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Microsoft Launches Comical Effort to Fight Piracy
theodp writes "A week before the release of Vista, Microsoft is expanding its fight against software piracy with a new educational effort that includes comics. Making its U.S. debut Monday, the Genuine Fact Files campaign aims to make Microsoft's message more accessible to a broader audience. BTW, Vista's Software Protection Platform (SPP) can put unvalidated copies of the software into a reduced-functionality mode. From the article: 'Microsoft plans to draw attention to it through banner ads on its Web sites and promotional material that it will hand out through partners. By using comics, the company aims to make the message more accessible to a broader audience. They are black and white, in a style similar to newspaper comics.'"
It depends on what age group Microsoft ultimately targets with their campaign. A 9 or 10-year-old would be much more likely to accept their propaganda than, say, a 14-year-old. Microsoft seems keenly aware that older people can generally recognize their campaign for what it is, but that younger people won't be as cynical, and might not differentiate this from anything else they are taught in the classroom.
Do you like German cars?
My wife is a perfect example of someone who *doesn't* need Windows. She logs on in the AM to check her Yahoo mail account, checks the local news, buys some stuff from Amazon or eBay, then heads to work.
That's not a matter of not needing Windows, that's a matter of someone not needing a desktop PC at all. Imagine a cell phone cradle that supported a keyboard/mouse/monitor console. She has one console at home, has one at work, and she carries her "desktop" in her purse.
I'm still curious why we are still years away from practical products like this.
Paying 200-300 bucks for a personal installation of windows for only ONE computer is incredibly lame. That may have been fine back in the days of Windows 95 when most households only had one computer because they commonly cost an average of 1500-2000 dollars. Nowadays they are going for less than 500, so it seems more common for families to have 2 or even 3 PCS. Why charge nearly 1000 dollars so they can all "upgrade" for a single house? If they ever expect to sell Vista in the magnitude they desire and get the software behind it in a reasonable timeframe, they NEED to include at least 3 personal keys for each $300 vista license, otherwise they'll have to wait for people to replace their PCs with storebought Vista computers.
Of course after saying all that, vista upgrades will be so uncommon, buying a new PC will be pretty much the only guaranteed way most people will have Vista at all. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
... is that they think the issue is education. Everyone I know of that pirates software does it quite knowingly. Even my parents, who are 60-70 years old, are fully aware that they are running pirated copies of Windows.
Does Microsoft (and along the same lines, the RIAA, MPAA, etc) believe education is really the problem? I think it's just marketing to justify the draconian measures (DRM and the like) that they want to use to control as much of our daily lives as they can get away with. If it were really about piracy they'd just correct their business model.
"Get the genuine facts campaign"
Are non genuine facts still facts or are they lies ?
It seems Microsofts understanding of the word fact is something which optionally may or not be true which leads me to believe that they are not someone I'm going to be trusting as far as I can throw them.
Is the fact that these is a genuine facts they are presenting us with a genuine fact or its self or is it one of those other not genuine, or partially genuine facts ? Who can tell.
Background: I am a Unit Commissioner with the local Boy Scouts and I have a Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems (Security and AI), so I am teaching the Computers Merit Badge classes at our local "Merit Badge College".
In Boy Scouts, you have to do all of the numbered requirements. (Some are "Do three of these" and list, for example, A-H sub-requirements).
Requirement 9 (the January 2006 revision) has three mandatory sub-sections.
(paraphrased - I don't have the exact text)
A. If a friend offers you a copy of a game or a software package, is it legal to accept it?
B. When is it legal to download music from the Internet and when is it illegal?
C. Why do Copyright laws exist?
I know this has been discussed many months ago, but I felt that it was appropriate to mention it again since it shows Microsoft's reach and influence.
Is it just me or did the interview and the cartoon seem to be suggesting that people stay away from blogs?
I mean seriously, who posts pirated stuff on blogs? I thought it was all peer to peer these days?
Only other thing I discovered from the cartoon is that if a chubby guy called Randall sucking on a chocolate bar like it was a wang comes up to your desk odds on your going to be fired.
...and the usage continued well into the 19th century too.
Gilbert & Sullivan wrote "Pirates of Penzance" in 1879, inspired by the copyright "Pirates" in New York who had come to watch their London performances of their previous show (HMS Pinafore) and then "ripped" the words and music and performed something very similar in New York a short time later.
Without paying royalties of course.
In fact, to avoid "Pirates" itself being pirated, G&S took the trouble to perform it FIRST in New York (they both travelled there personally -- and travelling trans-Atlantic was only by slow boat in those days) and establish ownership and royalty channels, before sailing back home to London to premiere it there.