Microsoft slams down on software pirates

Good news, but now they must also pursue those distributing (and stealing) volume licences, looking at the educational sector and those who provide the support.
 
He was placed under house arrest for a period of 12 months and is required to complete a behaviour reform course and perform community service, without compensation.
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I wonder if canonical will ever track me down and sentence me for not paying for their product.
What the hell is a "behaviour reform course" going to do for the guy.
 
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I believe this is a bad move.

Microsoft should sell is product at ridiculous prices, people who choose to use it should pay the price, those who counterfeit it should be arrested. Quietly, do not make a media spectacle about it.

the rest of us will use open source software, and get better performance off our computers.

its just a matter of time MS, Android is having fun smothering apple, while BB and WP dies out on its own, there is already a Chromebook, a few years from now, the idea of having a windows based computer will seem as strange to us as the idea of having an operating system that does not use a mouse does to us now. Greed will always be your demise.

10 years and no more windows.
25 years and no more google.

fact.
 
Microsoft licencing is insanely over-complicated. I'll bet most legitimate businesses are under-licenced.
 
For small to medium sized businesses, checkout Bizspark. They basically give you all Microsoft software for free. With that and MSDN being cheap (compared to individually buying stuff), there really isn't a reason to get caught using pirated software in business.
 
With a murder conviction rate of 13% you would think the Hawks have better things to do...
 
...Microsoft SA’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) executed raids on the premises of various resellers...
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Aah, a private company that performs "raids" on citizens' private property? So much for freedom!
 
Garyvdh said:
The best way to fight piracy is through pricing and distribution....
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except that in most cases the counterfeit operations charge the same (if not higher) pricing as the legitimate product and it really is a case of fraud on the consumer. Microsoft invariably target commercial operations which involving somebody making money by passing off a product as

“Our goal is to reduce those incidents in which customers end up buying PCs with unlicensed copies of Microsoft software and create a fair playing field for all partners,” Haman said.
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I've twice had a situation where somebody purchased a computer through a brick and mortar PC store and paid for the product as to include Windows and Office only for the person to later run into problems with Windows Genuine Advantage and it becoming very clear that the store pulled a con. Apart from the annoyance of dealing with a call center in both cases Microsoft SA issued licences for the customer at no charge to the customer - and presumably used the info provided to go after the counterfeit guys.
In my view that is the correct approach. If somebody wants to use a cracked copy of Microsoft software or whatever at their own risk the implications are a broader customer base that more than offsets a loss of sales, but when somebody sells products as Microsoft products when they aren't then you have a fraud problem.
 
Skerminkel said:
Aah, a private company that performs "raids" on citizens' private property? So much for freedom!
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They do not raid - the Hawks do. However, when the Hawks get the search and seizure warrant they are added as part of the warrant as parties allowed to participate in the raid. Works the same with Safact and all the many other smaller private organizations representing bigger companies.
 
Oh House is back :)

Part of the piracy problem (but no excuse to do it) is the ecosystem Microsoft has created. I am glad that I switched to OS X 7 years back and have all software licensed. Hell, upgrading to the latest version of OS X on a 4 year old MacBook Pro just works and costs less than R300. If you follow Microsoft's model, you will sit with paid OS upgrades almost every 18 months (not to mention vulnerabilities you sit with).

I would have thought that Adobe (and pretty much all game-developers) would have jumped on the bandwagon too - seems to be most pirated software.
 
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