[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Microsoft battles pirated software as a security risk here

[StevenSinofsky]

Piracy is bad, people. Don't try it.

[ReadandShare]

Not defending piracy -- which is both illegal and immoral...

But I suspect there is some truth -- but much more hype about malware coming from cheap hardware and pirated software. Especially considering the source -- Microsoft - the world's biggest software seller.

Folks here might think of some of these pirate sellers as shady, fly-by-night firms. Some are. But piracy is also a big business in many parts of the world. And like businesses elsewhere -- they too want repeat customers.

It is a trivial thing for sellers to scan master copies of their software before mass loading them onto their products. And I suspect most do. I know I would, if I were one of them.

[SilverXtreme]

Microsoft should battle Thailand's pirated software distribution next. Thailand goes beyond China in this aspect, we can literally open up shops to sell pirated software/games without getting arrested.

I'm not a fan of using pirated software, but when certain programs cost as much as 1000 USD, then that's another story though.

[AlexBorstine]

I'm sorry... the last sentence complete confuses me..., "Microsoft will consider legal action as a last resort."

Bullsh*t... you send your legal eagles over there and jack them up now and do it in a big way!!! WTH... are they afraid they will hurt their feelings or cause bad blood between the US and their sh*tty-ass country.

Please... go make an example out of them. And I agree with you SilverXtreme, Thailand should be next... then Italy, Russia, India, etc... Make it a whirlwind tour of ass-kicking for all to see!

[richard2394729]

Tax dodging is also both *immoral* and *wrong*, but Microsoft is a rampant tax dodger par excellence. On $2.7 billion of revenue earned in the UK, Microsoft has paid £0 in tax.

Microsoft also installs an update (KB971033) on everyone's PC that every 90 days assumes you're a thief and validates your copy of Windows 7 and then contacts Microsoft using your Internet connection that you paid for.

To hell with preventing piracy. Until corporations stop THIEVING from the rest of us, why should anyone else play fair?

[richard2394729]

Maybe Microsoft can kick some Foxconn employee arse that they're exploiting. Perhaps, drive a few lazy employees to suicide and truck in some more hard-working Jews to the concentration camps - oops, I meant workers to the factories.

Microsoft = RAMPANT TAX DODGER AND EXPLOITS THE POOR

Before you give me this crap about sweatshops developing poor nations - THEY DO NOT, because the workers never earn enough to stimulate domestic demand. No nation has ever developed its economy based on sweatshop labor. No rich country ever got rich by opening up its economy for foreigners to exploit. China doesn't play by the rules for a reason.

[ReadandShare]

@richard2394729

Do you still remember your high school History book -- those b/w photos of immigrant girls assembling flowers in their tenement homes, or toiling in textile mills, or boys working in Pennsylvania mines?

Do you think that all those "tired and poor" coming ashore got great jobs in the US back one or two centuries ago?

In many (if not most) cases -- countries with a large pool of unskilled workers toil in sweatshops. Don't ever think that our country (the US) got rich by bankers pushing paper (and now electrons) around. The foundation of our nations wealth was built on the backs (and blood, sweat and tears) of those immigrants! You and I are beneficiaries -- so we will do well to understand unskilled labor -- and not to view it with disdain.

And yes, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore... all built their economic foundation on sweat labor. And then moved on to become rich.

[ReadandShare]

Oops... Richard might be a Brit. Sorry. But in any case, similar history. Remember the peasants who toiled in your first factories way back when.

[GetReal]

On some occasions people are given little choice but piracy. I once worked 4 month on contract in India. Go into any computer shop - discretely inquire, all versions of windows and other programs were available as illegals. The reason, legal copies of software were priced so high that much of the middle-class and all with "routine" low income families could not afford ir!

Microsoft tried - slightly - to address this with it's "starter" versions of windows AKA, crippled, but people soon found these to be very limited in usability.

[GetReal]

Realizing that my previous post here does not adequately describe technology in a third-world country, I offer this personal experience as example.
While in India one co-worker, an electronic technician having 9 years formal education and about 3 or 4 month of technical school in electronics, invited me to his home for dinner. This is a family of 3 children in age between about 7 years to 11 years old. Living in a two room home that I estimate to be no more than 750 square feet size.

While there he proudly displayed the "new" computer system his children were using for required school work. A refurbished Acer Pentium-3 with 80 Mb memory, 30 Gb HDD and Samsung 14 inch tube display, running a pirate copy of Xp and MS Office-2000, AKA, already very old and mostly illegal. This system had only a few month prior cost him the equivalent of U.S. $125. his salary monthly was $240 so this was a major expense to educate his family.

What I am saying here is that a big part of the problem of piracy is caused by sellers not marketing within the standard of living of the country of business.
Laws be damned!

[Mike921]

News flash - you can buy ANY PC in China with ANY OS and the PC will also have malware pre-installed.

[Keinichn]

Quote

I'm sorry... the last sentence complete confuses me..., "Microsoft will consider legal action as a last resort." Bullsh t... you send your legal eagles over there and jack them up now and do it in a big way!!! WTH... are they afraid they will hurt their feelings or cause bad blood between the US and their sh tty-ass country. Please... go make an example out of them. And I agree with you SilverXtreme, Thailand should be next... then Italy, Russia, India, etc... Make it a whirlwind tour of ass-kicking for all to see!

Two words: It's China. Chinese courts side with Chinese companies. Microsoft would be fighting a losing battle on their enemy's home turf. That's why they're not going the legal route. It hasn't worked for Hollywood or any other big industry that's fallen victim to Chinese piracy.

[mike984]

Microsoft is complaining about malware in pirated copies of Windows?!? What about the security risks in legitimate copies of Windows?? http://www.pcworld.c...e7-and-ie8.html

Solution all around - Use Linux!

[luis3007]

Quote

Microsoft is complaining about malware in pirated copies of Windows?!? What about the security risks in legitimate copies of Windows?? http://www.pcworld.c...e7-and-ie8.html Solution all around - Use Linux!

Yeah...good luck with that!!

Of the billions of PC users less than 5% opt to use the "free" and "open" Linux, that is why until the introduction of Android in smartphones, the Linux OS was dead for end-consumers, they'd rather pirate any versionof Windows!!!

[WinTard]

richard2394729, on 30 December 2012 - 05:40 AM, said:

Maybe Microsoft can kick some Foxconn employee arse that they're exploiting. Perhaps, drive a few lazy employees to suicide and truck in some more hard-working Jews to the concentration camps - oops, I meant workers to the factories.

Microsoft = RAMPANT TAX DODGER AND EXPLOITS THE POOR

Before you give me this crap about sweatshops developing poor nations - THEY DO NOT, because the workers never earn enough to stimulate domestic demand. No nation has ever developed its economy based on sweatshop labor. No rich country ever got rich by opening up its economy for foreigners to exploit. China doesn't play by the rules for a reason.

You forgot to include Apple and Google as top-tax dodgers in your blind hate towards Microsoft...

This is for you:

WinTard, on 30 December 2012 - 01:33 AM, said:

Badass62qn, on 29 December 2012 - 04:26 PM, said:

They build from China but technology from Japan n USA. Plus it helps USA,Japan or Korea economy but Not China.

Oh really?

Some people are simply iD10Ts.

Without Chinese financial backing, there would be NO US economy. Um, what's that Financial Cliff coming up?

Google China finances the US for substantiation:


Remember all the financial crashes in the USA lately? No? Well the last mortgage crisis, could very well happen tomorrow, again, yet this time it will be much worse!

Hey what happens if the US defaults like Greece? There was a near-call not long ago.

Believe it or not.

Red-necks will self-exterminate, alas poor gene pool of natural selection. It's Darwin at work here. But some are proud of the USD $16+ Trillion dollars deficit, in the name of patriotism, no less.



Head in the sand much? Like an ostrich?

~~~~~~~~~~
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
~ Robert A. Heinlein

Ignorance is trainable – Stupidity is terminal.
~ Jerry Fleming

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
~ Hanlon's razor

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
~ George Bernard Shaw

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, 'patriotism' is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first.
~ Ambrose Bierce, American writer

[MLStrand56]

First you must define "piracy" before you start talking about it. Mickeysoft has their software manufactured in China, to reduce their manufacturing cost. When Mickeysoft contracts a company to produce (example) 5 million Win7 DVD's, they get the 5 million they contracted for. The manufacturing company actually produces 10 million Win7 DVD's & sells the extra 5 million on the open market. The 2nd 5 million are bit-for-bit identical to the 1st. 5 million.

In this country people work a 12 hr day, for approx $2.00 (pre-tax). That's $2.00/Day, not per hour. When that worker goes home, he has to feed his/her family on his $2.00. Then some self-righteous American tells him that he must pay $400 for a "legal" Win7 DVD. Instead he goes to ANY computer store & buys one of the 5 million "pirate" Win7 DVD's for 80 Peso (approx $2,00).

Who is the pirate here? The company selling the 2nd. 5 million Win7 DVD's, OR Mickeysoft for selling the same $2.00 Win7 DVD for $400?

I live in a country where it is impossible to find "REAL" software. Even if you buy boxed/shrink wrapped software in a store, it's Pirated. Same for all CD's, DVD's (no Blu-rays here yet). Are you hungry? Go to every grocery store in the country, & ALL the USA branded food.......is counterfit. Does all this "piracy" bother me, Absolutely NOT!!!!!

MLStrand56