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$500M Piracy Ring Busted In China
Blahbooboo3 writes "Reported by several news organizations, pirated software worth more than $500 million has been seized by authorities in China as part of a joint operation run by Chinese police and the FBI. Microsoft estimates that the software piracy of an international counterfeiting syndicate, over the past six years, cost the company at least $2 billion in lost software revenue. Microsoft said that key information in the investigation came from its Windows Genuine Advantage program, an anti-piracy system that can check whether an OS is legit. It's generally accepted that Microsoft has done well out of software piracy: it helps products become widely used, and as the market matures, people start to pay for their software. And this has been a major factor in Windows beating Linux in China, as Bill Gates has admitted."
Codename "Summer Solstice" - no, not a porn film, but the name of the FBI operation encompassing multiple copyright investigations - including the one in question.
(link is to the FBI press release for this case).
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Apparently Microsoft has decided that the market is now mature enough to start tightening up on the availability of pirate versions. They have the 90% market penetration, now they want to get the money out of that market. The first hit was free now it is time to pay. The Chinese government has been under a lot of pressure to show more concern about "intellectual property" so let the dog and pony begin.
There is always Linux Genuine Advantage http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/ to keep it safe from piracy.
I've always been amused by the figures that are put on software piracy.
Unlike things like producing a line of denim clothing and putting the Levis brand on it, creating pirated software costs virtually nothing. It takes just as much effort to copy a DVD containing your latest vacation photos as copying a DVD containing a $10k software package.
Just because they discovered a few thousand copies of expensive software doesn't mean that it either cost that much to produce, or has that much sale value (pirated software sells for far less). Neither does it mean that the loss in sales is nearly as much, as many of those who buy/download pirated software would never have bought the software in the first place.
The main reason is that once people use Windows, they get locked in. Incompatible file formats, refusal to interoperate with anything other than Windows. The only choice they have after that is to continue to pirate or pay an enormous switching cost to go to Linux or pay the tax and become even more locked into MSFT. Since piracy is so rampant in those parts of the world, they will switch to Linux last. Though China and India are poor and could ill afford to pay full price for Windows, and you would logically expect them to be switching to Linux first, they wont because it is so easy to pirate Windows. So MSFT will protest and go through all the motions of fighting piracy but in reality it knows it is the piracy of windows that is keeping Linux at bay.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Software? How about movies? Shoot, crack down on that and everyone in Hollywood could be eating caviar and crapping gold bricks. Oh, wait. They already do.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
But that is the fallacy of such an argument. They say that the software traded has a value of $500 million, but the truth is that this is the value placed on it at western RRP prices. The true value of the software is much closer to the actual revenues that the pirates derive. This makes the revenue stream probably closer to a hundredth of that ($200 rrp say selling as a pirate copy for $5). If the pirates could make their $500 million, you bet they would.
You taxes pay for the US infrastructure that allowed companies like microsoft to arise, and thus companies pay back into the tax system. But when foreign counterfeiters reap the benefits of the labor of American companies, your taxes are paying for their profits. Busting counterfeiters is good for taxes, and a good use of government money, not bad.
Now, I know slashdot hates copyright enforcement, and the tactics of the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA are deplorable. Microsoft certainly benefits in some way from software adoption due to piracy. But before you crucify me for supporting police action against counterfeiters, keep this in mind:
These counterfeiters were selling what appeared to be genuine software, at normal retail prices. They forged the holograms, faked the boxes, and generated the serial numbers. The consumers buying the software were unaware of what was going on.
Imagine buying a copy of Micrsoft Vista, and shelling out the full $250 or whatever for VistaFlavorX(tm). You install it and everything runs fine. Then, six months later the computer locks you out when Microsoft realizes it's pirated.
Putting aside the issue of WGA, can you not realize how much that would suck for the mom and pop consumer? These chinese counterfeiters were not the "little guys," and they were certainly not "sticking it to the man."
They were profiting off American companies, American labor, American tax dollars, and in the end they were screwing over the little guy.