Microsoft’s licensing is very convoluted, but the EULA was probably violated the moment it was not purchased from an “authorized reseller” - if Microsoft authorizes the reseller, and you get a bad key, they bear some fault. If you buy a copy from eBay, you are taking your chances. Caveat Emptor.
I’d be tempted to call Microsoft’s piracy line and report the key - they might be sweet talked into sending you a copy of Win 7 gratis for turning in the thief. Microsoft will go back to the developer who had the key - or the corporation - and potentially make them change every key in the company since they’ve been compromised.
And, no, it isn’t justified to pirate software. There are plenty of free distributions of OSs available - Microsoft chooses to sell theirs.
A big part of my job is Microsoft licensing and making sure we are in compliance. If one of our developers or techs was caught selling a key on eBay - I’d string him up. I don’t need that liability.
If that civil disobedience over the length of copyright was REALLY a motivation, then the issue would be on ‘stealing’ music made in the 1950’s or something. Win7 was released earlier this year. Unless you think the time limit should be only a few months, protesting copyright length ain’t an issue here.
Do you still have the url of the download link or the emails from ebay concerning this sale? It would be helpful to see the specific version listed in the sale and at MS.
There was a few months time there when Win7 was released when the beta and Release Candidate versions where still available. (The RC version is the final pre-release build. It’s put out to testers and developers and then, if no major flaws are found, it’s the version that gets burned to disc and shipped to retail.) The final betas and RC version continued to work after the official launch of Win7 but they had a cutoff date.
It sounds like what happened was that you bought a serial number for Release Candidate version, which would have included the Activation process. The Activation process would succeed because you had a legit RC serial number. But the RC and beta candidate period has expired so now the OS doesn’t work.
It’s not MS’s fault in any of this. It’s either the sellers fault for lying to you about the version of Win7 he was selling or your fault for not paying attention to what you were buying. Or both.
As a practical matter, you can buy a legit copy for about $100, which, imo, is worth not having to worry about a cracked version.
Sage Rat: No, there was no description. The eBay ad owner provided an email with two things: A product key and a link to click on. The link was an extremely long MS link specifically part of the microsoft.com domain. Clicking on it opened a file download window, not a page showing what you were downloading. The file name made it clear that it was Windows 7 64bit as promised.
Also,
The original OP isn’t asking if my friend was stupid (he clearly was) or the legality of it (it’s clearly illegal to crack it). Just opinions on what would you do in the same situation. He’ll probably go the legal route and purchase it. Part of him is quite angry at MS for not identifying in any way what copy was being registered, and for lying when they originally said it was legit.
His anger is misplaced. They didn’t lie. All the lying-by-omission here is on the seller. Had he gotten the expiring developer copy through legitimate channels, he would have known it was going to expire through other means.
They made a big song and dance about how activation would be good for everyone because it would hinder piracy and help ensure that your product was genuine and properly licensed.
They then do a slipshod job by not actually telling you what type of product you are activating. So you could, for example, be activating an OEM product when you should be using a full version or, in this case, a time limited version instead of the full one.
You’re essentially blaming Microsoft for not detecting that he was violating their license terms by obtaining Windows through an illegitimate channel.
Say Microsoft had, on activation, popped up a big window that said “This is a developer release that will expire in 6 months.” How would the OP’s friend’s situation have changed at all? He’d still get six months of use out of it. He’d still have wasted the money he spent by purchasing it over eBay. He’d still, six months later, be posting to the Straight Dope asking if it’s moral to crack it because he thought he was getting the full release version. The only difference is that he wouldn’t have been surprised when it happened.
MS made general claims that activation will reduce piracy and thus improve user experience. It does not claim to eliminate piracy. It doesn’t claim that it’s infallible. And in fact, from MS’s perspective, it did the correct thing: there was time left on the developer copy, and MS allowed that time to be used.
All MS failed to do was detect that he was not the original purchaser. Activation makes no claims to verify that the product hasn’t been resold in violation of license terms.
You’re demanding that product activation manage a second-hand market. It can’t possibly do that.
I’m blaming MS for not taking a perfect opportunity to remind people of the version they are authorising.
Knowing he’d been scammed he could have made an Ebay/Paypal claim and got his money back.
And as an added plus for MS if they’d got him to give them the details they could have put a stop to the scammer’s Ebay activities at least and ensured they got the correct revenue and saved other people being scammed.
Win-Win-Win, as far as I can see.
MS claimed that it would aid people ensuring they had got correctly licensed software.
From their own page: ***"The Genuine Microsoft Software program (referred to as “Windows Genuine Advantage” in Windows XP and “Windows Activation Technologies” in Windows Vista and Windows 7) tools include:
Validation, which determines whether you are running a properly licensed copy of Microsoft software. "***
In this instance they have singularly failed to do what they said they were going to do. Whilst they obviously could not know if the user was entitled to a development copy they should certainly have pointed it out to him, otherwise how are they doing what they claimed they would be doing?
I’m not doing anything of the sort. :rolleyes:
I’m saying they should use their best efforts to make available any information available that would help a user determine that s/he is running the correct software.
At the moment they are making a complete pig’s ear of that.
If my suspicions about the product being either a beta or RC version are correct, then the product in question is genuine and properly licensed. It is a genuine and properly licensed copy of a testing or RC version of Win 7 with a genuine and proper testing or RC serial number.
Should MS have done more to make it clear that he was installing the RC version? For all we know, they did and the buyer just ignored it. He just downloaded some random file off microsoft.com without even visiting the product page. The seller was clearly not being upfront here but the buyer was remiss in not investigating this closer.
What would I do in this situation? First, I’d call the Windows activation phone number and see if it wasn’t just a minor error that could be resolved easily. I should have suggested this last night. It’s possible that it’s just a glitch in the system and the Activation hotline can give him a new number right away. I’ve called them before - there’s never a long wait and they’re quite helpful. It’s a long shot, but it can’t hurt to try.
But after doing this, if it turns out that I needed a new serial number,
I’d buy a legit, retail, copy of Win 7 from a legit, retail, establishment and resolve to pay attention next time I install something on my computer. Caveat emptor.
I’ll concede that it would have been helpful to the OP’s friend to have that big flashing warning.
Nonetheless, you’re taking their general claim that activation is beneficial to users, observing that it was not beneficial in this particular case, and acting like MS made a categorical statement that is thus proven wrong, and so the OP’s friend is justified in somehow partially blaming Microsoft for his misfortune.
The fact that Microsoft wasn’t helpful in this case doesn’t entitle them to a share of the blame, regardless of their general and carefully hedged marketing statements about activation. They don’t have an obligation to be helpful in every case, and even less so in this case where they see no revenue from the second sale.
I was not at all encouraged by affluence to switch to a mac. In fact it was fiscal sense that confirmed that I would get every bit as much functionality out of Linux as I would out of an Apple product.
I think you are conflating indulgence with affluence.
Actually, MS did exactly what you just quoted. From their point of view, the proper license for that copy was the development license, which includes a time limit. They made sure that copy of Windows was licensed as such. It’s not their fault your friend didn’t know the terms of the license he was getting. MS made sure your friend got exactly what was proper for the license he had, which is what they said they’d do.
As for letting the customer know, MS does that. If you go to their website you will find there are tons of pages about licensing. It’s pretty much impossible that, as a consumer, you will stumble upon a download from MS without being told exactly what the license is. Even if you somehow managed to get onto the technet or developer parts of the site (unlikely unless you’re specifically looking for that), MS makes it quite clear what’s going on. The problem here is that no matter what MS does, eventually they have to provide a download link. Once someone has that download link, they can provide just that and skip all the informational pages about the license. Which is exactly what happened.
In short, someone other than MS lied to your friend. Someone other than MS made sure your friend did not get the link to the license. Someone other than MS committed fraud. Microsoft has no control over that. Ethically speaking, why would anyone think it’s ok to steal from MS when MS did nothing at all wrong?
That being said, I honestly don’t think ethics are really a big concern here. If your friend had ethics, it would have never occurred to him that he is justified in stealing from someone because he got scammed. If your friend does not have ethics, well, ethical considerations aren’t going to stop him from hitting up a torrent site, are they?
Except, he WAS running a legal, licenced version of Windows. It’s just that his license was only good for 6 months. Your friend was able to activate the software because it was a legitimate copy of Windows with a legitimate product key.
The preson who scammed your friend was the guy who sold a trial version of Windows on ebay, without telling your friend it was a trial version.
Microsoft didn’t do anything.
If you want to pirate software, go ahead and do it, but blaming Microsoft is kind of silly.
As you so rightly point out Microsoft use weasel words to ensure that.
They are perfectly entitled to be completely useless at what they claimed they set out to do.
Legally, they are blameless.
But in terms of CS, or even just general common sense they’re just plain hopeless in this instance and anyone who suffers because they failed to do what they so easily could have done is perfectly entitled to be annoyed.
They said: ‘properly licensed’ and it wasn’t properly licensed, even for the time it was in use because the OP’s ‘friend’ was not a developer and MS did not take the opportunity to make it clear on activation exactly what type of license applied, which would have saved OP from being scammed and got them another sale as he purchased a legitimate copy.
Which was inexcusably incompetent of them when they had the opportunity to spell out exactly what the situation was at no cost to themselves and with the possible benefit of an extra legitimate sale and even the possibility to take action against some scam artist who causing people to use improperly licensed software.
I think you’re way overstating the CS faux-pas here. Anyone purchasing it through legitimate channels is going to clearly know that they’re getting a release version that’s indefinitely licensed; anyone purchasing a developer release through their MSDN account will know through other means that it’s time-limited. Virtually the only people served by obviously informing them at activation time of the version they’ve bought will be people like the OP, purchasing through a grey channel and uncertain what they’ve bought because they don’t trust the vendor.
If you ask a marketing person at MS if that’s a segment they’re worried about upsetting with poor CS, I doubt you’ll get an affirmative answer.
