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Teacher Avoids Getting Sent to Siberia For Piracy
Piracy Support Line writes "Russian principal Alexander Ponosov will not be visiting Siberia any time soon, at least not for the allegedly illegal Microsoft software that were preloaded on the computers they bought and Microsoft supported the reseller's story. Although Bill Gates rejected Mikhail Gorbachev's personal appeal for mercy on behalf of the teacher, the judge was kinder. Judge Elvira Mosheva decided to dismiss the case because 'Microsoft's financial damage is too insignificant for a criminal investigation.'"
Let me be the first to say "In Soviet Russia..."
Lemee see....
1: Administrator buys what he thinks is a legit copy. It isnt.
2: Gorbachev AND Gates are tossing words around. Erm, HOLY SHIT. Big names in each corner.
3: Russia already has warned any researcher in coming to the USA (dmitri skylarov vs adobe)
4: Do we trust a US company or open source that anybody can review? China already supports Red Flag Linux.
5: Putin came out in defense of the administrator. What he says, goes.
Need we say more? The cards are stacked against MS. They back off, and then they go "soft" on copyright violations, but they are the big bullies if they do go ahead.
The financial damage was too insignificant? That's a rather strange reason to dismiss a case, as it violates the letter of the law. It's not a bad idea, except that is has a massive potential for abuse.
It's just sad that court costs are so high, and you can't sue for anywhere close to the actual damage.
The government can't save you.
Nice FUD job though. Gotta get those ad impressions going.
Microsoft could have handled this differently and spun the whole thing to their advantage. This could have been a "Genuine Advantage" moment. "See? Make sure your pre-installed software comes with the original disks and software keys! We'll let you off the hook, but all you out there please learn from Mr. Ponosov's predicament and deal only with reputable certified Microsoft resellers" or some such.
But instead they turned the other cheek, and a teacher almost was sentenced to prison in Siberia over something as simple as missing software keys. And a Russian judge showed more compassion and understanding of the matter than Bill Gates. Those are the facts, and they do not look good. This is, and rightfully should be, a PR nightmare for Microsoft.
A shame really. The Gates Foundation gives away piles of cash for humanitarian goals, but events like this let you know where that money is really coming from. And what people behind it are really like. Business first, before anything else, always.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
In soviet russia, courts treat you justly!
seriously.. we have to go to a former communist nation to get rulings the US should have?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Anybody have a stack of Edubuntu disks that start up using Russian that they can send to this guy?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Normally a small damage amount is not grounds for bringing a CRIMINAL case against a person. Rather, the matter would have to be pursued via CIVIL law. And that would mean Microsoft would have to sue the person directly, not get the state to go after them.
Microsoft has subverted the laws of the world and made minor acts of copyright infringement into criminal acts. This way Microsoft gets the taxpayer to fund a massive witch hunt against people, mostly good, who have done little wrong. And in the great scheme of things, minor copyright infringement is among the world's least important problems.
The way Microsoft has turned the government against the people is a good example of how rotten the company is -- and how Microsoft will stop at nothing to corrupt and destroy the world.
>> Teacher Avoids Getting Sent to Siberia For Piracy
Clearly they are not teaching the three "Arrrrr!"s in school these days.
They pirated it.
Sure I know it is "haha" since Microsoft in the recieving end, but take the context put linux and gpl on one end, and you will realize that a court could rule that since no one is placed in a financial disadvantage people can abuse the gpl. When Microsoft gets screwed over by something it is just a matter of time before someone applies to opensource stuff.
From what I had read, the teacher was warned once, and he still continued using pirated software. Frankly he did break the law, he deserves a punishment, maybe not prison, but atleast slap on the wrist. People should be encouraged to follow licenses be in Sony's music license, microsoft's eula, or FSF's gpl.
Send him some ubuntu discs
It's OK if you get your panties in a bunch when you see these stories. Really. But wearing down your #4 key to do your hilarious "M$" thing and trying to desperately spin your "OMFG IS TEH EVILZ" bull is just not going to work. Save it for when you actually have a point to make. Microsoft does plenty of bad things.
I'm from a country near Russia and we use piracy software everywhere. Companies have no licence for M$ software... I had very big problems with closed source software and now i use GPL software only, because it's better. I'm so indifferent about intellectual property :P
"humans knowledge belong to the humans"
Disclaimer: Now I'm _not_ a F/OSS zealot usually, and probably half the /. crowd would normally find me leaning towards the MS side. Heck, by /. standards I've even been accused of being a MS fanboy before, although God knows it's not hard to get called that here. But in this case I find it sad and counter-productive for F/OSS too.
Yes, _if_ he had used GPL software, all that would have happened. Except he didn't use OSS, he just went and pirated Windows instead. And the whole case just created a precedent for that too. There are millions of computers in Russia which could have a financial incentive to use some free (at least as in beer) software instead or some cheap local software. Now they'll keep using a pirated version of Windows instead. Congrats.
All piracy helps kill isn't the big software houses, but they help kill their small competitors. Piracy didn't kill MS Office, but it helped nearly kill Star Office and the horde of smaller options that used to exist. Sure, they missed 90% of the Office features that 90% of the population never needed, but they would have been plenty enough and cheap for writing a recipe or a CV in. If the option really were "do I get MS Office for a shitload of money, or Someone1234 Write for very little money, or KWrite for free", the second and third options would look a lot more viable. But when the option becomes "I can copy all them for free, so do I get MS Office or Someone1234 Write or KWrite", the choice also becomes "WTF, let's get MS Office then."
People don't all drive Ferraris, so some go buy a modest small car instead, because they can't pirate a car. So a lot more options exist. In the software world they pirate the big thing, and let the smaller budget options die.
Worse yet, the illusion of ubiquitousness helped kill competition even further past some point. Let's all pirate Office at home because that's what we use at work too. And let's then all install Office at work, because, wth, everyone already knows how to use their pirated copy at home.
And what do you think that does to F/OSS in Russia too? There could have been local distros, small local companies maybe customizing it for schools or offering cheap tech support/installations, etc. There could have been kids learning to use KDE or Gnome instead of XP's shitty Fischer Price interface (unless you disable the fluff), and maybe having a look at the code, in those schools. Now they'll all grow on pirated Windows software, and continue to not even understand the "use the free choice, if you can't afford the behemoth" idea. Probably not even understanding why and how it would help to contribute some code to the free choice. Why would you bother when you know everyone will just pirate Windows instead? Way to go.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Which is irrelevant to this case too. We're not talking some security researcher who disclosed a security vulnerability, nor even cracked some DRM, but about someone who allegedly pirated some programs. I'm willing to bet that there was exactly zero research involved.
Sorry, but... Here I'll call outright bullshit. Sorry, this is _not_ about "let's use F/OSS instead of closed source", it's about using pirated closed source programs. If they wanted to support F/OSS, they could have done so, but no, they wanted to keep using Windows for free. There's a freakin' huge difference there.
And spare me the emotional parts about trust, please. So they can trust closed source if it's pirated? Does Windows become more open if you use a pirated serial number? Does Office save its files in a less proprietary format just because it's on a CD-R? WTF?
There _are_ good arguments for trusting F/OSS instead of closed source programs and proprietary formats. That senator from IIRC Peru made a damn good case for example. But this case isn't it. It's plain and simple about pirating closed source programs. If you will, it's exactly the _opposite_: these guys decided that they can trust MS and closed source all right, they just don't want to pay.
Step out of the "yay, they stuck it to MS" mentality a little, and you may see that there's little to celebrate. There would have been ways to make a pro-OSS or anti-closed-source point, but that was not what happened here. They just gave a vote of confidence to MS, if anything. Price being equal (free as in beer, even if by virtue of being stolen beer) they just decided they'd rather use Windows.
And, without going into your other points in detail, for the people of Russia I see even less to celebrate in this mockery of justice. It just shows that the whole country, including prominent figures like Gorbachev and (scarily enough) their president Putin, just can't wrap their head around such notions as "rule of the law". They're still stuck in the soviet era mentality, where "justice" is something based on scapegoats, favoritism, nepotism and rich powerful guys punishing the little guys they don't like. E.g., Gorbachev just showed that he has no freakin' clue what's the difference between a criminal case and Bill Gates persecuting a poor teacher.
If that's the kind of politicians and mentality that Russia still has, then I feel genuinely sorry for those people.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This guy hasn't killed anyone, hasn't abused anyone, has been educating children. Frankly both M$ and the gpl can take a running jump. This is a human being doing good in the world. Punish him and the whole world is just that little bit worse.
Come on, I hate microsoft as much as the next /.er, but Bill Gates did not REJECT anything. He is not a cop. He is not a judge. It isn't up to him to innocence or guilt or drop charges in Russia.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Only if you have more money than I do.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
I fail to understand why you youngsters always defend Microsoft. Perhaps you haven't been around long to have seen all the alternatives to Microsoft's junk. Yes they are evil. Yes they are American. To a lot of people in the rest of the world (you know, where the dragons are), that is a particularly bad combination at the moment.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Well, under the Soviets, there were basically three classes of people in Siberia.
(1) Convicts in prison camps. Basically like the chain gangs in the Southern US in the 1930s, except a hell of a lot worse. The convicts in turn were divided into politicals and ordinary criminals, the latter often being given positions as trusties in the camps, and lording it over the politicals.
(2) People released from prison or deported. Usually tied to a Siberian town or village and not able to live in any Russian city or in European Russia for a certain number of years.
(3) Free people. People whose families either lived there for generations, or people lured by the promise of higher wages, patriotic Komsomol fervor, etc to work in Siberia. Also some native tribes, similar to Inuit in Alaska and northern Canada.
-b.
This story scares me ! I am an network administrator for a few places including a school. I have been struggling to keep unlicensed software off of our computer network - unfortunately some teachers take it upon themselves to install software, say Microsoft Office, because they cannot waste the 5 minutes it takes to get used to OpenOffice.org.
I have given them lots of software options on their computer: All computers dual boot Windows XP (licensed!) and SLED10. All computers have lots of Free Software to do just about any task and most programs are very easy to learn. Unfortunately we have a few programs the teachers have to run that require Administrator rights, this opens the door for them to install any software. I have had to remove quite a few programs: MS Office, Adobe software, Hallmark Card software, etc.
If I am the Network Admin, under U.S. Law, am I LEGALLY responsible if the school comes up having unlicensed software installed during an Audit ??
I have had this discussion with the Superintendent and he is seriously requiring all our Vendors to have their programs run under Linux within 2 years (as if they actually would care to lose us as a customer), which would allow us to destory the Windows partitions on all of our computers. Needless to say, I have a feeling within the next year or so I will have to become a WINE expert.
No, that's San Francisco.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"