Exactly. Should every copy of Windows now come with a warning “Hey there end user! If you bought this copy of Windows from some sketchy dude on Ebay who only gave you a download link and a product key, you may have just been ripped off!”
Why should MS have to remind you again and again what kind of license it is? Are you sure you want to install Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64 Edition? We’re about to active and you may find out you’re SOL so are you really sure? Activation was fine but your software may or may not expire in six months. Are you really sure this was the edition you wanted? Seriously. If you bought it from a legitimate retail channel, you’d know what the status was. If you bought it from a legitimate developer channel you’d know what the status was. If you bought it through a special offer (Microsoft’s Ultimate Steal for example, probably cheaper than the Ebay copy and actually legit) you’d know what the status was (upgrade copies only). It’s only when you get the software from some guy, somewhere that you run into this kind of problem. And Microsoft somehow owes people something for not taking this into consideration?
The way Microsoft makes it clear is by putting the software in colorful sealed boxes which can be found on store shelves. For example, my retail copy of Vista has the edition in huge letters on the front, a label on the top with a hologram and directions to a website to check authenticity, an entire side panel of system requirements (including a website in which you can check the license agreement) and a bottom panel that specifies 32 bit and how to get 64 bit if you need it. So Microsoft really does hold the end user’s hand as much as possible to try to make sure they don’t buy the wrong copy by mistake. But the Ebay seller stripped all this good info away… I wonder why?
Stealing the software because you think it’s worth paying a fraud artist for but not worth paying Microsoft for is perverse, especially bearing in mind all the efforts they put into making sure end users can tell the difference between legit and non-legit Windows versions.
lol @ saps with internal conflict over whether or not to grab a freebie from avaricious, disingenuous multi billion-dollar corporations!
FYI, M$ types make the bulk of their exorbitant income from big business customers, not Joe Halfshilling. Moreover, with all the glitches, bugs, viruses etc their shovelware suffers from, they should be giving the stuff away! Not denying poor schleps recompense for dud versions of their crap that’s hocked on eBay. :rolleyes:
Moral: Torrents are the consumer’s friend.
So rich people reserve to be stolen from simply because they’re rich? If you were rich, would you accept this attitude from people who are close enough to you to make off with your belongings?
So what you’re saying is that all those people who bought Toyotas this year should have stolen them instead?
A Windows machine can come in an infinite variety of hardware combinations. Inevitably this is going to lead to some things not working together. And again this is Microsoft’s fault somehow.
Buy a Rolex from the trenchcoat wearing dude on the corner. Find out it’s fake and it doesn’t work. Complain to Rolex about it. Good luck.
Torrents are the lazy thief’s friend. The OP has had his trial period and has decided the software isn’t worth paying for because his ripoff copy stopped worked after a while. So indeed, he should just rip them off again. But he shouldn’t publicly agonize about needing to do it because he fell for a scam.
The term ‘rich’ implies having vastly more than the norm. In this respect yes - the rich should be disenfranchised of their relative weath to such a degree as to make society more equitable. People only need so many villas and yachts. Beyond this it’s wanton spitting in the face of Capitalism.
If I were rich, no one whould have to steal from me as I wouldn’t be rich for long – short of enough to subsist upon with a few minor luxuries, my riches would go to those who need it more. I hope you’re tucked in all warm and cozy after walking past countless beggers and vagrants sleeping on the street.
Pray there is no god.
If Toyota didn’t cough up a brand-spanking-new equivalent vehicle, and cover any costs relating to inconvenience, to each and every one of the consumer affected, yes - by all means, steal one. It’s your constitutional right to receive exactly what was advertised and what you paid for. Why wouldn’t it be justified to claim what is indeed yours?
(NB: I mean nick it from a dealership, not someone else who’s paid for theirs… suffice to say).
Stop dick-riding Bill Gates and his ‘I’ve lived it up all my life and now I want to give a dollar from my hand while my pockets are lined with silk because I’m getting closer to death and am beginning to embrace spirituality/religion and am wetting my poindexter pants at the prospect of maybe having to answer for my mortal actions’ pseudo philanthropy. :rolleyes:
eBay ain’t no paedo flasher.
Why the OP posted a thread on this is as baffling to me as you, though likely from different respective moral viewpoints. All I’m saying is, there is no grounds for vacilation here and why he didn’t simply pirate the software in the first place is confounding. It’s an OPERATING SYSTEM - your computer is e-waste without it!
People rape, pillage and murder with gay abandon yet get sweaty palms over downloading a few 1s and 0s… :smack:
Don’t call other posters saps in this forum. Please save it for the Pit.
While I’m at it let me remind everybody about the registration agreement:
I don’t think anyone has done this so far - commenting on the OP’s friend’s behavior or discussing a hypothetical wouldn’t count as encouraging illegal activity in my opinion.
Other than the money going to Microsoft instead of some random eBay scammer, in the grand scheme of things is this really substantially more ethical? Are you allowed to use TechNet products for non-evaluation purposes? I was under the impression that TechNet subscriptions were not intended for daily use environments.
Nope. AFAIK, MS has no problem with people using them for any purpose or any length of time. In fact, even after my first technet subscription expired, all of my OS installs remained valid. The only thing they object to is selling or disclosing the keys. I assume that if you got 10 keys for a particular W7 version and each one was always checking in from a different IP address they might cancel your subscription and possibly prosecute you for violating the agreement. But I’ve been using it for over a year on several different computers with no problems at all.
In short, when the Russian government wants to crack down on “dissidents” (really, any group the government doesn’t like) pirated copies of Windows give their police an excuse to kick down doors and start confiscating things.
You don’t think something like that could happen here? I’ve heard lots of government talking heads going on about cyberterrorism and what a grave threat to the nation it is. If the USA’s cyber-cops ever start prosecuting the same way the DEA attacks drugs, your pirated copy of Windows is all the excuse they need to kick down your door and take your computer away.
I decided I was only going to use legit copies about midway through the XP cycle because Microsoft was making it harder and harder to get full use out of a pirated copy. Activation, validation, blacklisted keys… it was just too much hassle to have to reformat every six months and hope that the new copy of XP would actually work, would pass all the tests and wasn’t pre-infected with a virus. Windows 7 has the best anti-piracy measures yet and MS actively keeps up to date on which cracks and workarounds people are using to bypass activation.
So bearing in mind that MS is actively working against pirates, offers the software for cheap enough if you shop smart (not talking Ebay here) and may very well sell you out to the cops who will then merrily kick down your door and haul you and your computer off to the gulag… I think I’ll stick to legitimate channels. Y’all want to pirate? Enjoy it while it lasts.
No, the technet subscription license is only for use within a testing and evaluation setting. If you have a technet sub, you’re still supposed to buy a personal license for using the stuff on your home computers or any computers not involved with testing. The idea behind technet is to give hardware vendors a broad license they can use for evaluating lots of different hardware builds. Cite with relevant quote from technet’s eula. A person using it the way you describe should get an MSDN subscription instead.
Clearly MS needs to hire more psychics so they can tell if a person is trying to register the wrong thing and possibly an armed strike force so they can swoop in and read the license terms to the user so that there’s no accidental misunderstanding about, for example, ebay’s role as a software vendor.*
I know countless people that use it in precisely the way described and have done so without incident for several years (at least).
The EULA is what I would call CYA language in case the situation ever gets out of control. Otherwise, you have to be completely out of touch to not see that this is a traditional ‘wink and nod’ to techies. MS knows that people who know enough about computers and software will simply hack their OS anyway. This is a way for them to get some revenue from those people without giving away the store to the unwashed multitude who think that the EULA actually means something or is even enforceable.
Do you really think that MS is going to sue me and execute a search warrant for all of my machines to see how I’ve been using their software? Hell, don’t you think they already know that from the feedback they get from my 4 continuously active machines?
I’m sure you think you’ve caught me out with your “discovery”, but everyone who uses technet knows the EULA is bullshit. If you could get an official comment from MS, sure they would say ‘no, bad developer, bad’. But everybody knows that’s never going to happen.
edit - the base subscription is $150 not the $250 mentioned in the article.
It’s not about “catching you out”, it’s about providing factual information to the discussion.
No, I don’t think MS is going to sue you or sic the phone cops on you or anything. I don’t think they really care if the individual in the OP personally cracks his copy of Win7, either. None of that changes the fact that the license for Technet says you’re using the service improperly.
It’s true that Microsoft can’t be bothered to track down every individual who ignores their eula. But that’s a far cry from saying they don’t mind their software being used outside the license or that they don’t expect their eulas to matter.
The fact that it’s not cost-effective to stop individuals from using their software in unlicensed ways doesn’t mean that they’re cool when it happens. They probably have a whole building full of people plotting ways to make it more cost effective. And when they do, the courts will probably back them.
I see your point but you’re wrong about thinking there is no merit to mine.
For the many, many years that Win 3.1, win95 and 98 were around, it was a standing joke that MS could have limited access to pirated copies. Everyone knew why they didn’t - stifle any possibility of competition. Once they went to an activation scheme, they had to have a safety valve for their techies and developers otherwise everyone would defect to Linux - which will probably happen anyway.
This makes good business sense for them. If you can’t see that, then nothing I say is going to make it any clearer.
Why do you think Unix became so common? Because for the longest time ATT gave it away to academic institutions. If you know anything about DOS, the parallels to UNIX are scary. That’s not an accident. If ATT could have patented the “look and feel” of their OS, MS never would have gotten off the ground.
The practice is so common in the software industry that no one even notices. You make your software free or virtually free (easy to pirate) until you have a stranglehold on your market segment, and then you bend everybody over the counter.
There are only 2 possibilities here:
that MS really expects the EULA to be honored and is unaware of the “abuses” - which is patently absurd - or
they have have tacitly endorsed them - which is a fact.
A more apt comparison would be using your brothers copy of Photoshop. Adobe receives no money. You get to use their software, for free, legally, and never dropped a dime.
In the past it was stupidly easy to get around MS’s copyright protection schemes. If I remember correctly, both all ones and all zeros would work for a license key up to win 98, so that at least implies that the company was less than strict about the security of the scheme. Now, I don’t know if that makes circumventing it justifiable, especially since it’s more difficult to fake a license now than it was then. Making the copyright protection trivial isn’t the same as not pursuing copyright violations, which Microsoft has done. They’ve got a whole team of lawyers and auditors that do nothing but.
Now, is the OP specifically justified? No, not in my opinion. He didn’t want to pay full price, so he effectively bought it out of the trunk of a car instead of a reputable dealer. Even though he had issues with the purchase, he went ahead with it. Later, he found it wasn’t what the guy said it was. The MS EULA is usually specific to the version you’re installing. In my experience, this one would have said it’s a Technet copy. Reading the EULA (or not) is the burden of the person purchasing the license. MS didn’t make any promises about what product was being installed that it did not keep. I think you paid your nickel, and you took your chances. If you’re justified in doing anything, it’s going after the Ebay seller. I’d just download an Ubuntu CD myself, but I am a zealot.
MSDN also has the development constraints around it - like Technet does. The EULAs are pretty similar.
Is MS going to come after someone using an MSDN/Technet license, or a bittorrented copy of their software - unlikely. Does that mean its ethical to use it in violation of the EULA. Nope. I
People claiming that Microsoft was doing it’s duty by validating the temporary developer’s version with no indication that it was anything other than a full version of Windows are incorrect, and perhaps are not familiar with Microsoft’s stated purpose in establishing Windows Genuine Advantage.
When Microsoft rolled out WGA, it was specifically to help people who purchased Windows from a 3rd party and had no way of knowing whether they’d bought a valid copy. As was mentioned above, Microsoft knows that there are people who pirate their software willfully, and there’s not much that MS can do about that. They could try to lock things down really tight, but there will always be another crack, or another workaround, and those people will find it. And many of them would just move to another OS if they really had to, which is probably counter to MS’s business strategy. But what Microsoft can do is stop the people who pirate and sell their software by making their marks aware. The whole point of WGA is to alert people in exactly the OP’s friend’s case that they’ve been ripped off by an unscrupulous third party. And they failed to do that.
On the other hand, the OP’s friend fails the reasonableness test by buying a copy of software off of eBay and expecting that a download link was sufficient. That’s the software version of buying stuff that fell off a truck.
He might have some recourse through Microsoft, though. From the WGA page
