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Microsoft Pirating Their Own Software?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the piracy-is-eeeeeeeevilllll dept.

14ghz writes "Microsoft gave out copies of .NET Visual Studio Pro to attendees of the Microsoft .NET Student Tour. Despite the discs saying "UNLICENSED SOFTWARE -- Illegal without separate license from Microsoft", the freebie didn't contain any license document, and one guy decided to ask the MS conference rep about it. Read the in-progress story."

8 of 469 comments (clear)

  1. Discretionary licensing by mfh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's totally up to Microsoft to determine how to license their software, and whom to license it to.

    What's the fuss? They could license it for free use to recovering crack addicts that live on the 3000 block of 1st street that wear green pants if they wanted to.

    As long as some marketing monkey at MS has the OK from the higher-ups, then it's all good.

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Discretionary licensing by mfh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Except for the fact that MS would have a very hard time proving any malfeasance on the part of the consumer.

      Especially when said consumer was at a conference with several thousand witnesses that did the same thing. Then, concievably, a countersuit could be filed on the grounds of entrapment/false advertising/whatever, i'm not a lawyer, only stating the obvious.

      --
      The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
  2. Not really Piracy by evilviper · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's not really copyright infringement, it's more like false advertising.

    Obviously microsoft has the right to allow you to use the software, with or without a license. The question in this case is:

    Is Microsoft okay with this, or are the higher-ups unaware of what is happening here?

    How can he prove this software is legal?

    Is Microsoft falsly advertising? Software that is only for non-commercial use IS NOT the same as the software that is worth $109, so he did not recieve what was advertised.

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  3. Re:Not pirated by AnotherShep · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On the back of the sleeve the first CD is in. I got the same CDs at an event on the same tour.

  4. Re:In other news: by curious.corn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Of course he works for the evil beast! What would happen if you had to face the choice of dishing out $$$ for M$ $oftware or point you browser to openoffice.org?

    --
    Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Civility, please? by Chymaera · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Although it was wise for the submitter to check whether he was on solid legal grounds, it seems most uncivil of him to bring all this attention to the employee over such a relatively minor matter as this. Sasha seemed to be handling the problem with all expediency, and I imagine the issue would have been resolved had submitter merely waited and continued to correspond with him. Now tens of thousands of people know about this and Sasha risks getting in trouble with his superiors.

    Submitting the site to slashdot was unjustified in light of how the problem was being handled, and it was a breach of trust on the part of the submitter.

  7. Re:I havent installed MS Software for ages but... by zcat_NZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    three words back;

    Norton disk recovery

    You have no idea how LITTLE information a DOS format actually erases do you? "NONE AT ALL"

    Here's a better idea.
    Boot knoppix
    switch to a root shell
    for wipe in 5 4 3 2 1; do dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda ; done ; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
    Go to bed; it'll be all finished by morning.

    --
    455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2