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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Art Bechhoefer who wrote (33667)	11/10/1999 6:45:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Here's the lesson: If MSFT writes a utility, it is copyrighted and legally protected. If someone copies the utility enough to infringe the copyright, they'll be prevented from selling it and may also have to pay damages. The copyright law, in other words, self regulates that problem, allowing the system developer to produce his own utility, but on the other hand, not preventing an outside software developer from providing something better, as long as it is original and does not copy what already exists. Unfortunately that wasn't the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make is that one of the things that got MSFT into trouble was "bundling" applications into their OS. Now if MS-OS decides to write and bundle their own browser instead of using the one from MS-APPS or Netscape/AOL, we're right back to Square One.