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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.'"
The headline suggests Business Week could be advocating piracy of Microsoft software. This could suggest some bizarre alignment of the stars such that Business Week is Microsoft-averse, but it's clear the opposite is true.
Basically Business Week lays the groundwork as a recommendation to Microsoft to extend and maintain their monopoly, hardly an adversarial position.
I wonder that Microsoft needs this prodding. I suspect they wink and nod as much as they have to to maintain their reach into all markets however they need to do just that. This while screaming publicly about how ripped off they are in countries like China.
From the article, signs point to the very fact Microsoft alreay knows the strategy:
Microsoft is eating their cake and having it too (the correct form, btw).
MS has been going after the large suppliers in China. They have. If they do not, then China and India get it for free, and then the western world will wonder why they are paying an arm/leg for crap software.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What I would like to see MS do is come up with fullproof piracy protection.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
the question is not whether or not microsoft should or should not fight piracy in india and china, the question is whether or not microsoft (and business week) understands that microsoft can't do ANYTHING substantial about piracy in india and china
it's not like microsoft has a gun in it's hand and the question is when microsoft should shoot. microsoft simply has nothing in it's hand at all
and it's just desserts: in the 1800s, american publishers openly flaunted european copyrights. now it's the usa's turn to be on the receiving end of a growing power ignoring the "rights" of an established power base
but don't worry about it microsoft, in 200 years, chinaslashdot.org will carry a story about when china should release the nanobots to punish bangladeshi genome pirates stealing chinese biotech copyrights... and bangladeshi and enlightened chinese observers pointing out that the nanobots would have no effect on stopping the illegal conception of pirated organisms
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
BusinessWeek seems to be encouraging Microsoft to aid and abet a criminal enterprise (piracy).
At the very least this is encouraging Microsoft to behave in a manner that would affect the RICO judgement against them. What would BusinessWeeks liability be?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Basically Business Week lays the groundwork as a recommendation to Microsoft to extend and maintain their monopoly..
When we consider what an abusive monopoly that has been, we have to wonder why Business Week would advocate it. What is a news magazine doing advocating any single business, much less one that has destroyed so many others?
It's doubtful people actually making decisions read Businessweek so it's purpose is not to inform. Most people who really know what's going on in the predatory companies that fill BusinesWeek's glossy pages do not talk to reporters. They have PR drones spin some kind of story. The target audience is gullible young MBA types and others thinking about how to build a retirement fund. For the MBA types it's like porn, where their hero's are portrayed in everything but a centerfold. Those who's earnings are invested in big dumb savings plans can take false solice as big dumb companies like M$ are claimed to be solid, eternal and not in anyway like that other Worldcom or Enron stuff that cost them so much.
Real news and enlightenment come from considering simple facts. M$ can put off their "anti-piracy" efforts, but it might as well be forever. M$ is no more going to be able to exploit the world with a software monopoly than they are ever going to understand why. There is no way M$ will be able to purchase the kind of complicity it would take to re-create their monopoly world wide. The US, for all it's talk about business freedom, was far easier to purchase than India and China will be. Those governments have their own self interest to consider and arguments about the well being of a US company won't apply there.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wonder what does BusinessWeek gain by being pro-Microsoft. Are they owned by the software giant? Is their growth somehow tied to that of proprietary software? Do they think their licenses will be terminated if they show disrespect for MS? The real question BusinessWeek should address is not how to make Microsoft more implanted in the developing nations but why they think that situation would be a good thing.
That it's "theft". It's really just "unauthorized - and unpaid - marketing and distribution."
And many business people understand that. If they can use it to their advantage, they do, without any of the moral "hand wringing" that others do.
There was a clothing company who discovered that a Hong Kong or Taiwan outfit was counterfeiting their brand. Instead of bringing legal action, they went to the company and bought it out, subsequently releasing the same "counterfeit" product as their "bargain brand."
It's only people who don't have control over their own product - like artists under contract to music companies - or companies who don't know how to take advantage of or compete with so-called "piracy" who moan and groan about it.
The solution to every problem of this sort is: how can I take advantage of it?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Question for a lawyer: Does Microsoft's deliberate allowance of piracy create a case of estoppel?
Estoppel by silence: "A type of estoppel that prevents a person from asserting something when she had both the duty and the opportunity to speak up earlier..."
Since Microsoft allows piracy, can the company lose its copyright?
Microsoft definitely encourages piracy, in my opinion. For years, local computer stores carried to office suite alternatives: Legal Microsoft Office, and pirated Microsoft Office for $50. Word Perfect and Lotus could not compete. I'm not sure what local computer stores are doing now.
I could give other examples.
No, this is not a BusinessWeek editoral. It is an op-ed. By me. Henry Chesbrough.
For me, the price of a new MS Windows OS would be less than a day's wages.
I wonder what is the price in man-hours for the median-income American? and what is the price of the same in China for a median-income Chinese worker? Is there a correlation between these figures and the likelihood that a user will pirate the software rather than purchase it from a legitimate source?