Business: Wednesday, May 14, 1997
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The chief executive of Corbis, the Bill Gates-owned company that is creating computerized artwork, is stepping down at the same time the company is delaying a highly touted CD-ROM about Ansel Adams.
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Corbis has put off the only CD-ROM project it was producing this year, a biography of the famous photographer Ansel Adams. The company will pursue its main business, selling images online to publishers and graphic artists.
The moves raise questions about the direction and future for "the other company" owned by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Founded in 1989 as Interactive Home Systems, Corbis has gone through a few incarnations, each with a separate management team, and still has not made a profit.
Davis and Rojas said Gates told them he wants the company to continue building its archive of photos and fine-art images on computer, but he emphasized he wants more focus on finding customers for the online images.
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In recent years, Corbis has become known for high-quality, PBS-documentary-style CD-ROMs covering famous people such as Leonardo da Vinci and Franklin Roosevelt and topics including volcanoes and the atomic bomb.
Corbis executives have said they made CD-ROMs to build their reputation, not necessarily to make a huge profit. But they, as others, have suffered from a glut in the CD-ROM market and a lack of demand, losing more money than expected on their CD-ROMs. Rowan said four of the company's six products have lost money and two just broke even.
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"Throughout (the company's) changes. . . Bill's vision surprisingly hasn't changed much at all," Davis said. The overriding idea, he said, is for Corbis to "be the place for pictures in the 21st century."
Business: Thursday, January 15, 1998
Federal Judge Blasts Microsoft -- Company Accused Of Defaming Expert, Acting In Bad Faith
WASHINGTON - The federal judge in the government's case against Microsoft has accused the software giant of defaming an expert he appointed to oversee the case and acting in bad faith in his court.
In a three-page order, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said yesterday that Microsoft's attempts to disqualify a special master by "questioning (his) integrity and impartiality" were based only on innuendo.
These tactics led the judge to consider imposing contempt sanctions on the company's lawyers.
Jackson stopped just short of accusing the company of deceiving the court, saying he found it significant that Microsoft had elected not to make any of its claims about the special master under oath.
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Microsoft lawyers were rankled when the special master was appointed in December because the judge did not consult either the company or the Department of Justice about the move.
Lessig was appointed to gather facts in the government case contending Microsoft is illegally using its near-monopoly in operating-system software to force computer-makers to also install its Internet Explorer Web browser, a device that navigates the Internet.
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 73 > § 1512
§ 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant
(a)
(1) Whoever kills or attempts to kill another person, with intent to—
(A) prevent the attendance or testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(B) prevent the production of a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
(C) prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
shall be punished as provided in paragraph (3).
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(b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to—
(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(2) cause or induce any person to—
(A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;
(B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding;
(C) evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
(D) be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or
(3) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation [1] supervised release,,[1] parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
Most of these people involved would probably commit a crime that produced 10 years in prison in exchange for a certain dollar amount. For example, Microsoft would probably pay Kirk Tavener a million dollars to keep his mouth shut and go to prison for ten years, for which he would see that as a good deal, especially because he would gamble that he wouldn’t even have to serve the full ten years. Microsoft could easily pay 1,000 people a million dollars to keep quiet and that would only cost the company a billion dollars. Bill Gates probably clears more than that every year with his Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation scam.
This is what Laura Longcore was trying to do when she told me to watch what I say when I told her that our group had a problem with recording accurate labor, which prompted me to quit in protest:
RCW 9A.72.110
Intimidating a witness.
(1) A person is guilty of intimidating a witness if a person, by use of a threat against a current or prospective witness, attempts to:
(a) Influence the testimony of that person;
(b) Induce that person to elude legal process summoning him or her to testify;
(c) Induce that person to absent himself or herself from such proceedings; or
(d) Induce that person not to report the information relevant to a criminal investigation
RCW 9A.04.110
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(26) "Threat" means to communicate, directly or indirectly the intent:
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(h) To take wrongful action as an official against anyone or anything, or wrongfully withhold official action, or cause such action or withholding;
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(j) To do any other act which is intended to harm substantially the person threatened or another with respect to his health, safety, business, financial condition, or personal relationships;
This means if one person in this crime can be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty, any person associated with these crimes can be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty. If there is any discussion going on my anyone in the government as to whether the death penalty is available, it is because they have been bought off by Microsoft.
United States Code
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 73 > § 1512
§ 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant
…
(j) If the offense under this section occurs in connection with a trial of a criminal case, the maximum term of imprisonment which may be imposed for the offense shall be the higher of that otherwise provided by law or the maximum term that could have been imposed for any offense charged in such case.
(k) Whoever conspires to commit any offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
RCW 9A.28.020
Criminal attempt.
(1) A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime if, with intent to commit a specific crime, he or she does any act which is a substantial step toward the commission of that crime.
(2) If the conduct in which a person engages otherwise constitutes an attempt to commit a crime, it is no defense to a prosecution of such attempt that the crime charged to have been attempted was, under the attendant circumstances, factually or legally impossible of commission.
(3) An attempt to commit a crime is a:
(a) Class A felony when the crime attempted is murder in the first degree,
RCW 9A.32.030
Murder in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of murder in the first degree when:
(a) With a premeditated intent to cause the death of another person, he or she causes the death of such person or of a third person; or
(b) Under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life, he or she engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to any person, and thereby causes the death of a person; or
(c) He or she commits or attempts to commit the crime of either (1) robbery in the first or second degree, (2) rape in the first or second degree, (3) burglary in the first degree, (4) arson in the first or second degree, or (5) kidnapping in the first or second degree, and in the course of or in furtherance of such crime or in immediate flight therefrom, he or she, or another participant, causes the death of a person other than one of the participants
