OrangeCrate: What the Linspire Settlement Reveals

“If you read the confidential Settlement Agreement between
Linspire (the company formerly known as Lindows), and Microsoft,
you will notice some very peculiar facts. The most startling aspect
of the $20 Million settlement agreement between the two companies
does not have anything to do with the trademark violations, but
rather with copyrighted media files.

“Apparently, Lindows (as the Linspire distribution had been
known) was distributing a version of Linux that contained several
Windows Media files. Specifically, the settlement names the Dynamic
Link Library (dll) files that were being used within media products
within that distrtibution: wma9dmod.dll, wmadmod.dll, wmspdmod.dll,
wmv9dmod.dll and wmvdmod.dll. These files are said top be
copyrightred by Microsoft, and they appear to be central to claims
of patent infringement or of the possibility of same being claimed
by Microsoft…”

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