The article is titled;
"Chinese angry over Microsoft anti-piracy tool."

When I read the comments from those questioned, I felt that my perpective must be WAY Off so... I thought I'd pose the question on the forum.

Does a manufacture of a product have any rights to respond if they discover their product to have been unlawfully (based on the laws of the originating country) obtained?

Should manufactures be required to compete with the prices set forth by those who's only investment in the product involves a CD duplication machine?

To be clear, this isn't an attack on any nationality... nor is this limited to Microsoft... such practices are on-going all over world, and impact even small software companies like Amaranth Games.

So, it's not as heated a topic as "Gay Marriage" nor "Abortion"... but I'm still interested in your perspectives...

Hehe, I really didn't like it because it seemed like Microsoft was finding a way to be nosy in my business. Alas, in order to get updates, you gotta install the stupid thing.

How would I know they wouldn't see Openoffice or some of my other programs as 'illegal'? It sounds more like an official spyware/adware/whatever they call it rather than an 'anti piracy software'.

Than again, I AM Asian so XP

Well I understand Microsoft and other companies wanting to protect their products, but going into other people's computers? I think that's the wrong way of solving the problem. But to answer your questions.

Yes I think a manufacture of a product has a right to respond if they find out someone has their product unlawfully obtained. But I also think they should check and make the person really did not know it was illegal. Maybe they should try to talk to other countries, businesses and try to get some combined effort to stop the illegal software market.

Should manufactures be required to compete with the prices set forth by the illegal market? No they shouldn't have too, but I think if they want to lower the amount of people buying their product illegally then they should at least see how much higher their price is to the illegal price.

As KTC noted... it's not like Microsoft is scouring the Earth and getting on people's machines and knocking them out when they're discovered to be unlawfully obtained... it's more that if a user with a pirated copy of Windows goes to seek support or updates and runs a check... the checking software disables the pirated copy.

As for price competition with pirates... well, the cost of a CD is about $0.50... the time to duplicate it and the hardware (diluted over thousands of copies) are about the same so... should Microsoft (and all other companies) all sell their products for $1.00?

Do you wonder how that might impact product development... I mean, why produce any single product of any value if the maximum return on your investment will be $1... perhaps it would drive all products to be tiny downloads... perhaps that's not a bad thing.

Lastly, would competing with pirates actually change anything, or is there a "rebel" aspect at play here... where that if the prices were equal, the "rebel" consumer might even take the priate copy just to "stick it to the man"? I see a lot of anti-Microsoft sentiment... if consumers were going to only be out $1... why not just buy from the pirates? In which case, how much lower might Microsoft need to go to encourage these buyers... $0.001?

[edit] Microsoft, and many other software vendors have been in contact with several countries leaders with very very limited success.
Additionally, Microsoft does not review any other products than their own... as much as it's hard for some to believe, Microsoft is very heavily monitored for Privacy and takes the matter extremely seriously.

Yeah but intruding into someone's computer? That's crossing the line and don't know how that isn't illegal.

Well no they shouldn't sell it for a dollar, but maybe not make their software so costly. Maybe try to find a price that is low enough to attract people but not low enough to not make a pretty good profit.

Yes it could possibly impact production, but if they really want to sell tons of their product then maybe they shouldn't have a price that is really high.

I'm sure there a lot of people out there buying illegal software just because they hate Microsoft. I don't blame them, Microsoft doesn't really make themselves likable. Like I mentioned in the above paragraph, Microsoft should find a balanced price that satisfies consumers and themselves.

As much as I dislike Microsoft and its evil plans to take over the world, I think they are right on this one.

It seemed to me from the article that the anti-piracy software is only targeted at MS software, so, yes, they do have the right to enforce that people actually buy their product. That's how business goes. They've been doing this in some form now for quite a while--maybe not with the black screen thing, but the validation program has been around. I was kind of amazed at the comments in the article. Yes, it's awful if you lose what you're working on, but why were you working on it in the first place if you didn't obtain the software legally?

As for MS hacking into peoples' computers, yeah, there's a part of me that hates the thought of anyone being able to obtain information about the software running on my system, but the reality is that when I install a program like Windows or Office, I have to okay the terms of acceptance which include allowing the manufacturer to validate their software.

Quote:

I think "based on the laws of the originating country" is key here. It's the responsibility of the manufacturer to make sure that the country where they are selling their product actually has intellectual property protection (i.e. patent) laws. If not, then the manufacturer has no legal basis to respond to unauthorized use of their product.

Sorry so long...I sometimes find it hard to articulate these things

To be clear, they don't scour your system and don't do anything without your concent.

What about validation of legitimacy should be unlawful?

Just out of curiousity... what do you think would be a fair price for Windows?

Now, while answering that... imagine... if it were truely this price, would it honestly encourage those whom are actually getting it for $1.00 or less?

I think Microsoft has every right to cause one of their own programs to stop functioning, if they can identify it as an illegal copy.

Should Amanda provide support and free upgrades to people who download pirated versions of her games? THEY say the games are too expensive too...

Honestly, we get requests every day to provide support for pirated versions of the games... we also get requests from people whom think it is too expensive or want the games for free.

If we recall our history, DOS 5 sold retail for $69. It came with GWBasic, some fine memory management utilities, and a few accessories... but certainly nothing akin to what we think of as an operating system today.

Intentionally paying no mind to adjusting for inflationary issues (to make the delta look even larger)... if you look at the price of Windows today... and all that it includes... even the $399 price of the "Ultimate" package looks cheap!

I would argue that perhaps the better strategy for Microsoft would be to sell the "boot-strap" for Windows cheap... something like DOS pricing... then charge for anything else... the "micro-purchase" model as seems to be catching on in various games.

The reason the distribution model is as it is today is more a reflection of history, than anything else... and as you can expect... it is certain to take some radical changes in the not-to-distant future.

I don't talk especially about Microsoft, because for me it's a general problem ...

Pirating is for me exactly like robbery or plagiarism...
Just think about that you've created something in which you've put hours of work and lots of pain and a big part of you in order to sell it and make some money, because everyone needs some at last... and people are just stealing it for free... be honest and ask yourself what would be your reaction then ?

now about Amanda's games, people who think they are expensive should really take a loot at how much money they spend in "useless" things every months and consider how much fun the games provide them regarding the price paid...
As a hudge game player and buyer, I can tell you that they are really cheap regarging how long you can play with them for such a price...

I heard of this before

Apparently there are people who still using pirated XP in my country and I assume some has experienced a blackout.

but the blackout thingy isn't the right thing to stop people from using the pirated version (I'm not encouraging piracy here lol), maybe Microsoft should think of another way to stop them. The article says that a man was angry over the lost of precious data, that takes time to do, I understand how that man feels now >.<

Maybe instead of the blackout thing, it could just stop the software from working/opening if they catch that it has been obtained illegally. I don't know much about computers, so I really don't know if just getting the software not to open/work is possible.

oh my, what painful arguments. . .

regarding lost data:
It only affects the screen, right?
ctrl+s to save and recover it using a linux based machine. should have been using that in the first place if something free is desired, esp. if the computers is used for programming. =P


wrt price:
Linux + WINE = nearly the same functionality as windows in terms of compatibility, but completely free. =P no point bothering with windows if you want it for free. then again, computers that come with windows pre-installed are cheaper than the parts to build the same thing sometimes, so It's practically like you're getting paid to get windows. =P (might have to clear out some ads, but that's all. =P)


wrt "why is microsoft connected to my computer?": Those settings can be changed since validation only occurs when updates are installed. .'. it's not really technically w/o permission.


As much as I hate copy protection (because it causes countless problems with transfer to a new system, esp. since I reformat my computer every once in a while to improve performance, thus adding another tick to the copy protection thing each time; and because it has huge compatibility issues) I would have to agree with Microsoft's position on this one. There really is not much reason to get a pirated copy. . .


wow that got wordy. . . oops. ^^;

i used to use i pirated version of XP, and the lack of updates was annoying to say the least, and while it was aggravating for me, i didnt pay for the product, so i didnt have any right to be complaining in the first place. Microsoft should be able to do it, as long as they arent invading anyone privacy.

If i ever release a commercial game, i fully plan of making it so that if its a pirated version, it will corrupt the save files, its not cruel or vindictive, just business.