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Gorbachev Asks Gates to Intervene in Piracy Case
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has asked Bill Gates to intervene in a software piracy case against the headmaster of a middle school. If convicted, Alexander Ponosov could face detention in a Siberian prison camp for his crime.
Obviously Bill Gates has no control over the Russian judicial system. However, Gorbachev's appeal is more to show the connection between big business and governments around the world. While it may not do anything legally, it certainly paints M$ iin a bad light (and Putin). This is perhaps our only way of fighting powerful corporate interests. We call out the REAL culprits and hurt their image (and perhaps profits) with an expose. If we want to be successful we have to use the media to fight these companies and their desctructive practices. Of course M$ will try to distance themselves from the case.
If this teacher has the backing of people like Gorbachev, I doubt he will spend any time in a gulag. I am a lot more concerned about the poeple who never make it into the headlines...
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
I lived in Russia for two year. The problem with this as I see it is that outside of Moscow/St. Petersburg it is nearly impossible to find a legitimate copy of Windows. I've never seen one anyway. The same goes for music and DVDs, I wouldn't have known where to go to get a legit copy of anything, but the pirated versions were EVERYWHERE. In Russia they can just assume that anyone with a computer has something illegal on it. I would imagine that many people don't even realize that they're using pirated software, they're just using the software that they bought from some vendor on the street, and that's what everyone else in the whole country is doing, so why shouldn't they? It's probably mostly the teens who are more connected with the rest of the world through the internet cafes that have a good understanding of what's pirated and what's not. A lot of the adults, especially the farther you get from the capitol, don't even understand what piracy is. Computers are not ubiquitous the way they are in America. Just my $.02, having lived in Russia.