Microsoft takes legal action against comet.

Dano

Dano

Dano

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(mods, I think I'm ok to mention the name in this context, if not sorry, please delete)

READING, England, and REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 4, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today issued proceedings against Comet Group PLC for allegedly creating and selling more than 94,000 sets of counterfeit Windows Vista and Windows XP recovery CDs. The alleged counterfeits were sold to customers who had purchased Windows-loaded PCs and laptops.
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Not quite sure but I suspect this is the whole pay for recovery discs possibly? Either way, I was under the impression that Comet was on the verge of failure but that might be misinformation, if correct could this be the tipping point?

Fairly shocked that such a big retailer has managed to fall foul of this to be honest, maybe I'm giving them to omuch credit :)

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2012/jan12/01-04CometPR.mspx
 
Comet's response:

"We note that proceedings have been issued by Microsoft Corporation against Comet relating to the creation of recovery discs by Comet on behalf of its customers.

Comet has sought and received legal advice from leading counsel to support its view that the production of recovery discs did not infringe Microsoft's intellectual property.

Comet firmly believes that it acted in the very best interests of its customers. It believes its customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery discs with each new Microsoft Operating System based computer.

Accordingly Comet is satisfied that it has a good defence to the claim and will defend its position vigorously."
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Response from Comet:

"We note that proceedings have been issued by Microsoft Corporation against Comet relating to the creation of recovery discs by Comet on behalf of its customers.

Comet has sought and received legal advice from leading counsel to support its view that the production of recovery discs did not infringe Microsoft's intellectual property.

Comet firmly believes that it acted in the very best interests of its customers. It believes its customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery discs with each new Microsoft Operating System based computer.

Accordingly Comet is satisfied that it has a good defence to the claim and will defend its position vigorously."


I actually support Comet in this, the fact that Microsoft chooses not to provide these recovery discs or other viable means of recovery with pcs is rather ridiculous.


Edit - Bah I see someone else has been browsing engadget :mad:
 
I think I'm with Comet.
I can't see what's wrong? They've supplied an ISO on disc medium, or am I misunderstanding? (None "cracked" I assume)
 
Bennie-Mac said:
I actually support Comet in this, the fact that Microsoft chooses not to provide these recovery discs or other viable means of recovery with pcs is rather ridiculous.
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But surely Vista comes with a utility to create a recovery disc. And I'm pretty sure that XP systems would have shipped with such a utlity as well.

[edit] so the problem is that Comet have been selling something that the user can create themselves.
 
If this goes through and Microsoft wins technically it makes recovery CD's illegal (supplied by the manufacturer) from what I have read. All machines sold had the OEM key and OEM COA on the computers. A recovery CD / DVD with the OEM license key was supplied with the computer in case of a system wipe at an added cost (which PC world also used to do BTW).

Not sure what it makes of OEM licensing bought though.

I could always be wrong however.
 
Copying an already existing OS disc/data for a recovery disc is copyright infringement as you would need a license from MS themselves.

Especially if they sold them.
 
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Bennie-Mac said:
I actually support Comet in this, the fact that Microsoft chooses not to provide these recovery discs or other viable means of recovery with pcs is rather ridiculous.
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surely its the responsibility of the OEM builder not MS. whether the OEM/comet did so legally in this case is to be seen.
 
DanielMMS said:
But surely Vista comes with a utility to create a recovery disc. And I'm pretty sure that XP systems would have shipped with such a utlity as well.

[edit] so the problem is that Comet have been selling something that the user can create themselves.
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Perhaps but to the average computer user, they more than likely wouldn't have a clue how to do it, they simply provided them with a means to do it simply. To me its no different than paying some bloke at the purple shirts £30 to do the same thing for you.
 
Bennie-Mac said:
Perhaps but to the average computer user, they more than likely wouldn't have a clue how to do it, they simply provided them with a means to do it simply. To me its no different than paying some bloke at the purple shirts £30 to do the same thing for you.
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Yes, but I have seen companies sell a utility to create a recovery disc in a simple way - which would be fine. To pirate a product and sell it is clearly not fine.

What would be interesting is whether Comet sold the discs in forged MS packaging.
 
what's the different between OEM disc and OEM's recovery disc like DELL, Acer?

edit: my understanding that Comet sells recovery disc to customer who never created recovery disc or accident wipe out the recovery partition, but Comet never obtained licence/agreement from MS. is that right?
 
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Dell and Acer etc buy licences which enable them to do this, Comet obviously didn't bother, I guess.
 
Hmm, as far as I understand it, Comet are simply charging customers to do something they might be to lazy/uninformed to do themselves. In which case they are providing a service, not selling discs?

We do pc setup at Currys where we set up the OS, create the recovery media and install any software they like. I don't understand how this violates any IP rights, as we are just doing what the customer would do, but we are charging to do it for them?

If they were reproducing discs from one PC and just copying them ad infinitum (which would contain that original PC's OEM windows key), then I could see the issue.
 
Devrij said:
Hmm, as far as I understand it, Comet are simply charging customers to do something they might be to lazy/uninformed to do themselves. In which case they are providing a service, not selling discs?

.
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Bit of guessing, but presumably. They aren't supplying what was on the original computer and therefore it's not a back up its a new oem and as such they need to pay MS.

Where other companies supply with build, therefore it's the same license.

Tbh I would laugh if they do get done, rubbish companies who rip of customers.
 
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