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Taiwan Group Responsible For 90% of MSFT Piracy
Stony Stevenson writes "Microsoft claims that a small group led by a recently jailed Taiwanese man was the source of almost all high-quality pirated copies of its software up until his arrest in 2004. The claim suggests that Microsoft practically wiped out commercial piracy of its products with the arrest of Huang Jer-sheng, the owner of Taiwan-based software distributor Maximus Technology. Microsoft announced today that Huang and his associates. who were all recently sentenced to jail time, had been responsible for the 'production and distribution of more than 90 percent of the high-quality counterfeit Microsoft software products either seized by law enforcement or test-purchased around the world.'"
I didn't think there was such a thing as high-quality Microsoft software, pirated or otherwise...
Come on... using "High quality" and "Microsoft products" in the same sentence?
;-)
So they were responsible for 9 out the 10 pirate copies of Microsoft Flight simulator then?
had been responsible for the 'production and distribution of more than 90 percent of the high-quality counterfeit Microsoft software products
Why doesn't MSFT sell these "high-quality" products instead of the crap they've been selling us for years.
90% sounds like a nice marketing department developed figure.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
In case you wondered as I did... the penalty for being 90% of the pirating...
"Huang was recently sentenced to four years in jail by a Taiwanese court. Three co-defendants received between 18 months and three years in jail. Six individuals were originally arrested in the case."
I wonder how rich they are off it.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The more interesting story would be, how did they catch him?
Microsoft will lower the price of all its retail products right? Since it's no longer competing with pirated software.
someone's still selling Windows 3.11 for Workgroups...
Does this mean the cost of microsoft software will come down? We are always being told that piracy on this scale makes software companies push up prices. So when is the cost of vista (especially in the uk) coming down?
Acid House saves Souls
So why do they need all this stupid copy protection stuff like license numbers, WGA etc.? If their products practically aren't commercially pirated any longer you'd think they could do without.
Considering that most of the pirating Chinese world is using Sharpie scribbled CD-R's to install non-Genuine Windows, I don't think it matters terribly much if they've stopped "90%" of the flow of high-quality counterfeits.
It's darned good that they caught the bastards, but wake me up when we stop 90% of the actual piracy in Asia.
This strikes me as a fluff piece for nervous investors.
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Toro
They used to be in the opera piracy business, but that was too exciting.
--
make install -not war
Every time I read news about "piracy", the "pirates" are "stealing" 90% of the money!
Now I wonder:
A - Is it 90% of the 10% left from the previous "pirate" operation?
So, after three or four captures, it becomes clear they are actually selling legally less than 1/100 of a single copy.
B - Are the "pirates" stealing copies from other "pirates" and repitating them?
So, 10% of the copies would be legally sold and 90% would reach the final clients after being "pirated" about twenty times.
You know, I gotta say, there's a difference between Good and Bad piracy, in my mind. It seems to me that as long as you aren't making money off it, even indirectly, it's okay.
And yes, I know the Pirate Bay may well be making bank. But I still bought one of their t-shirts. We're in a war, you know!
expandfairuse.org
Seriously, if they caught the guy in 2004, why do we need to put up with all the headaches of WGA now?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, no, it is not.
I surmise pirates really do offer better quality, as they conveniently remove the WGA and similar "protection measures", thus ensuring the user's copy of Windows will never ever get blocked by Microsoft. For instance.
Though I suspect that "high-quality copy" means "CD and packaging virtually indistinguishable from the original retail copy", not "a better product". Nevertheless, sometimes pirate copies are of quite higher quality than the original.
Ignore this signature. By order.
... Or how about 90% of the pirated copies found? It doesn't say 90% of all legal and illegal copies in existence were made by these guys. It says 90% of the ones seized around the world as pirated material were from this one group.
In the cases you give I am deprived of the product which is "pirated". Copying does not deprive the source of the product. You are making a very very strange comparison between copying and theft.
Let me put it this way ... if someone can take my paycheck, and leave me with exactly every cent in that paycheck, then they are welcome to it and I invite everyone to do the same.
not that I've ever encountered pirated software mind you
...must have more 0's and not as many 1's.
Catching this guy could prove to be a win for alternative operating system choices like GNU/Linux. It's likely these copies are sold very cheaply to people who can't afford to buy from a real vendor - they may be only seeing the lower price and have no idea that they're getting a non-genuine copy.
If these previous customers can't afford the real copies the stores are selling and don't want to buy bad-quality obvious non-genuine versions, they may decide to switch to a cheaper solution.
It won't be long given the pricing structure of Microsoft products that someone will step in to fill the orders for cheap knock offs. High quality or otherwise. I've been in the high tech shopping district in Taiwan and the prices for these pirated items are (usually) far below the price of legitimate copies.
Also been in Mexico City where street vendors sell about any software title on the planet - some slick copies, some shoddy.
And I doubt the 90% figure. Looks and smells like some marketing drone pulled it out of his @ss.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Jokes aside, what would be the point of a "low quality" copy?
"Well, its quite a good copy, only 4% of the bits are wrong."
If it's not 100% bit-for-bit accurate, it's a chocolate tea pot.
A little off topic, but just pointing out that if you can freely make copies of that money, then that money is in infinite supply and thus worthless. I don't think you would appreciate (hah!) your money being devalued. Also, this is generally referred to as counterfeiting, and quite illegal :^)
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
you have trouble seeing the difference between copied bits and the effort required to arrange those bits. The value of software isn't in the commercial packaging or plastic media, it's obviously in the efforts required to create something people will pay for. While you can argue a fallacy of "duplicating doesn't deprive you of the original copy," you're simply ignorantly wrong.
Copying software doesn't deprive somebody of the version you copied, it deprives the creator/owner of their ability to legitimately sell copies of their work. That's what you are stealing when you copy.
Your same silly argument could be applied to counterfeiting currency: copying real money doesn't deprive anyone of their legitimate currency. The problem is, it devalues money by depriving the government of its ability to regulate the supply and value of money. That's why the Secret Service exists.
You appear to have missed the point (as well as have a stick up your ass). The parent was differentiating between giving a friend a copy of a windows cd or downloading an image and walking into one's favorite SE Asian tech mall and buying Windows XP Pro for $25 US. He made no assertions regarding the financial harm or moral ambiguities involved in using pirated software.
If someone can copy all of my paycheck with the result that my paycheck remains unchanged in any way - then I am very very happy for everyone to do so.
Is software less valuable when more people use it or more so? Does counterfieting software, and increasing the market share of the software, make it less vauable? Or, are you (in a very cunning way) just trying to prove that copying software is an extremly different thing to property theft.
90% of the supply for a gigantic market is gone? Seems like a perfect business opportunity :)
As I say in another reply - counterfieting does indeed devalue money. But (perhaps perversly) counterfieting software actually enhances the value of the software.
Yes it's wrong. Any business caught using pirated software deserves to get slammed. But don't underestimate amount of value added to software when it is heavily pirated. It increases the market share of the software - and when the pirating people need to use it legitimatly they WILL pay because the risks are too high. These days the big players (MS, Oracle, etc) usually go out of their way to give small versions away for this very reason.
Wait... so if the evil pirate guy is Maximus, does that make Microsoft Commodus?
Will Huang Jer-sheng and Emprorer Bill duke it out like gladiators?
Will Gates fix the fight by embracing our pirate/gladiator hero and then extending a poison dagger into him?
This sounds like a reality TV show in the making.
Copying software results in: - Legitimate copies going up in price, as companies argue that piracy has taken away profits that should have gone to them. - More and increasingly draconian copy protection that only hurts legitimate users.
Your argument is only valid in for software that was never intended for profit. Yes, copying retail software does do real harm and IS real theft by any rational standard of law. If you prefer to think there are no laws and software is exempt from property protections, than yes, I guess your argument is unbeatable. Not through any inherent validity, but in your self-imposed view that stealing software is somehow "ok" because it doesn't change the bits in question.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, and that's not what you're arguing, but it's how it comes across. Of course, I'm looking at this from the companies perspective. From a consumer's perspective, if you allow someone to copy your software, then your argument is perfectly valid. You're still breaking the law and causing real harm to real people, but I could see your point in this light.
Considering just how adamant Microsoft has been about killing off XP, it makes one wonder if the "high quality" label used here may allow the guy to become a practical scapegoat for Microsoft, should they attempt some underhanded tactic like setting their authentication system to automatically flag all future XP serial numbers it encounters as pirated, regardless of the product's legitimacy. By claiming all currently unsold retail and system builder versions of XP are pirate copies, it wouldn't take much to bury the OS beyond a mass recall of all unsold discs to be used as "evidence".
Of course, this couldn't ever really happen, but it does make you think...
8==8 Bones 8==8
Your argument is aimed at the wrong post here. This is a decent argument when talking about the filesharing type of piracy - people downloading stuff they weren't going to buy anyway. There's no realistic loss from this.
However, the article and comment are both talking about professional piracy - burning discs and printing manuals and shrinkwrapping in boxes that purport to be the real things. When someone honest goes and buys one of those, $60 that was heading to MS is snatched away. The fact the money never got as far as their bank account doesn't make a lot of difference - it would have got there if not for the piracy.
Even the slashdot crowd mostly condemn this sort of piracy.
Of course it's high quality; it just doesn't meet your needs.
Vista is the first Windows infestation to officially, publicly acknowledge what serious MSFT-watchers have known for some time: the population of usees and customers are two entirely separate, non-overlapping groups.
The usees, of course, are the poor sheeple who bought a PC and naively expect Windows to "work" because it's the "market" "leader".
The customers are abviously the MPAA, RIAA and other "content" industry groups (collectively known as the MAFIAA (Media Authoritarian Fanatic Ass-farking of America) to friend and foe alike). Of course, "everyone" knows that all major media content these days is made using Macs or *nix boxen.
Their customers are happy as the proverbial clams with Vista. Especially since they never have to actually touch it!
if someone can take my paycheck, and leave me with exactly every cent in that paycheck, then they are welcome to it and I invite everyone to do the same.
You will do that only once. After everyone has taken a copy of your paycheck and you go to cash it somewhere else and they cash it with beans, I am sure the next check you get you wont be so happy to share it with others.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Fair enough. Just be aware that by doing so you're removing nearly all the motivation to create those works in the first place.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
s, copying retail software does do real harm and IS real theft by any rational standard of law
No, copying retail software is not theft by any standard law. That is why you need lawyers to work cases because people like you can not understand the difference between two unlawful (but completely different) activities. In fact, the illegal actions that can be done with retail software are several. One is unauthorized use, another is unauthorized distribution and another may be unathorized copying. All those are related to copyright violation, which is not theft.
Mistaking theft with copyright violation is like mistaking house breaking and entering to illegal subletting, both are unlawful and one of them does not makes you lose anything,
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
There was no mention in the article how these pirates handled keys and activation and such.
An exact copy of the pretty box and manuals and holograms and stuff is fine, but if it's an exact copy of the CD contents itself, it won't activate properly. Do they use hacked versions of the binaries? You'd think that would stand out (failed updates and such). Anyone know?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
What part of "unauthorized reproduction or USE" don't you understand?
Regardless how bad an organization you think the owner is, it's still wrong.
When someone copies software without authorization from the copyright holders, he is not making all other users of software poorer or cheating anyone. In fact he is increasing the wealth of society because some people who cannot afford that piece of software, now can.
MOD THE CHILD UP!
Taking something of commercial value without paying for it is stealing, period. You can sugarcoat it all you want if that makes you sleep better at night, but it's still stealing.
From dictionary.com: steal - 1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
Intellectual property is still property, and taking a copy of someone's work without due compensation is stealing. Rationalize away!
Do copyright laws need to be looked at? Yes. Does the definition of Fair Use need to be clarified and upheld? Yes. Is the DMCA bad law that needs to be changed? Yes. Is selling someone else's work for a profit without any legal right to do so stealing? Yes.
I mostly agree with you, but you leave out the fact that the cost of piracy to the copyright owner is *variable* depending on who copies it and why they do it.
I used to pirate software (games) all the time when I was a student and for a few years afterwards. Why? Because I didn't have the money to buy them. Did that hurt the rights holders? No, since I couldn't have bought them anyway.
These days I don't pirate games - I can afford to buy them, can't be bothered to worry about malware, and Steam and similar services make it more convenient to buy than pirate. And, you know, a lot of the games I'm buying are sequels to ones I pirated back in the day.
I'm not trying to pretend morality figures in this for me - like most people I suspect, I'm pretty much ammoral when it comes to copyright infringement - I still download illegal copies of movies and other things from time to time. Some of these I might well have bought if I hadn't downloaded them.
This sig all sigs devours
While he might not be "correct", you're not much better. You are following the RIAA/MPAA school of thought where a pirate copy equals loss of a sale. If the Taiwan Group case, this is atleast (partly) true. But with casual piracy, that line of thinking just doesn't hold water. There is no guarantee that a teenager downloading Vista Ultimate would've bought it instead of continuing to use the OEM XP that came with his PC.
Copying money differs from copying software/music/movies in that you can (theoretically) use the copied money as "legal" tender. A pirate copy isn't in any way the same as money.
I think what they mean is that, compared to the official microsoft versions, the pirated copies are a much better product.
The actual title should have been "Taiwan Group Responsible for 90% of MSFT counterfeiting".
This is about the counterfeit windows copies, that try to cheat both m$ and the Public (The Public gets screwed twice, as not only they bought a counterfeit for the price of an original, when they open it the box, there is Micro$oft software on it!)
So the figure is surely something like:
Taiwan Group = 90% of Counterfeiting
Counterfeiting = 1% of Piracy
99% of Piracy = p2p networks
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Wow, this is a lot of nonsense!
If she wanted people to download her music for free, she would make her music available for download in her site. I have to admit it's been long since last time I visited her site, but the only audio files for download I remember seeing there were versions of one of her songs performed by other artists that were part of a sort of contest she used to raise money for charity or something like that.
That someone is already too rich to feel the hit of your piracy is no reason to pirate stuff.
That someone is too lousy that deserves to go bankrupt is no reason to pirate stuff either.
This is just so wrong and against common sense I'm having a hard time believing you think that way.
FFS, you want to pirate stuff, just do it, but don't claim it's "right".
Actually, even though I agree that it's wrong and should be punished, in the case of software, when no physical product is taken, it is not akin to stealing. It is counterfeiting. Intellectual property cannot be equated to physical property. It's easier to see if we reformulate your argument in terms of physical property. If I go to China and purchase a counterfeit Louis Vuitton wallet, did I just steal from the real LV company? No. If I write an exact replica of Notepad, did I just steal from MS? No. However, in both cases, there was counterfeiting involved and trademark / patent infringement may come into play. However, theft is not an issue here.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
At the bottom of the
I was listening to an NPR article a while back where a representative of the RIAA got on, and he used an analogy: "If you go to WalMart and buy one vase, you can't then copy that vase at home and have a new copy for every room in the house for free. If you drop the vase and break it, WalMart isn't required to let you have a new copy for free."
However, this argument runs into problems because if we follow their model -- one copy per device -- we're not following reality either. Before MP3s I would have a case of CDs I would take with me to listen to on the go (for use in my discman), in the car, at home, and at a friends house. If my friend liked what we were listening too, I could make him a tape without fear of getting hunted down by the RIAA. The new paradigm of software -- with lots of DRM crap -- essentially doesn't allow for that. Content creators are pushing for one copy per device period.
So the question is, with this new medium which doesn't behave like anything that existed before it, how should laws treat it? Whereas in the past cost prevented mass duplication of many things, it's now essentially free. As a society, we need to come to terms with digital intellectual property, and figure out how to create a set of rules for fair use that really are fair -- and don't bias themselves towards content creators or towards consumers.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
And as I understand it, devaluing the currency is what the rest of the US government exists to do.
>You can't decide that a specific artist shouldn't get money for their work, it's up to them.
it's not that black and white. if someone copies a song that doesn't mean he has decided that the artist is not allowed to make money with their work. I copy quite a few CDs (and that's legal here in the netherlands, whether you borrowed the CD/DVD, rented it from a library or downloaded it), and dont want to pay for CDs. I will gladly pay to see a concert however, and regularly buy one of the band's t-shirts (usually straight from the band).
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
1. allow distribution of my copied money for free/cheap/ignore copying of money
2. everyone only uses my money for everything
3. stop supporting old "my money", release/protect/sell "my money++"
4. ????
5. PROFIT
Let's not fool ourselves. I pirate things all the time, but I've never told myself what I was doing was "good" piracy.
:) ). For example, I wouldn't have many problems with purchasing Flash MX / Premiere / Photoshop for Linux... just give us decent prices, ok? Adobe is really a monopoly on multimedia applications (and they're supporting another monopoly since they're Microsoft-only), and this gives them the privilege of setting a stratospheric price tag on their software. In the end, they're the same scurvy dogs than Microsoft >:( and I don't plan to give them any money anytime.
Speak for yourself. In my opinion, pirating is better than purchasing the originals, but only when: a) the piracy is done against illegal monopolies like Microsoft or the Mafiaa, and b) You try NOT to increase their market share, by using Free Open Source applications whenever you can.
Piracing a shareware (or should I say crippleware?) program is bad, because you do harm the little guy in this case - specially if you're only doing it because you're a cheapskate.
So, yes, there IS good and bad piracy. Pirates without a conscience are only doing it because they don't want to pay, but they don't care about the others. They don't care about supporting the same company that fixes prices indiscriminately.
Pirates with a conscience are fighting against the Status Quo. It's part of the revolution. Yes, it's illegal. But it's a case of Civil Disobedience. Think of it as "the resistance" (I love that word
That guy in prison is a small pirate. Bill Gates and Co. is part Mafia, part Pirate. Mafia, where if you are doing something not to his liking, not to his profit, he will break your business legs. Pirate, because he is imposing demand of payment, a toll of passage that could otherwise be offered free by anyone else. And, like the Mafia and Pirates have stolen stuff themselves and has paid off enough legislature and judges to have gotten away with it.
Haven't you heard of the term "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? He was one of them. Steve Jobs was a big-guy pirate wanna be poser, and got his butt kicked by the real Pirates (IBM, circa 1989 - and Microsoft) - Aaaarrrrrrggggg!
The RIAA is another Pirate/Mafia organization.
Steve Ballmer has a chair-cannon on his Pirate ship.
Funnily enough, that's sometimes true.
One of my professors bought a copy of MATLAB to use for solving some filtering equations. (He taught the DSP courses) He installed the program on his laptop, but whenever he wasn't using his internet access, he couldn't use MATLAB correctly. I'm not sure why.
He finally just installed a pirated version and it worked flawlessly.
Technically, he wasn't pirating the software either, since he paid for a full licence. They weren't cheap, either. It runs about $25k for a full version of MATLAB.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
"While you can argue a fallacy of "duplicating doesn't deprive you of the original copy," you're simply ignorantly wrong."
No, the statement you quote is 100% accurate.
"it deprives the creator/owner of their ability to legitimately sell copies of their work. "
No, it deprives them of a potential sale, no more, no less. In some cases it doesn't even do that.
Copyright violations and stealing are different things. That doesn't make either of the legally or morally right.
"copying real money doesn't deprive anyone of their legitimate currency."
True. technically it doesn't effect anyone until it is spent, or distributed in some way.
"The problem is, it devalues money by depriving the government of its ability to regulate the supply and value of money. That's why the Secret Service exists."
Also correct. I would like to point out that is is called counterfeiting, and not stealing.
Finally, I would like to point out that in the US it is distribution that is illegal, not downloading.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The more you dilute the pirated software, the more powerful the effect on the market!
Clearly, with the value of the dollor going up, you have a point!!!
I mean, its not like the federal reserve prints as much or as little as they want, because our money is based on the gold standard....
Share about $30 of music CD files on P2P: $200k fine.
Counterfeit $900 million in software: 4 years in prison.
Conclusion: if the RIAA comes after you for file sharing, tell them you'll happily do 2.1 seconds in prison for each CD, with no fine. And this punishment is Microsoft-approved for severity!
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
And here I was, thinking that thepiratebay was responsible for at least 15% of it, even after factoring in pirated OEM installs....
I have used this since long before Vista was lauched:
http://www.ubcd4win.com/
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.