News-Source and Full Story: www.tomshardware.com
Independantly verified and picture credit Sniperkilla

UPDATE:
MS's hyprocacy is even funnier than Tom's Article suggests..

News-Source and full story: www.CNN.com

MS should keep it's nose clean before looking to pick someone elses nose.
(November 24 07:54 EST)

I'm With You 110% !

It's probably a matter of "When?" rather than "If?" Sony would be foolish to let MS get away with this, particularly after MS has intruded onto their console gaming market.

This story delights me far more than it should. I bet MS is wishing Sony hadn't bought Sonic Foundry.

I can only imagine the happiness felt by ther person who discovered this. Can you imagine the sheer delight you would feel as you uncovered this?

That's the thing tho, they're using the files to make money.
A. The copy was pirated
B. It's Sony's.
C. It's M$
I'd do everything in my power to screw over M$ if I was Sony.

When you are MS.. and you have as much money, time and manpower involved in projects like their OS.. you have someone who oversees the projects.. and ensures everything is kosher.

MS fucked up. Plain and simple.

Now.. what we need.. is for someone else to start combing the files.. and see what else MS lifted.

Rumours of them lifting open source had been around a long time. Time to find it.

I imagine if files made with pirate copies of Sound Foundary are in the OS.. imagine what other files made with pirate software might be waiting to be found.

It's clear that one of 2 things have happened.. MS dev team slipped up on their due diligence and protocol by allowing this to slip in there.. or they blatantly allowed it.

People will be fired.. and hopefully Sony give them a black eye.

Of course something will come of this. If you buy a car that ends up being stolen does that mean you get to keep the car if the authorities track it down? Of course not, and that's just something on a very small scale.

MS messed up big. MS gets sued on a daily basis. This will bring forth legal action, there is no doubt. Sony will not just let this slide. They'd be stupid if they did. People are always looking for reasons to take legal action against MS. They're one of the richest corporations in the world, so even getting a settlement from them is something.

This will end up costing MS quite a bit of money but, one would imagine, they will be largely unaffected in the long term.

Some things aren't meant to be brought out to the front page is all I'm saying.


-Dan

thats true i used to think of M$ as evil but since ive taken many economics classes at my university I concluded that thats the nature of the beast. Firms/Corporations dont give a shit about anyone or anything but there profits. And i agree with PITABoy M$ are big fat powerful rich smart hypocrits. Wait maybe not smart anymore, i just think they have alot of explaining to do. Which I personally will find very interesting/humorous.

We have no intention of being the next Slashdot.

However.. Xbox-Scene is a hobby site for us that run it. We keep 99% of the stories on topic.. however, when something in the technology scene happenes that strikes our interest that we (me or Xan) deem newsworthy or of interest.. we make an exception and post it.

If you look carefully at our 3 years plus of news archive.. you will see this isn't the first.. nor will it be the last such exception.

People who take the view that nothing outside a narrow view should be posted on XS news.. they probably should get their heads our of their narrow little tight asses and relax.

With all due respect of course.

We value the opinion of our members.. but we will post what we deem to be news worthy. We aren't bound by a tablet of 10 reules or decrees that limits what we can deem newsworthy.

We also take the opposing view.. that sometimes what you or others deem newsworthy.. we don't.. and won't post.

That might not make us popular to the select few who whine or bitch.... but then again.. this isn't a popularity contest for me or Xan.

It's a hobby. Get over it.

hmm..

I'll give you that.. I'll consider withdrawing that comment. I've never been shy about expressing an independant mind.. nor my opinion.. but I do see your point on that matter.

HSD is not perfect.

No need to get all hard, take my post for what it is meant to say. Heres a summary in different words:

This site is called Xbox-Scene. I come here because I'm interested in hearing about xbox related material ... mods, hacks, tools, etc. ... Which is what I expect to hear about since the site is clearly labeled "xbox-scene"

I also visit a site called Slashdot, and while the name of the site doesn't really help in explaining what I should expect to find on there, after reading a few posts it's pretty apparent.

Basically all I'm saying is: theres a time and a place for everything, and this isn't the place for politics or opinions.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stick my head back in my narrow little tight ass, and relax. Goodnight.

Keep up the other good posts, this site is invaluable.


-Dan

this is funny as hell!

Actually.. no.

It goes deeper than that. It's more like they would owe for the derivitive works produced with the software they didn't license.

The derivitive works being any files in the OS Retail packages that hack one or more files made with the pirated software.

This is the defence (partial) that Sony's corporate lawyers will put forth.

(assuming they bother)

Sony.. like MS.. has deep pockets.. and can run the court system equally as well. People who like to see giants clash will want to see Sony take on MS on this issue.

If left untouched.. it leaves the door open for other future instances of similar abuse.

MS could use someones elses third party WMV encoder cause it gets better audio compression and fidelity.. despite WMV being their house format.. if MS were to use someone elses product unlicenced and make these "other" WMV files with better compression and fidelity it's the same kettle of fish all over again. MS sitting bare assed on the face of others intellectual property and taking a crap.

Reason I mention the WMV issue.. is that I've had far better experiences with other peoples encoders than MS own encoder.. and I'm sure MS eyes those other encoders.. looking for algorythm's and whatnot they can mimic or lift outright. So much great software on the net isn't even protected..

+ it's always fun to see one of the big guys take a blow (how hard? guess that's up to sony )

And you wouldn't like to see that shot down? I happen to think MS is in the right here. If you write a novel in MS Word, whether you paid for Word or pirated it should have ABSOLUTELY no bearing on whether you can publish your novel.

Using an audio editor is not creating a derivitive work, any more than building a house is a derivitive work of a hammer. The hammer was simply used as a tool in construction, no part of the hammer's design becomes incorperated into the finished product. Extending this analogy further, it was probably wrong for me to compare this situation to the XDK since it probably incorperates MS's proprietary IP into the finished binary.

A wave file is audio data and a header with a codec descriptor and some plaintext comments. There is no way any of Sony's proprietary IP would be put into a wave file. While I agree MS should have to pay for the software, they do not owe "substancial infringing damages" because the wave files copyright still belongs to MS. No musician would EVER use an audio editor with a licence that considered its output files to be a derivitive work.

I don't think that'll be enough ? The damage is more or less already done - MS sold a piece of software, containing files constructed with an application, for which they had no license

I couldn't agree with these 2 posts more.

The story is interesting and looking at the files with notepad to see the text in there is rather funny as well. However, just as powercntrl stated, MS still owns the rights to the audio files, despite that they were created with a pirated version of the Sound Forge software...

Good story and discussion...