[Gllug] M$ and Netscape/AOL/Time Warner settle for $750m

[Doug Winter]

On Mon 02 Jun Alistair Mann wrote:
> Thus spaketh Doug Winter on Monday 02 June 2003 1:41 pm:
> > On Mon 02 Jun Jim Bailey wrote:
> > > Wake up and smell the coffee people MS, AOL, Time Warner, MPAA,
> > > RIAA, Trusted Computing, Intel etc.  They are all the beast none
> > > of these people are your friends.
> >
> > Well, strictly speaking they aren't even people.
> 
> A common misconception! Strictly speaking, they are all 'people': a
> company is no more than a group of people acting (nominally) together.
> There is (for instance) no part of 'Microsoft' that is not ultimately
> owned by identifiable individuals, so nothing of Microsoft to which to
> apply any other label than 'people'.

That would be like saying that my body is composed of atoms, therefore I
can useful call it an atom.  Anyway, we appear to be veering furiously
offtopic :)

> I can't remember about UK law, but US law certainly defines Person to
> include a legally constituted companies, and uses 'Individual' to
> exclude more than one person.

Yes, some things are legally "people".  Not too many though.  I seem to
remember that Universities are one of the few entities that are legally
people, in the UK anyway.

doug.

-- 
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action
arise, human science is at a loss. -- Noam Chomsky

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