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Microsoft tackles Office piracy
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kiepie
Executive Member
All my Office copies are legal, so I'm not ranting about the piracy.
So you will go and buy another copy from another retailer if your first copy of thousands of rands is "illegal"?
And not a reward for being honest! Where do you interpret that?
A reward to bust the retailers that sell Chinese pirated Office cd's, isn't that the whole idea?
Arthur
Honorary Master
About the same discount Mercedes gives me for not stealing cars. Or maybe I should approach Eskom and ask for a reward for not stealing electricity?
stoke
Honorary Master
Erm, this is not a request by Microsoft for me to obey the law.
It is a request by Microsoft for me to spend my time and money on checking if something that I purchased using real money, that came with a real certificate and a real license, is in fact real.
I don't care if MS says it's legit or not. I purchased it with real money.
At the point of purchase, and at the point of installation, Microsoft could have verified the software. They have not motivated me in any way to waste my time and bandwidth to verify something. No motivation whatsoever.
Edit : It's like Dunlop asking me to come in and have my tyres inspected so that they can see if it's real Dunlop tyres. I'll only do it if they promise to give me the real thing if they're fake, and at least reimburse me my petrol.
i.e. It's not my freaking fault, why the heck am I supposed to be accountable now?
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Its more like Mercedes giving you a discount on new brakes parts when you found out you bought knock-off brake parts cos they failed a test.
alloytoo
Honorary Master
No, people would like to be rembursed for their costs in assisting MS enforce it's copyright.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Arthur
Honorary Master
Not necessarily.
You can buy a stolen car with real money from a real dealer with real but false registration certificate. Same with software. How does MS know you didn't buy counterfeit product? End-user piracy is one type of software theft. Another and very large problem is manufacturers (largely in the Far East) manufacturing conterfeit product with CDs, boxes, etc and slipping that into the channel.
Ummm ... how does this protect the user's wallet?
Are Microsoft going to offer then a license for free if they find it's not "genuine"?
I don't see the point once the user has been duped - they may as well carry on using the pirated software.
OpenOffice 3.0 does the job just fine thanks.
Sackboy
Executive Member
If your copy isn't genuine, MS won't give you access to templates and things (or updates of course)
Arthur
Honorary Master
A lot of Microsoft anti-piracy works through the BSA, an industry alliance of various software vendors. From time to time the BSA offers rewards for helping them trace pirates and especially conterfeiters, who are mainly responsible for keeping software prices so high. Think about it from a developer's viewpoint: what would you do if you spent $100m developing an application, and half the users steal it? I don't know, but would guess MS spends anything from $5B to $10B a year on Office development and support. Every pirate you know has contributed to increasing the price for legitimate users. It's as simple as that.
shani786
Well-Known Member
btw ms office s*cks.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
um, no... actually plain old greed determines the price.
And every pirate I know actually offers the software for free
... is the guy who is trying to make a living but can't afford the R6000 for office somehow "not legitimate"???
Abe
Expert Member
MS makes more profit off Office then they do off Windows so economies of scale is not the problem with the MS pricing. As indicated above, it's greed.
On that note, I got a call from one of my clients today. We have just quoted her for an upgrade and an Office 2007 Standard license with the upgrade. Because this is an important client, we stuck only 5% markup on (if for her as opposed to the company she works for) to cover costs. We told her that because it's a DSP license, we need to install it with our DVD and she just gets the license. Being a little pedantic, she decided to call MS to see why she could not get media for it. The person from MS told her on the phone that her supplier (us) was ripping her off.
On that note, I got a call from one of my clients today. We have just quoted her for an upgrade and an Office 2007 Standard license with the upgrade. Because this is an important client, we stuck only 5% markup on (if for her as opposed to the company she works for) to cover costs. We told her that because it's a DSP license, we need to install it with our DVD and she just gets the license. Being a little pedantic, she decided to call MS to see why she could not get media for it. The person from MS told her on the phone that her supplier (us) was ripping her off.
stoke
Honorary Master
Your sample is the second hand vehicle market. In the second hand market the onus is on you to check the vehicle, and give yourself a reasonable level of security.
With this kind of product (software), there was nothing you could do originally when you purchased the software. Now, MS wants you to go back into the future to solve their problem. Perhaps they should be asking "Barack to the future" for a solution, not me.
Microsoft has options in place when you can show them that your copy really look legit but wasn't. If you have really been conned into buying fake software and have proof of this they will send you a legitimate copy. I can't give a link to their page atm. But there is such an option. This is actually a good idea. If you want it and don't want to pay for it use openoffice. Lots of people use illegal copies and know about it, that is stealing. But when you are truly unaware of purchasing illegitimate software it's a different story and MS will listen.
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
wcoetzee
Expert Member
Dude, time to upgradewin2k is damn old, no wonder office 2007 doesnt work on it
maybe you should get one yourself
Arthur
Honorary Master
You're making a distinction without a difference. Why is 'lifting your cellphone' stealing? It could just be 'unauthorised borrowing'. The intention of the 'lifter' is important, but so too is the permission of the owner.um, no... that would be an unlicensed copy. Stealing is when I lift your cellphone.
If you knowingly and intentionally create/ use an unlicensed copy, you're stealing. All creative works (music, movies, books, designs, etc) belong to their author. Why should Microsoft's rights be any less than mine or yours, or is it OK to reduce people's rights as they become more successful? Punishing the successful would be a great incentive to work hard and do well, eh. You forget that Microsoft wasn't always this large -- it's the ambition of most software vendors to get where MS is -- MS was once way behind the dominant behemoths in the early PC years, in both operating systems and apps. Remember CPM/86, DR-DOS, WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBaseIII, Corel Draw and the like? You forget why users switched from those.
And using the argument that "I'm just a poor guy trying to make a living and can't afford R6K for MS Office" is disingenuous, fatuous and meretricious. If MS Office were the only game in town one could perhaps sympathise, but because an alternative (OpenOffice), widely touted as better, is freely available, it makes the case for stealing MS Office even weaker.
If you can't afford MS Office, use something else, or create your own. Same holds for anything else you desire.
Once you start rationalising or excusing theft, you're well on the way to personal moral collapse and become a threat to honest people, society, and civilisation itself.