Oh, for the glory days of the Microsoft antitrust litigation! You remember, right? Back before the Department of Justice suddenly turned into an insecure puppy dog in desperate need of acceptance and rolled over to settle what was largely an airtight case against the company? Back when over half the states in the union joined in the fight against Big Software, whereas now Massachusetts is the only state possessing the sheer bloody-mindedness to remain standing firm? Sure you do... Good times. It's a shame they've drawn to a close.

Or have they? True, "Redmond Justice" is all but off the air in this country, but you know how these things work; there's always an export lag on TV entertainment, so other nations are only just now getting the first couple of seasons' worth of episodes. At least, it sure seems that way, since the BBC News reported less than a month ago that the European Commission had only recently finished drafting its ruling in its own antitrust case against Microsoft-- and the EC is apparently considering changing the ending: "The Commission is likely to decide that the firm illegally tied audio and video software, as well as server systems, to its Windows operating system," which is much the same as what happened her in the States, but after seeing that the restrictions in the Justice Department settlement are "too lax" (Gee, ya think? Even Judge Collar-Kotelly admitted just last week that the settlement terms had "failed"), "the EU is likely to want to go further."

As for how much further, well, there's talk of "multi-million euro fines" (which will do absolutely nothing to a company with a $53 billion war chest, of course) and sanctions that could prevent the company from selling Windows bundled with Windows Media Player, at least in Europe. And there's more talk about forcing Microsoft to license its Windows source code to competitors, although if people keep leaking it anyway, the point would be moot. Granted, none of this is as exciting as the prospect of a corporate break-up from back in the day, but it has the potential to turn out at least slightly better than the eventual DoJ settlement.

And hey, if the European version of "Redmond Justice" doesn't pan out, maybe the Japanese translation will take some happy liberties with the plot! Remember when Apple Japan was raided by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission as part of a price-fixing investigation back in '99? Well, faithful viewer Julian Clark notes that, according to the BBC News, that same organization has raided Microsoft's Tokyo offices "on suspicion that the US giant violated Japanese anti-monopoly laws." (Apparently in Japan they're all about the raids. And why not? It must be great for ratings.) Are we naïve to think that maybe, just maybe, someday one of these countries will finally mete out something actually resembling justice? Well, yeah. But hope is a marvelous thing, isn't it?