I have encountered something on two occasions in the last week that wanders into an ongoing messy debate here on the dope. Software specifically windows operating system piracy.
I have been presented with customer machines, that when I tried to be the good little computer shop and apply all of the latest updates and patches from MS recieved an error message from the site that I "May have been a victim of software piracy" or in a nutshell, this ain't a legal copy dude.
So the debate or discussion. What does one do in my situation.
So far I have returned the machines and noted on the invoice that the copy of windows they have is not legal and reccomend they purchase a licence (along with an offer to purchase it from me at a very competitive price.) Both of these machines were “friend of a friend” purchases and lacked windows licence stickers.
Am I in any way obligated to report this to the police, hardly wise to a new business trying to build up clientele?
Could I or should I hold the machine hostage claiming a legal copy of windows will be required to complete the repair, messy, possibly revenue generating, but probably burning a bridge almost as solidly as calling Microsoft or the police on them.
If I knew for a fact that another repair provider or computer shop was doing this I would rat them out in a second, after all business is war, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend :D.
Do other companies out there have policies that dopers may wish to share WRT this type of situation?
What would you expect to happen if you, knowing you had a pirated copy of windows had to call in a repair service to work on your machine?
I think your policy is correct. You don’t work for Microsoft, and you are not obligated to report it to the police. I don’t even believe it’s a criminal offense – copyright violation itself is not, and the police only get involved with there is mass pirating. They’d go after the person making the copies, not the user.
I doubt Microsoft would be all that interested in pursuing things even if you alerted them. The user is going to have to buy a legal copy in order to upgrade the software, so they have to buy it from MS sooner or later.
The nice thing about returning the computer with a note about the situation is that you can always blame Microsoft, which will keep the customer good will.
I work for a small company that does an increasing amount of PC service and repair. Our general policy is that we’ll try to complete whatever task the computer came in for, but warn them that their copy of Windows isn’t legitimate and explain the problems this will cause them. We also offer to sell them a legitimate copy.
Then we make a note in their file and if the system comes back in for something else and still doesn’t have a legitimate copy of Windows, we refuse to work on it until they do. If they don’t want us to install it, great, they can come pick up their system and have their friend’s cousin continue to make a mess of it. We find that people who feel it’s OK to not pay Microsoft for the product they use are usually the same people who think we must be out to screw them no matter good a job we do.
I would just tell the situation and let them know that the repairs will require a legititmate copy of windows in order to be completed. Ratting them out will not be good for your business.
It would be absolutely absurd to call the authorities and its a bad thing you even considered it. You don’t know the details about the legality of their product…for all you know they purchased it legally and there is some other technical problem causing the error. Don’t we have enough problems with the big brother factor already? Do you really want to add to it?