that this might backfire big time. You can’t expect consumers to keep buying your products when you are screwing their rights, their computers, their products and then suing them all the time… Most people would understand that! Of course what you would do if you lived in Nazi germany in the 1940′ies and had such a situation is to create your own news and create fake facts wrapped in propaganda, so that is exactly what the Greedy Business ™ are doing. The funny thing about this propaganda campaign, that is suppose to take the heat out of the consumer backlash, is that it actually admits that the RIAA and the entire music business is not giving the consumer what it wants.

Meanwhile the loathing of DRM continues around the world. Still it is only at the consumer level. Governments doesn’t understand the problem. They can’t see why DRM will never work, as their understanding of IT and technology in general is as fair behind as the Greedy Business ™ are, which means that governments in general buy the crap that the Greedy Business ™ are saying. Even after the complete fiasco of Sony’s rootkit, with another one on the way, they still allow themselves to be taking around the bush by the Greedy Business ™’s lobbyist. Of course you cannot expect every educated human to be as stupid as most politicians and therefore IFPI’s sad attempt at trying to extort the universities into teaching only the view of IFPI is going horribly wrong. They somehow can’t see the problem of making this non factual propaganda in schools as a problem – maybe we should send the entire Greedy Business ™ to China and let them see what the outcome of onesided brainwash is? And it is not the only place where they try to push their incorrect perception of the world and their propaganda into. Report after report, filled with incorrect statistics and erranous analysis on the “losses” caused by piracy comes out of the Greedy Business ™ press month after month.

As of late though an entirely different problem is hitting the Greedy Business ™. The musicians, whom they represent, have had enough of suing their own fans and incapacitated fan’s computers with badly made DRM. Sir Paul McCartney has already spoken up, talked about the many problems that the industry is facing and how they acted completely wrong, when faced with such challenges. You can even hear rock stars claiming that the fight against piracy was already lost in 1997, but they are still fighting it like it was 1997 and with that use of DRM they will just create enemies for themselves. With the artificial high prices customers are forced to pay for inferior products, filled with DRM, they will turn to piracy. Especially since pirates have understood how to make it available and easy to get – even for people who are not technic minded. The band, NiN, also agrees that the prices of CDs are simply too high and that people should pirate their songs! This is a bold statement, but there is a hint of truth in it. Compare the investments in making a full motion film to that of making a CD album. There are far many more people involved in the film and it takes far longer, requires far more equipment, and still the price of the two products are almost the same, when comparing a CD with a DVD – why? While it may be a bold statement by NiN Radiohead took it a step further and went public with their latest album without a record label and even let their fans decide what they wanted to pay for the album! Claims are that Radiohead has already earned around 6-10 million dollars on this distribution model – and they don’t have to share it with a thousand and one lobbyist, lawyer or boss at the Greedy Business ™.

Well, why don’t the big four then start to sell music without DRM? According to some stores DRM-free music outsells the protected tunes in a ratio of four to one… Fear, I guess! It took a company in trouble to see the light… EMI, when faced with dire economical problems and no buyer, needed to get a foothold in this new reality. Suddenly they began to understand that the future is digital and depending on CD sales will ultimately fail. Out of the blue comes the initiative… Suddenly Apple is offering DRM-free tunes on iTunes – rocking the boat again – together with EMI. This suddenly gives EMI an amazing sales boost on iTunes – even on old songs. Amazon cannot lets this go by and soon after signs a deal with EMI, where they want to offer high-quality, DRM-free music. Suddenly Walmart enters this arena as well and now the game is on!

Sony BMG is still sitting behind like a stone, refusing to see reality, like they always have. They are still wingshot at the fact that Apple did with ease what they failed at miserably in retail. Their latest attempt at digital distribution with Crackle is way beyond embarrassing and clearly shows why Sony will never become a software-centric company.

Meanwhile the writings continue on the wall with CD sales continuing to decline and digital music sales continue to rise! This causes the Greedy Business ™ to try and blow an ember of life into their dying goldchild, the CD, but this desperate last attempt already looks like a failure on all counts. What Apple and EMI has begun on iTunes with DRM-free music is already starting to have an affect on the big four… DRM is threatened!

Suddenly Universal shocks by not renewing their iTunes contract, but only to test an alternative way of distributing DRM-free tunes without Apple in charge. The real reason they wanted to leave Apple and iTunes behind is that their greed got the best of them. They wanted a cut of every iPod sold… It is not called the Greedy Business ™ for nothing! They just want higher prices and more money – the only reason they went for DRM-free! The chief of Universal shows just how greedy they have become…

In the meantime the CEO of Warner Brothers suddenl and might I add FINALLY, realizes that their anti-consumer campaign might have helped P2P networks and hurt their own business. Welcome back, sleepy head! This is the first step towards DRM-free tunes from Warner Brothers, and it doesn’t take long before they also went the same way as EMI, leaving Sony as the last of the big four to stay behind on the DRM-only wagon!

After being the last company in the universe to see the light Sony BMG finally yields to pressure and goes DRM-free as well. With Sony into the fields of DRM-free tunes the future for DRM in terms of music is suddenly looking bleak. This could mean that Apple will finally have to relinguish some of their power in the digital music distribution domain, which they have controlled with ease and DRM. I don’t know if the big four made their move out of their deeply burried holes too late, but time will tell..

Of course this is only in the music business – the problem of DRM is still a heavy issue in terms of movie and films, where embarassing moments such as this clearly shows why the amateurishness of DRM needs to go on all fronts! They may not realise it yet, but the writing on the wall is clear. DRM is loosing the battle…

What to expect from the future then? Well, the business could start by looking at what is done right for once. Take a look at what function piracy really fulfills, like using it for giving away free samples, which is a cheap altenative to hyping and expensive marketing! The change is coming, and those that aren’t going with it will die! The business needs to go back and treat customers like customers and do like EMI has done – leave the RIAA/IFPI and start offering people what they want instead! DRM will be gone, perhaps already next summer for music… Now what digitial distribution model will be chosen is too early to say, but it needs to be nurtured, not overtaxed or overlicensed. This will be the salvation for the music business and later the movie and game business… The sooner the companies embrace this change and the future we live in the better they will survive. Times will be difficult – the transition will be hard – but listen to your customers and you will survive! In order to earn money in the future you need to release your control…

There are many ways to earn money. For the Greedy Business ™ the main way is no longer innovation. When you can no longer bring the people what they want to pay for they found an alternative that they found fair. They simply want to take away your rights one by one and then make you pay for them instead. Broadcasters are already trying to get control over media sharing, which is something that is a common right in the digital age, and force you to pay them for this right – again and again. The same thing is happening with the sad music business, with Sony BMG at the forefront of this rights-to-pay-again alternative. Sony BMG now considers it stealing that you copy that music you already own. Naturally these actions brings a question to mind: What do these american ideas do in the other parts of the world, where laws are fair for people? The answer is rather simply… They just force the laws of Hollywood into other countries as well, like it is happening in Canada! Canada is a special case as it has already been shown in Canada where the MPAA/RIAA was caught lying, using faked statestics while Canada at the same time has been proven to be one of the best developing markets in a time, where there is a large decline in sales across the industry. Furthermore it was proven in Canada that P2P actually improves CD sales – a statestic RIAA doesn’t want you to know about and would refuse the validity of to the day they are sacked! Of course the RIAA now have their eyes firmly set on the US, like the gaze of Sauron, and are now forcing the universities to buy subscriptions on music for all students and stop all P2P activity or they loose their federal funding. Nice to see a state extorting itself for money?!

Another way of earning money is to remove rights you have already allowed for many decades. One of the new ideas in the twisted heads of the Greedy Business ™ is to go after persons who have guitar tablatures on their home page. Tablatures they have written down by hear-by-ear, and now they are suddenly involved in copyright infringement.. How? It isn’t exactly a full digital copy, when you are talking about hear-by-ear? The tablatures have been there for as long as the internet has been around, but now they suddenly see another way of increasing they incredible wealth. Imagine a politician suing a voter for writing down his speak and publishing it on a website?… These guys are way beyond desperate!

Then another way of earning money is to take a digital technology they have done nothing to help growing and strangle it with new royalties. This is what the Greedy Business ™ is trying to do with Digital Radio – oh, and at the same time raise the royalties for traditional radio. No reason to miss an earning source! With the digital radio they then suddenly realise that they are killing the business, when 90% of webcasters are about to shut down their business, and then they make a time-limited offer to lower the new royalties – for the time being… Naturally all this is handled by the Greedy Business ™ representative, SoundExchange, which has been proven to be an expensive bureaucrat - and of course artists who wants to be paid royalties HAS to be a member of SoundExchange – ensuring that the Greedy Business ™ keep those irritating independent artists poor!

Then we come to the subject of punishment. How should copyright infringement be punished? Well, if you ask the Greedy Business ™ the answer is simple: Copyright infringement is far worse than burglary, fraud and bank robbery… Why? What are they thinking? How can they even think this? You are perhaps loosing a single CD sale caused by a P2P download, but unlike the bank robbery no one is faced with a double-barrelled shotgun, gets a nervous breakdown, forces the bank to close for several days and the robber goes out and can buy drugs and weapons for the stolen money.

Now that the Greedy Business ™ has critizised the law enforcement for not prioritizing P2P-copyright infringement above burglary, armed robbery and billion dollar fraud what do they themselves do to contain this problem? Do they themselves respect the law they claim others break? Unfortunately not! The RIAA’s IP gathering techniques are about to be busted, as they have been shown to be in contradiction to the current law. They have already been countersued by one of their plaintiffs for extortion, fraud and conspiracy – something you would expect from the mafia. At the same time the Greedy Business ™ is caught righthanded in entrapment, when confidential email was released to the public, showing that the Greedy Business ™ doesn’t mean that the law apply to them in any way. Their methods are somewhat the same you would expect from the mafia. These leaked documents have brought problems with them for the Greedy Business ™ as it is now clear for many that they have been using highly illegal methods like hacking, DDOS and directly involved in sabotage of the Pirate Bay, who is now suing them back on this basis. The Greedy Business ™ has often complained about the Pirate Bay, who is unfortunately for them completely legal in Sweden, but now it becomes even more problematic. It appears that the Greedy Business ™ doesn’t mind using the pirate data for their own earnings – even though they public critize them all the time. In normal business markets it is illegal to form price cartels. Unfortunately the Greedy Business ™ doesn’t consider themselves a normal business market, so naturally this law doesn’t apply them either. Of course to cover this fact from the eye of the law they do all they can to refuse access to the agreements formed among the big four in the music industry, which would show why the prices in this market is stalled, while the sales are failing… something you would not see in a working free market economy. Breaking the law doesn’t seem to constitute a problem for a company that keeps screaming about children that are perhaps breaking the law, wanting the law to do something about with without showing any real evidence for their claims beforehand…

This was the second part of the article series on the Greedy Business ™. Next time we conclude the series with discussing the only technology the Greedy Business ™ have brought into the digital age, DRM – Digital Rights Management...

For a long time the battle between the consumer and the music/movie industry has grown ever stronger. The industry, in this blog called the Greedy Business ™, have shown by their motives and actions over the years that they simply lack a basic understanding of a free market and of the basic concept of a consumer.

The problem grew enormously in strength when file-sharing over the Internet slowly became a popular technology. Suddenly the Greedy Business ™ found themselves in stalling market position and what easier conclusion was there for them than “It is the Internet’s fault … Everybody is a thief … We have done nothing wrong! Let’s start suing everybody!”. Of course they started propaganda campaign after propaganda campaign trying to justify their lack of realism. Many of these “truths” about file-sharing was riddling with incorrect information, loads of misinformation and outright lies.

The basic assumption of the Greedy Business ™ is that technology should always answer to them, meaning that no good can come from them loosing control of the market to a better technology, like it has happen in almost every other market on the planet. The problem for the Greedy Business ™ is, however, that many, including politicians, are starting to ask a difficult question: Does file-sharing technologies slowly render copyright obsolete? Everything has been done easier with technology over time – apart from the movie and music business, where lousy, cheap DRM-schemes ruin the experience for people. Instead of a competiting market with better products for cheaper money just take a look at CD-prices, which haven’t changed for fifteen years or cinema tickets which have only increased, while the product has not in any way been improved.

The problem of technology hindering, like the Greedy Business ™ is trying constantly with DRM is that it removes consumer rights without compensating them. Then comes the question of Fair Use… Even though politicians state clearly that some fair use is a right the Greedy Business ™ simply goes out, like an emperor, and proclaims that it is not a right, but a service that can be purchased from them. Thank you, oh, God Almighty! “Pay us, we need more money!”. If they only had real analysts they would realize that Fair Use is actually good for the economy, but all they can see is “Pay us, we need more money!”. Naturally their action towards the foolish consumers who think that they should go on enjoying a bit of their products without giving them 107% compensation is to gather more companies into the Greedy Business ™ and try to strengthen the copyright laws into removing even more consumer rights – in a market that is already failing because of such restrictions! “We want more control!”, yes, thank you – we know!

One of their “new” laws amendments should be to ban all DVD backup and require the original disc to be placed in the drive. Well, good for you! In a time where the DVD sales are failing, not because of the content, but simply because it is a thing of the past and consumers want more digital content with better uses and easier use they propose to go back into the stone age and require you to use your disc! Why? Naturally so that you wear the disc up faster and go and buy a new one! Backup – not needed… Just buy a new one! “Pay us! We need more money!”. Naturally you can’t get your amendments through the army of politicians if you happen to have a couple of politicians who doesn’t see your point of view – but that’s easily “fixed” in the world of the Greedy Business ™… Just call them pirate politicians and claim that they are illegitimate thieves – that should help! “We want more control!”. I can certainly understand that – who, in their right mind, would want a politician they can’t buy?

Not only are the Greedy Business ™ trying to limit our rights as consumers, but they are also creeping into our home everywhere, like through your newly bought operating system, Windows Vista, or your newly bought Blu-Ray player, which is literally filled with DRM from A to Z. Now their latest failed attempt at “containing” illegal file-copying is a crappy pierce of software called AACS, which without any explanation from the Greedy Business ™ takes your CPU-time and creates overhead in your computer and offers you no advantages as a consumer, but you have to implement it. It is no longer you who control that device which you have paid considerable amount of money on, store your confidential documents on … just to be able to play movies on it in this time and age?! “We want more control!”.

The most tragic part of it is that this DRM, like any other DRM-attempt before it, doesn’t work! It bugs your computer and prevents you from playing legally purchased or user-generated content, but it only bugs those who haven’t done what is considered illegal in many countries, which is to crack it. Had the Greedy Business ™ only been equipped with a brain capacity of a degenerated four-year old they would see that the pirates, who they “supposedly” fear with their lives, have already cracked this DRM, and what remains is hassle, privacy concerns, bugs, a slowed down computer and no advantages to the person who is playing it legit. The most comical part of this whole DRM-failure is that the consumer will get, without question, the best product, if selects the product from pirate, who offers him the quality and content with no bugging DRM attached.

This was the first part of the market and industry analysis of the stoneage people at Greedy Business ™, in Part Two we will look closer at DRM and at how it has failed completely, alienated customers and started the revolution for a digital age – an age in which there is no room for the Greedy Business ™ and their complete business model will ultimately fail…

Vista

Since the launch of its latest Windows version, Windows Vista, Microsoft has been heading into battle after battle on all fronts, defending its heavy cashflow fiercely. Lately, however, the majority of those battles seems to be losses to Microsoft. One of the biggest lost battles is the battle on Vista, where Microsoft is now facing a class-action suit for its “Vista Capable” sticker campaign. While Vista is proving a difficult product to sell Microsoft is faced with increased competition from Linux, where many computer sellers are now offering Linux as an alternative to Windows, like Acer, HP and Dell. Many analysts say that the poor Vista product is actually helping Linux into the Desktop Market. Looking at Vista it is apparent that not much has changed since XP, but the strain on resources and the lack of stable drivers makes one wonder they took 5 years to make it! Many loyal customers have tried to go with Vista and felt the pain, and after a while simply had to turn back to XP – one lousy experience richer! Windows XP is still by far the most popular choice among customers, no matter what Microsoft may claim! Naturally Microsoft isn’t about to let Linux take their slice of the pie, so instead of their ridiculously flawed and FUD’ed “Get The Facts” campaign, which tried to lie to potential customers about Linux compared to Windows Microsoft have now instead launched another FUD campaign against Linux, called “Compare”, which is more or less the same bullshit… The seriously need to wake up their marketing department and learn them some facts about the difference between glamorizing a product and outright lying!

One of the main selling points Microsoft made on Vista was its “improved” security, which has proven to be less than that of Windows XP in many areas, like patching and driver signing. All in all Microsoft’s claims on security with Vista has shown to be bullshit every word of it… And then in a equally poor attempt by Microsoft to try and make Vista look like a good product they instead launch a campaign where they try to tell how lousy a product Windows XP is – ragging down the most popular product at the moment… *sighs*

The selling point for Vista for Gamers is the new DirectX10, which is suppose to revolutionize graphics once again. Looking at the first DirectX10 games though you wouldn’t notice the difference – apart from the fact that it plays slower on Vista if the game has a DirectX9-version. When asked why Microsoft didn’t make DirectX10 for Windows XP they said that it wasn’t structurally possible with XP and people then had to buy Vista instead. Well, lies again… There are no reason why DirectX10 wouldn’t work fine in XP, as many has already shown. It is strange that Microsoft would try and lie to the public and their customers like that. Why aren’t they just coming out and tell the truth about Vista and the privacy problems Microsoft seems to have in every aspect? Why haven’t they explained why the network performance of Vista is decreasing rapidly every time you play audio files? Are they sending information about your listening habits without your consent? Do they think that such information gathering could help them get their crashed attempt at getting into the digital music distribution market back into the game?

Office and Privacy Concerns

With their main selling point shattered to bits Microsoft is left with sales so poor that they are now practically pleading customers to buy this their “greatest” product ever. While this is a big problem for Microsoft and especially their image a more serious problem is the derived effect that has come from their long development cycle with Vista, caused by its great delay. Now their most loyal customers are bailing on their Software Assurance program, as they simply doesn’t get enough products from Microsoft over time to make the program worth paying such high prices for. This is a big problem for Microsoft. With Vista slipping behind sales their other main source of income left is the Microsoft Office series. Microsoft is therefore trying to force users into buying the new version of Office only – even when many could easily settle for the 2003 version. OEM are simply forced to sell the newest version only! In the mean time Google Apps is launching a direct assault on the commercial non-power users of Microsoft Office, hitting after a crucial area in Microsoft’s earnings. Google is a difficult competitor to handle for Microsoft, who has been trying for a long time to win just any battle against Google, but fails every time. At the age of ten Google is now the heart of the Internet and considering Microsoft has always feared the Internet, this is bad news for Microsoft in many ways. Google’s advertisement is beating Microsoft hands down and now Microsoft is getting desperate and using the only tool they got left, selling out on their customers secrets and privacy. They are now planning to put adware and other malware directly into the Operating System – finally showing all their customers why they should install Linux instead… Customer’s privacy has never been the concern of Microsoft as another case has recently shown all to clear. Their largest privacy problem currently is the WGA, which is now being sued in China – a market Microsoft cannot afford to loose once again. The WGA program is becoming a major issue for Microsoft as of late, and also for customers as the program has shown to be extremely fragile – shutting people out of their own computer without reason… Naturally only the paying customers gets hurt by this, as the illegal versions has already gotten rid of the WGA program long ago! Of course their paying customers could just shift to Linux, like Ubuntu – they will still be able to validate as a Windows Geniune in this ridiculously poor nightmare of a program.

Office Open XML and Standards

Microsoft’s last minute attempt at preventing the Open Document Format (ODF) giving people a choice when it comes to documents, instead of the current vendor lock in, has failed miserably in every aspect and has really shown how vulnerable Microsoft is at the moment. Their Office “Open” XML headed through a series of troubles along the towards the ISO vote for standardization, even though Microsoft used every lowlife trick in the book concerning pushing and lobbying for their new “De Facto” standard that was supposed to keep people locked in to Microsoft as an Office vendor for many years to come. Naturally Microsoft in many aspects succeeded in persuading ignorant politicians, who were used to taking bribes, to publicly support OOXML, even though they hadn’t the slightest idea what that would mean or what a document format even was. The politicians would never understand the booby trap of patented threat waiting to happen with OOXML. While many anti-OOXML campaigns were fighting fiercely against Microsoft’s heavy artillery of wild promises and propaganda Microsoft still felt that they needed more leverage to push this last-minute “standard” through. They then tried to illegally buy or coerce their partners into voting for OOXML. Despite what mafia methods Microsoft had adapted it was painfully obvious that OOXML simply wasn’t really used in real life – as oppose to ODF – and the only thing that can be found out there is from Microsoft themselves. Before the ISO vote it was already apparent that a lot of countries were leaning towards a NO for OOXML as a standard. When the vote finally came in ISO and OOXML was rejected as a standard it was quickly obvious that OOXML had failed completely, but what was even more embarrassing for Microsoft, who had just paid tons and tons of money for the greatest pierce of lobbying in the history of the world, was went public after the vote… Microsoft had apparently bought a lot of smaller countries to go and vote for Microsoft’s OOXML in the ISO, in order to press their “standard” through. Their attempt didn’t succeed as the countries that buys the most of Microsoft’s software voted no, clearly stating that they didn’t want Microsoft to continue with their vendor lock in. Of course Microsoft isn’t used to loosing, especially loosing this big and obvious to world to see, so they simply proclaimed the NO-vote a victory… *sighs*

No matter how Microsoft tries to spin the reality through their marketing machine they lost – fair and square – even though they used every dirty trick in the book. Furthermore Microsoft has to be rather ashamed of itself, if they consider themselves a professional company, as their dirty tricks have now let to a large worldwide interest in getting less corruption in the ISO after what Microsoft tried to do.

Of course Microsoft will get a second chance this February when they have had a chance to redeem some of the points the critics made that could change some no-votes to yes-votes. Central to this enormous list of points is three things: Interoperability between OOXML and ODF, a better documentation, that allows everyone to implement the standard, not just Microsoft and that control of the format is not placed with Microsoft, but an independent group, that ensures interoperability in the long term.

It should be an interesting process to follow …

GPL3 and license problems

Among the most fundamental of problems is the nightmare Microsoft is experiencing with the coming of the newest version of GNU Public License version 3 (GPL3). Microsoft has for a long time tried to “convince” Linux distributors that they needed to corporate with Microsoft and that Linux might be misusing Microsoft patented technology. No one bought the tactic that Microsoft’s unproven saber rattling was suppose to enforce, but instead Microsoft suddenly found themselves in the opposite situation of what was predicted by the lawyers of Microsoft. Instead of scaring away Linux customers Microsoft made enemies among the Linux distributors, who in many cases were also big Microsoft resellers, like HP, Dell, Acer and others, who are now focusing even more on their Linux business instead. Microsoft then let Steve “Throwing Chairs” Ballmer go public saying that Microsoft’s most feared software competitors, Linux and OpenOffice.org, violated more than 200 patents of Microsoft. Once again the result of this action was devastating for Microsoft. Instead of fleeing from Linux the big companies supporting Linux, like Sun, IBM, Sony, Google and others came out threatening Microsoft that Windows might be in violation a lot more of their patents than puny 200 and that they would defend Linux by countersuing Microsoft and their Windows and Office products into Hell, should they decide to attempt to take Linux and OpenOffice.org into court. Microsoft was then called out by the community, who wanted to call Microsoft’s bluff, concerning which patents Linux and OpenOffice.org was in “violation” of and once again Microsoft got caught in their lie, as they couldn’t come up with any evidence to support their claim. Then came the twist that really must be hurting the legal department at Microsoft since they missed this in their grand analysis…

Microsoft’s first deal with a Linux distributor, Novell, suddenly came exploding back in Microsoft’s face, when it became apparent that Microsoft with its deal had become a Linux distributor, since they sold Novell’s SuSe Linux distribution on to their customers. Suddenly Microsoft is facing being put under the terms of GPL version 3 which means that they would have to forfeit the possibility of ever using any software patents against open source for all eternity. Microsoft, who already was at a loss as to how to compete against this threat that just kept getting more and more support and popularity in the business was suddenly faced with the complete loss of their “last desperate” method against open source, the courts and Microsoft’s army of lawyers. Naturally a situation like this, where Microsoft’s enormous legal department was caught with the pants down for completely missing this point before Eben Moglen mentioned it, took it through the normal marketing lies and spinoffs at Microsoft, coming out claiming like a dissilutioned emperor that “the GPL has any impact on Microsoft”. Naturally this would have worked better if they didn’t spoil their own bluff when they made the next deal with a Linux distributor, which was Linspire, where they suddenly made sure that the GPL v3 was excluded without any trace in their deal. The problem for Microsoft is of course that by doing this you are actually saying that the deal you made previously with Novell, where this isn’t excluded, means that the GPL is included implicitly. All this evading and spinning of the case clearly shows that Microsoft knows that they are in a load of legal trouble with the GPL v3 – how could their legal department miss that one?! … The most funny part of it all is what has happened lately, which is nothing – absolutely nothing. This is saying a lot as one has to remember that this spring was filled with announcement after announcement from Microsoft on this subject and now: Silence! For once they know that they screwed up – and they screwed up BIG TIME!

Strategies and the Future

What would happen if Microsoft adapted the slogan that Google is using “Do no evil”? It could be seen clearly in the case of OOXML, where Microsoft rushed a new standard out, only when they felt threatened, not because of foresightedness. It was an incomplete standard and it clearly showed that Microsoft is guided largely by a marketing and sales department, instead of customer wishes and long term strategies. Therefore it was natural for people to regard it as an attempt from Microsoft to keep their monopoly going, simply because of history. Microsoft did little to change this! They paid off voters, try buy the ISO and lobbyied like never seen before – instead of finishing the standard and going to heads with the problems of it, like interoperability and implementability.

This is Microsoft’s greatest problem… They have simply grown used to play on their monopoly and regard this as the only way they can compete these days. Instead of doing what Google is doing, which is listening to its customers and adapt a strategy that says that we want to win by making the best product and NOT by screwing our customers, or trading their privacy, or forcing them away from standards that give them choice. Microsoft needs to understand the concept of Software as a Service, where your customers are your primary focus and you supply them with the service they need to have in their software. Windows and Office have become cornerstones in Microsoft’s earnings, and instead of thinking about the future in the digital world, where the Internet is central and everything is based on standards and SOA and everyone in the industry is concerned with offering the service to the products as a way of earning money, Microsoft is trying to stall the world, like the did with Internet after their won battle with Netscape. They need to adapt a long term strategy and convince people that they are committed to their customers need, not only to their own income and keeping people vendor locked in. The only vendor who has an interest in Vendor lock in, after all, is the vendors who cannot compete on equal terms on the market. Microsoft has, with Windows and the last couple of years Office, had a strategic monopolistic situation, which is okay if do not take advantage of it. The problem is that is has become Microsoft’s main strategy to take advantage of this first and foremost, as a standard way of dealing with competition. It is a sad turn of events as a company with such an amount of programmers and smart heads, long history and experience should be able to thrust in their own abilities in the free market… One can only hope and see what the future brings, but I am pretty sure that it will continue to beat Microsoft harder and harder that they are not reconsidering their strategies and adapt customer satisfaction, privacy concerns and start competing on equal terms, instead of counting on FUD campaign after FUD campaign and letting their marketing department issue lie after lie… People are not stupid – and the second they get offered a real choice Microsoft will quickly find out just how fast a competing product can overtake the long-winning giant, who simply got lost along the way!

There has already been a lot of discussion on this new approach to “competition” Microsoft has adapted. Many considers Microsoft’s move against Open Source Software and Linux in particular as unbelievably stupid, like the elevator of information at Microsoft doesn’t ever reach the top floor. They have angered a lot of their best and most loyal customers, who earn a good profit on Linux business as well, but never before would have considered dropping Microsoft, whom they considered an ally. While Microsoft’s “partner in crime” Novell, who signed the cooperation agreement with Microsoft, that has by many been feared to accept the patents, are choosing to side against Microsoft after their act of threatening they are themselves telling everyone that they simply hasn’t had time to release the patents yet! This is of course is pure bullshit and everyone knows it, since there is NO work involved in showing a range of patents to the public that are already available to the public in the patent database, if people knew where to look in that Hellish place… The comedy then continues when Novell suddenly releases the agreement made between them and Microsoft to the public, and suddenly Microsoft is out claiming that they promises not to sue open source … yet! Why they suddenly decided to pull the public saber rattling and rather keep it private is a curious one. One should think that if they are certain in their patent violation accusations that they would keep this matter public and let the world know that “thieves” get what they deserve. However, a lot of things are pointing towards an entirely different evaluation of their strategy choices. Eben Moglen’s return remark on the saber rattling strategy that Microsoft has become a Linux distributor themselves when they started handing out Linux coupons for SuSe Linux with no expire date will leave Microsoft to become affected by the GPL’s third and upcoming version soon. Apparently the prospects of the GPL 3 is a frightening one for Microsoft. Enough to launch a questionable assault on the draft process of the GPL 3. It is a curious change of strategies we are witnessing at Microsoft these days. A couple of years back Microsoft expressed great concerns on the patent system, fearing that big patent companies might push other companies around – and now they have adapted this strategy themselves?! Apparently such an opinion doesn’t count when you yourself become what you feared others would become? This playing mafia with patents is just a symptom of the many problems facing Microsoft. They have little left in terms of real competition power, as they can find no real approach to the competition in open source. Even though this might make them one of the most hated companies around, both among competitors and among partners who are affected indirectly by this stupid move, Mark Shuttleworth thinks that Microsoft in the end will end up fighting against the patent system, as they will also start to feel the annoying daily pressure from patent trolls. Innovation have left large parts of the IT business to become replaced by endless patenting. Lawyers are doing the jobs of developers and are trying hard to describe confused sentences that are somehow acknowledged as innovative and unique. Running through a series of patent in the WIPO database can indeed be a tragic experience…

While Microsoft is trying their new strategy of patent trolling Linux continues to win over more Microsoft’s partners, such as Dell, who are now betting on Linux as an alternative on the Desktop (and of course server-side). Microsoft’s response is to launch a new anti Linux propaganda campaign after their FUD-campaign “Get The Facts” (which should have been called “Get Around The Facts”). Microsoft is in desperate need of a way to get their message out. Get The Facts tried to make people convinced that Linux and open source wasn’t a vital way to go and the ROI was not there. However, Microsoft’s main problem is that software development and the software business has changed – and without Microsoft as a leader or even present in this change. Now code can be open source, which only means that you get access to it and can get the fruits of other’s labor freely available. Service, support and education is where the money is earned instead in this new business model that is becoming the new way to go. Companies such as Google earn a lot of money on using open source software and giving software away for free, instead pulling in a big profit on an advertisement service on the side – a service Microsoft have yet to be able to compete with. In this market Microsoft isn’t pulling the weight or even pulling any strings, even though they again and again tries to use their monopoly status on operating system to push their own search tools. In terms of using the new business model a company like SugarCRM is really showing the new way of Silicon Valley. They are making open source software and earning a lot of money doing it, showing that innovation still exists in the software market.

Giving away free code isn’t exactly something Microsoft can understand. If you want someone to give away free stuff you want to ensure that they are instead in some way forced into paying for another Microsoft product. This way of thinking is shown distinctly in the case of the developer behind the free solution TestDriven.Net, that has become a popular product, which has made many Microsoft customers and especially developers begin using Microsoft’s software. He was also made an MVP by Microsoft themselves, until they found out that his work could be used in the free Express Version of Visual Studio. Suddenly he was sued by Microsoft because he made a too good product for free for Microsoft. This is not exactly the way you create good relationships, good press or make developers put in their free time to develop freely available products for Microsoft’s products. You do not make customers happy either when you fill up the product you want them to buy with DRM, like Microsoft did with Windows Vista and are doing with Windows Media Edition as well. Instead you get a tons of support tasks and angry customers! In the much hated subject of DRM Microsoft is one of biggest distributors of DRM, together with Sony and the newcomer Intel (Who is now making hardware rootkits!).

The last battlefield Microsoft is currently trying to win against the competition in is in the ongoing document format war, which could lead to great financial problems for Microsoft, if they, as I have previously described, starts to loose customers on the profitable Office-suite sales! There are many good reasons for choosing ODF instead of Microsoft’s Office XML format, but unfortunately politicians doesn’t listen to reason when it comes to IT – they give up, let the big companies tell them what to think and just cash in from the lobbyist! This means that it is an area where Microsoft can ship some cash to central politicians and end up in the stalemate they want to archive, where they continue to cash in on the Office-suite sales.

In my opinion the patent saber rattling was a major strategy mistake by Microsoft, in a time where they need successes instead of the constant reign of fiascoes and stronger competition. They are doing somewhat okay in the Console war against Sony (not as well as Nintendo obviously), but in terms of direct competition Microsoft is simply no longer a driving force. They have lost the will to innovate and compete on equal market terms. In every area they try to compete on equal terms they loose, like their battle with Google is showing. They then continue to enforce their monopoly to get a more than unreasonable competitive edge. It is a sad story – but luckily in the story of the patents I think that Microsoft will find that this big mistake will be very difficult to clean up. Once you have shown your loyal partners that you can no longer be trusted not to back stab them at any moment you will loose loyalty – and Linux will gain from it! And in the mean time the wolves are gathering for the counter-attack… Not exactly the way Microsoft thought it would go, was it Mister Steve “Throwing Chairs” Ballmer?!