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BusinessWeek Advocates Microsoft Piracy
xzvf writes "In a lengthy editorial, BusinessWeek advocates allowing users in China and India to pirate Microsoft software so that it can obtain the same level of market share there as it has in the US and Europe. From the piece: 'If Microsoft succeeds in discouraging piracy of Windows in China and India, it is far more likely to drive the user of the pirated software into the Linux camp than it is to steer them into the land of paid-up Windows users. Microsoft's IP management strategy in China and India should instead focus on securing the victory of Windows on the desktops of all PC users. That may require deliberately lax enforcement efforts against pirated copies of Windows for the short and medium term. Only after the Linux threat lessens might Microsoft have the luxury of tightening up piracy protections, as it is now doing in the West. Microsoft can afford to be patient.'"
So is the moral of the story is "Let them pirate your merchandise or they might use the competitions"?
BusinessWeek has built good thesis on a bad assumption. Windows piracy is already rampant in China and India. It's harvesting time for Microsoft.
"Rights abandonment" only works for trade marks. Copyright is automatic when a work is created (in countries subscribing to the Berne Convention anyway), and Patents are governed by time-limited issuance. Microsoft can abandon all it wants, but it still has the law behind it whenever it decides to sue someone over copyright/patent/EULA infringements. The only thing that could be argued is that if MS was seen to be obviously targeting ONLY specific people/groups with its suits, it could be in violation of business monopoly restrictions.
...to this article, being that it seems virtually devoid of morality?
Mr. Chesbrough isn't even subtle about it either--he openly advocates "selective enforcement" of the law to maintain dominance and smother the competition. He goes on further to explain how as a market goes from creation and growth phases into maturity (ie. they have their users trapped) that MS should then suddenly ramp up enforcement and start collecting payback. This is how drug dealers and the mafia operate, not how legitimate businesses are supposed to operate!
Either this clown is as ethically challenged as an Enron accountant or else he is a masterful troll. I can only hope it is the latter and he is trying to bring "A Modest Proposal" into the information age. I'd be careful if I were him though, because over the years, MS has gradually been moving towards the "Mafia business model" and is very nearly there: They already have the opinion that "if the Chinese are pirating it should at least be our stuff", have "favourite customers" that pay only a small fraction of the US retail price...and they are already making patent "protection money" deals with skittish Linux companies. They need no more encouragement from the likes of Business Week and its editors.
This is the text book behavior of a monopoly. Gain ~100% market share by giving away, or selling product at a low price.
Once the buyer is hooked, hike the price.
That's also the text book behavior of a drug dealer.
Developers: We can use your help.
China and India have different IP laws, and different law courts than the US, and anyone operating in the US is held to US law. The law clearly states what end users can do with MS's IP (almost nothing), and MS grants further rights to end users IN THE US through its EULA.
If you read their EULAs for different countries, you will notice that they are different, due to differing laws and legal systems. This is called living on planet Earth, and does not give you the ability to use MS software for free because the rights MS grants you to use their property are too confusing. If you can't understand your rights to use their software, then legally you have NO rights to use their software, other than what is spelled out in Fair Use doctrine (which doesn't cover as much as people think it does). As I said before, the only weakness in MS's tactics is that they could be sued for anticompetitive actions. To do this however, you'd first have to prove that they were indeed promoting piracy of their products or at least being very specific in who they targeted with their lawsuits.