RSSMicrosoft Settles Streaming Lawsuit
By Ed Oswald | Published March 11, 2005, 12:14 PM
Microsoft has settled with multimedia company Burst over allegations that Redmond used trade information obtained from several meetings with Burst to develop its own version of software to stream audio and video over the Internet.
In a statement on its Web site, Burst said that an agreement had been reached with Microsoft and both parties hoped to finalize it by the end of next week. Also, a court hearing on the matter that was scheduled to take place Thursday in Baltimore had been cancelled.
"We have reached a settlement in principle with Burst.com resolving all issues between the companies," a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to BetaNews in a statement. "Details of the settlement are confidential until it is completed."
The lawsuit, first filed in 2002, says that Microsoft was apparently interested in Burst's technology for multimedia streaming. Several meetings were held where the technology was discussed, and Burst alleges that after these meetings, Microsoft quickly developed its own software based on the technology.
Microsoft has previously said it had done nothing wrong.
Then, in October of last year, Burst accused Microsoft in a court motion of destroying documents and e-mail pertaining to the case in order to avoid prosecution. Microsoft replied that the destroyed documents had nothing to do with the litigation.
Frivilous and unnecessary lawsuit brought about by Microsoft's less than ethical business practices. Imagine how many IMPORTANT cases could be handled if not for microsoft unnecessarily burdening an already overburdened court system. Imaging how cheap windowsd and other ms software would be if microsoft didnt have to keep recouping it's lawsuit losses by raising the price of their software?
That said... after years and years and years of hearing this and simular stories... If I was a company and seen Microsoft looking my way, I would not only shut the door but I would lock it, disconnect the phone, and hire an elite team of mercanaries to protect me :) anything less and I know ms would steal what I was doing and yould either bury me or waste years of MY R&D just to fight their theft
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...Frivolous lawsuit by a company seeking to get rich quick off court fines rather than create a product that is actually marketable and sell it on its own merits. Think how many REAL cases the overburdened courts could hear if they weren't overburdened by people whining because their feelings were hurt due to someone being better or more successful than them.
If I were Burst, or any other company, I'd be smart enough to hire a marketing team that could actually sell my product and earn money rather than try to complain to the courts that MSFT took my money.
In response to the comments eunichman makes about the cost of Microsoft software, I can only point out that prices for their products hasn't really changed at all despite the fact that each new version comes with increased functionality and improvements (whether you want to call it bloatware or not is your business).
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each new relase comes with little in new features, tons more holes and bugs and takes up about 1.5 times the disk space and require 1.5 times the system requirements as the previous version. Yes, bloatware.
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Looks like BRST doubled after the announcement.. I wonder what the terms are.. One can only wonder for now
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I don't know, but whatever expense comes to MSFT out of it, it's a lot cheaper than what they would have had in the courts nevermind the other legal ramifications of having any ruling set down on them.
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