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Ebay and Microsoft Fight Software Piracy
illeism writes "E-commerce News is reporting that Microsoft is going after Ebay sellers offering pirated copies of Microsoft software. From the article 'The suits do not name eBay as a defendant and Microsoft indicated that it has received extensive cooperation from the auction giant in the past as it tried to ferret out piracy. In fact, Microsoft said it asked eBay to remove some 50,000 suspicious auctions during 2005 alone ... The suits are mainly against individuals and cover alleged counterfeit sales of several Microsoft programs, including Windows and Office XP and older versions, such as Office 2000.'" More interestingly, the article flatly states that MS has no hope of ending piracy. The suits are apparently meant to 'protect consumers'.
True. But I have purchased DVDs and software on ebay, some are blatently copies but some sell as the real deal only to be fake - these are what piss me off.
I buy used DVDs because I don't care if I'm the first person to see it or not and I can get a title for 33% of retail this way but about every third DVD I get turns out to be a pirated copy. To be fair some of these are really high quality BUT some are filmed at the multiplex in glorious shakeycam (TM) with added foreign subtitles (non removable) thrown in at no extra cost.
I want to pay a "fair" price. A fair price for used or OEM software is not the same as a CDR with a photocopied licence code.
I've had my software sold on eBay pulled by M$. The claim was that the software was pirated. The ad stated that the software was genuine; CD was real w/ key, box and license. But I wasn't sure that it had all of the paperwork. M$ then claimed that this was a "Pirated" copy. I got in contact with the person at M$, and after a few words, offered to bring it over. He declined. I asked how I could tell if I had all of the advertising papers, and he said that was my responsibility. M$ has an interesting definition of what is "Pirated".