China Jails Four For Microsoft XP Piracy

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China Jails Four For Microsoft XP Piracy

Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday August 21, 2009 @11:21AM from the imagine-what-they-do-if-you-make-a-silly-face dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Chinese court has jailed four people for spreading their bootleg 'Tomato Garden' version of Microsoft's Windows XP program, in what the Xinhua news agency called the nation's biggest software piracy case. One of the four men Hong Lei, the creator of the downloadable 'Tomato Garden Windows XP' software, was jailed for three and a half years by a court in Suzhou in eastern China, Xinhua."

164 comments

Sounds Good by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 11:26 · Score: 0

Is the Tomato Garden version of Windows XP as good as it sounds, and can it install Windows XP in English?
1. Re:Sounds Good by Sulphur · 2009-08-21 13:01 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Have you ever been to a sewage plant, and seen the tomatoes they grow there?
2. Re:Sounds Good by timlyg · 2009-08-21 13:50 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Well, I do wonder, given the nature and history of piracy in China, if this action of China is truly due to justice? or is it some personal jealousy political revenge thing?
3. Re:Sounds Good by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-21 22:56 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Someone in Taiwan who's familiar with such things said criminal accusations are inherently political. Pretty much all politicians are corrupt and The Party controls the courts. Best way to get rid of a rival is to denounce them for corruption. Interestingly it's not the verdict of the court case that shows they are finished, the fact that the case was not blocked is enough. Actually if you can even read about a potential case you know they are finished, because if they had a chance the coverage would have been censored. E.g. Li Peng
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Peng#Alleged_Corruption
  
  As the findings of the investigation leaked to the general Chinese public, the Chinese government took an unexpected stand. As victims (including some influential social citizens of Beijing) of New Nation Great Co. angrily demonstrated outside the Zhongnanhai more than a dozen times, hold up the banners that claim "Li Peng return the money to us from your son", none of the demonstrations were dispersed and none of the demonstrators were arrested. Each time, the Chinese government only sent police to watch the demonstrators and did nothing else. As the information of the investigation was leaked and circulated on the Internet, it was not immediately censored; instead, it was allowed to circulate for quite some time before the eventual ban, and none of the domestic Chinese Web sites that published the info were shut down by the Chinese governmental censorship. However, the Chinese government did not respond to the victims' and public demands either. China analysts postulate such an unusual move by the Chinese government served several purposes, including pressuring Li Peng to retire from his post of chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress when he reached the age limit, as well as putting a distance between Li Peng and the government itself for the future leadership. Whatever the reason, the investigation results concerning corruption charges of Li Peng's family that leaked to the public, was tolerated by the Chinese government for a short period of time, and certainly made Li Peng and his family become more unpopular than ever among the general Chinese populace.
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
4. Re:Sounds Good by Hatta · 2009-08-22 00:03 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Jailing people due to copyright infringement is never due to justice. I'd guess they stepped on the wrong toes, forgot to bribe the wrong official.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
5. Re:Sounds Good by Tobenisstinky · 2009-08-22 00:21 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  These men are probably "being mad examples of" scapegoats if you will. Yes, they're probably guilty, but it's just a drop in the bucket from what I've read. The Chinese government just wants to look like it's doing something about piracy.
  
  --
  wha'? where am i?
Use Linux by dedazo · 2009-08-21 11:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

Seriously. I'm not one to loudly advocate using Linux on the desktop, but if it's a choice between jail and Linux... choose Linux. Use WINE if there's something you can't do without.
(I was going to make a Soviet Russia/Communist China joke here but I decided not to)

--
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
1. Re:Use Linux by wizardforce · 2009-08-21 11:48 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  well said- MS may be hurting its self big time by cracking down on the pirates- its probably the easiest way they could have created an MS centric Chinese software market. Now people have a better reason to use FOSS based OSes than under a Chinese Windows pirating culture.
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
2. Re:Use Linux by ciderVisor · 2009-08-21 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  Use WINE if there's something you can't do without.
  I can't do without Propellerheads Reason, you insensitive clod !
  
  --
  Squirrel!
3. Re:Use Linux by mqduck · 2009-08-21 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  (I was going to make a Soviet Russia/Communist China joke here but I decided not to)
  Which would have been ironic, because China is here going all-out to demonstrate their dedication to capitalist (private) property.
  
  --
  Property is theft.
4. Re:Use Linux by friesandgravy · 2009-08-21 13:49 · Score: 1
  
  i know! seriously, as soon as reason can run under WINE i'm finally done with windows. it's honestly the only thing left.
5. Re:Use Linux by Runaway1956 · 2009-08-21 13:49 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I am unsure how much MS wants this crackdown. I think the government wants to clean up the piracy, because they can see clearly how invasive and pervasive Windows is. Red Flag Linux is the official operating system of Red Flagged China.
  And, the crackdown WILL benefit China. No money being sent to the western Capitalist Pigs, for starters - not even for legal copies. People who are forced away from MS holding their hands (Hail, Clippy!) will be forced to learn how an operating system works - thereby creating more potential hackers to attack the Pentagon. China gains in their own security - there just aren't a lot of virus and trojan infections running on Linux.
  Gates is on record, favoring piracy of MS Products over legal acquisitions of *nix: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
6. Re:Use Linux by CharlyFoxtrot · 2009-08-21 14:03 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  These aren't 4 random guys pirating Windows for their own use, so your suggestion to just use Linux isn't relevant. These assholes were trying to be 1337. From TFA:
  Hong "created the Tomato Garden version of the Windows XP," which crippled the program's authentication and certification barriers, said Xinhua, allowing users unrestricted access to the popular Microsoft software. Millions of Internet users then had free access to the software on a website, tomatolei.com, which made its earnings from advertisements on the site, it said.
  I think 3,5 years (and 2 years for 2 others) for maliciously ripping off someone else's work and distributing it is quite mild by China's standards. Hell with the current laws it might be mild by US standards.
  
  --
  If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
7. Re:Use Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 15:02 · Score: 0
  
  People who are forced away from MS holding their hands (Hail, Clippy!) will be forced to learn how an operating system works
  Umm... what?
  I use both Windows and Linux. I have no real idea how an operating system works - sure, I know a little about how to USE a computer (i.e. I can format and reinstall my OS without calling tech support), but I definitely could not get remote access into any system that had even a simple password protection - at least not without learning much, much more than I ever need to do my day job.
8. Re:Use Linux by fyoder · 2009-08-21 15:05 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Hong "created the Tomato Garden version of the Windows XP," which crippled the program's authentication and certification barriers, said Xinhua, allowing users unrestricted access to the popular Microsoft software.
  Huh? Isn't crippling crippling like a double negative? In effect they uncrippled it allowing unrestricted access to the software, something that paying customers don't even get. I think they're on to something. Microsoft should take note.
  
  --
  Loose lips lose spit.
9. Re:Use Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 18:29 · Score: 0
  
  No money being sent to the western Capitalist Pigs
  What makes you think the Communist Pigs are better? It's not like "The Masses" are benefiting when the ruling elite gets paid instead. Since that's the case, why do you care where your money goes?
10. Re:Use Linux by X0563511 · 2009-08-21 19:47 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  But, it will run fine in virtualbox, using the asio4all driver inside the VM. FLStudio will too, for that matter - though the GUI takes a bit more CPU than it normally would.
  You still need a copy of windows however :/
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
11. Re:Use Linux by eelke_klein · 2009-08-21 20:39 · Score: 1
  
  I can't do without Propellerheads Reason, you insensitive clod !
  Then get a Mac atleast you will have unix underneath.
12. Re:Use Linux by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-21 22:58 · Score: 1
  
  (I was going to make a Soviet Russia/Communist China joke here but I decided not to)
  In Soviet Taiwan, Windows steals you!
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
13. Re:Use Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 23:17 · Score: 0
  
  Sarcasm FAIL.
14. Re:Use Linux by CharlyFoxtrot · 2009-08-21 23:42 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Huh? Isn't crippling crippling like a double negative? In effect they uncrippled it allowing unrestricted access to the software, something that paying customers don't even get. I think they're on to something. Microsoft should take note.
  Hah - you might want to remember the last guy who uncrippled the crippled. It's generally frowned upon by the powers that be.
  
  --
  If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
15. Re:Use Linux by AmiMoJo · 2009-08-22 01:11 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I work in IT, and I can tell you that most people don't even know what an OS is. All they see is a computer that lets them type in Word or go on Facebook.
  The problem with trying to move people to Linux is always compatibility. It's much better than it used to be thanks to Open Office Word document support and a selection of good web browsers, but you still can't just go out and buy Photoshop or a game and expect it to work. I know there are free alternatives, but people are trained at work or college to use a particular program. You cannot underestimate the number of people who know what steps are needed to do something on a computer but are not clued up enough to figure out how to do the same thing in another app.
  Again, OO is good because it looks and feels almost exactly like Word 2003, and as more apps move to the web it will continue to improve. You have to be realistic about moving the general public over to Linux though.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
16. Re:Use Linux by flappinbooger · 2009-08-22 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  I foresee linux with a toaster-ized windows VM being the mainstream ala this guy's blog post
  
  --
  Flappinbooger isn't my real name
17. Re:Use Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 01:45 · Score: 0
  
  I don't believe that people should be sent to jail, or prosecuted till they're broke, just for copyright infringement. This shows that the laws are dictated by the corporations and not in favor of the people. Bye bye, democracy...
18. Re:Use Linux by nanospook · 2009-08-22 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's much more simple than that. Anytime the Chinese dictators can remind their citizens that they are in charge, they will make an example of you. Unless you can bribe your way out of course..
  
  --
  Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
19. Re:Use Linux by wampus · 2009-08-22 04:20 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  What is this Linux you speak about? I've never heard of it before. Do you have a link or something?
20. Re:Use Linux by geminidomino · 2009-08-22 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  Hah - you might want to remember the last guy who uncrippled the crippled. It's generally frowned upon by the powers that be.
  Most good things are.
21. Re:Use Linux by westlake · 2009-08-23 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  No money being sent to the western Capitalist Pigs, for starters - not even for legal copies. People who are forced away from MS holding their hands (Hail, Clippy!) will be forced to learn how an operating system works - thereby creating more potential hackers to attack the Pentagon
  Apple and Microsoft own 99% of the desktop precisely because users have no desire to poke about under the hood.
  That's not their job. That's not where the money is.
  The mechanic can make a living. But he isn't the one driving the Porsche.
  What do you suppose the export market in hardware and software for Windows is worth to China?
  Microsoft China employs 3500 in R&D:
  Dr Zhang's research staff were responsible for a few features in Windows 7, including systems recovery and diagnosis, speech technology and multi-touch. Dr Zhang singled out smart devices, cloud computing, natural language, search and graphics as focus areas for the R&D group. "We're looking at how we can extend the capabilities of a computer and put in more intelligence in devices. Smart sensors would be one area that we will see a lot of work in. But I personally like to keep it simple ... technology should be simple, not complex," he said, citing that as the reason why he doesn't use a touchpad smart phone. [Microsoft] increased its global R&D budget by $US1 billion to $US9bn this year
22. Re:Use Linux by Runaway1956 · 2009-08-23 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps I'll restate the case, from a more military perspective. China has it's "Assasin's Mace" program, which is meant to make them equal to, or superior to, the United States, militarily, economically, politically, and scientifically. Assymetric warfare.
  Red Flag Linux is a part of the mace. A small part, but an important part. While lazy westerners are busy relying on Microsoft to run their desktops, laptops, servers, and whatever else, China is moving ahead with Linux. The average Chinese will have, by default, a much more secure computer, which encourages mucking about under the hood, and figuring out how things work. The average American will have by default an insecure and secretive operating system which he can't fix even if he IS smart, because he could be imprisoned for decompiling, reverse engineering and patching the damned thing.
  China's export market? Of course they want to sell us MS-centric stuff. If you've read the headlines in the past few years, China has a habit of producing and selling poisoned products to the west. They are happy to take our money, in exchange for trash. And, we are just as happy to buy anything that is shiny and pretty.
  Who is smarter?
  
  --
  "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
23. Re:Use Linux by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-23 14:06 · Score: 0
  
  China sells a lot more crap to them self. Live like a ordinary Chinese for a while and see how their life is.
  A dirty, messy, and unsophisticated lifestyle in most ways, but with much more nice tasting food.
  Eating in restaurants is often a everyday thing. It is cheap with close to no quality control expect a strong focus on taste. Safety, cleanness, and so on is something the ordinary Chinese are learning/relearning.
  I am from one of the top 5 countries on most rankings. Most of my Chinese friends can not understand how I survive in such a country: "What do you eat?!?!?!?"
Big nothing. by Kuano · 2009-08-21 11:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

So let me get this straight. The largest piracy case ever in the largest country in the world with the most piracy in the world included 4 people?
1. Re:Big nothing. by LaskoVortex · 2009-08-21 11:35 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  So let me get this straight. The largest piracy case ever in the largest country in the world with the most piracy in the world included 4 people?
  Yes. It's a shame. My heart really goes out to Microsoft on this one. I mean, the amount of disillusionment they must be feeling right now must be unbearable. All those years of fighting for justice and trying to make a good product and this is what they get? It's like a slap in the face. A real shame. It's like China doesn't give a rat's ass whether Microsoft turns a profit in their country or not, or any other American software company. I tell you what, I'm not going to buy Chinese products any more if they are going to treat American software producers like this. What a farce!
  
  --
  Just callin' it like I see it.
2. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 11:35 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  Yes, but they were very large people...
3. Re:Big nothing. by cheftw · 2009-08-21 12:08 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  mod parent +1 Insightfunny?
  
  --
  Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
4. Re:Big nothing. by adolf · 2009-08-21 12:09 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  That's OK -- you'll likely be buying Chinese stuff anyway.
  I bought a new thermostat for my car today from the local big-chain auto parts store. A quality Stant unit, at a quality price. Printed on the box it said "Made in USA" in about six different languages, but on the thermostat itself, stamped right into the metal, were the words "Made in China."
  I'd have returned it, on this basis alone, but it was the only thermostat in stock in this town which would work with my old BMW, and I needed to get it fixed today.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
5. Re:Big nothing. by skirtsteak_asshat · 2009-08-21 12:16 · Score: 1
  
  I know right? China has, like, a BILLION PLUS PEOPLE! Surely they can make a better display by jailing a measly hundred thousand or so... I'm sure they have people picked out on rosters for the purpose... so what's holding them back? Windows 7 release candidates? Come ON!
6. Re:Big nothing. by PsychicX · 2009-08-21 12:20 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I don't think you quite understand. These people didn't go to some torrent site and download Windows. They took Windows XP, built an illicit distribution with the activation bits etc removed, and sent that around -- probably for money. IOW, they enabled millions of other people to run stolen copies of Windows XP, possibly without even realizing it (third rate vendors have a nasty habit of using these bootleg Windows copies on their machines).
7. Re:Big nothing. by LaskoVortex · 2009-08-21 12:20 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Printed on the box it said "Made in USA"
  They were talking about the box.
  
  --
  Just callin' it like I see it.
8. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 12:28 · Score: 0
  
  Does that mean that there are bigger piracy in my dorm than China ? haha...
9. Re:Big nothing. by Enderandrew · 2009-08-21 12:30 · Score: 0
  
  2 billion plus people actually.
  
  --
  http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
10. Re:Big nothing. by tonycheese · 2009-08-21 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  Completely agree with this person. On top of that, China in my opinion has a terrible reputation for allowing these things to happen and turning a blind eye. Sentencing these people to a few years jail time signals to others that they can't be quite so blatant about their piracy anymore, as China is changing their stance on it.
11. Re:Big nothing. by agnosticnixie · 2009-08-21 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  No
12. Re:Big nothing. by vintagepc · 2009-08-21 13:39 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The exact same thing happens with DVDs. You'll have vendors selling them for the equivalent of about $1 US, and they are all bootleg- nary impossible to find an original DVD.
  
  --
  Evolution - Est. 4500000000 B.C. Don't piss in the gene pool.
13. Re:Big nothing. by adolf · 2009-08-21 13:42 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  Oh.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
14. Re:Big nothing. by BikeHelmet · 2009-08-21 14:11 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  Why is this modded funny?
15. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 14:48 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  They took Windows XP, built an illicit distribution with the activation bits etc removed
  Sounds nicer than the copy most of the world pays for. Considering I've seen "Activation" shut down a small business who was using Windows 2003 legitimately before, I'd say it sounds a lot less like running your business on a minefield than with the usual copy of Windows...
16. Re:Big nothing. by belmolis · 2009-08-21 14:53 · Score: 1
  
  With all the trouble Microsoft has been having recently, they'd probably be smart to hire these guys.
17. Re:Big nothing. by lazyDog86 · 2009-08-21 14:57 · Score: 1
  
  Why isn't this modded funny? Ironic incomprehension atop ironic incomprehension atop ironic... wait, why hasn't this be modded funny yet?
  
  --
  my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
18. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 15:09 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  In China, it's traditional to round up a "Gang of Four" when the state sees fit to make some dangerous or rascallian element the object of a show trial.
  Not to be confused with this.
19. Re:Big nothing. by tufa.king.nerdy · 2009-08-21 15:43 · Score: 0
  
  4 isn't a big nothing. That's 2.98816767476587e-7% of the population!
20. Re:Big nothing. by SL+Baur · 2009-08-21 15:52 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. It's a shame. My heart really goes out to Microsoft on this one.
  
  Nice post and you deserve the +5 funny I see on it.
  When I worked at Turbolinux in 2000/2001 the hardest problem we had to solve in 6.5 was getting the retail price below the equivalent of US$10 in China (our secondary market).
  Vast wealth is accumulating in China but it's not spread out very much. Vast population doesn't mean much market if most of the population doesn't have much yuan to spend.
21. Re:Big nothing. by SL+Baur · 2009-08-21 16:09 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  On top of that, China in my opinion has a terrible reputation for allowing these things to happen and turning a blind eye.
  Hey, when per capita yearly income is in the US$100s, how much demand do think there is for Microsoft Windows (or anything else) at a substantial percentage of that?
  
  Sentencing these people to a few years jail time signals to others that they can't be quite so blatant about their piracy anymore, as China is changing their stance on it.
  It's a slap on the wrist and probably the result of some kind of deal.
  When I worked for Turbolinux in the early 2000s we sold to 3 markets - Japan, China and the US. In Japan we were #1 for awhile due to all the proprietary goodies we could attach to the system. China was #2 and US was #3. I don't think Turbo ever turned a profit in the US.
  I spent a week in 2001 in Beijing with the Chinese office as we were working on getting the price point below US$10 per retail sale. That's still rather expensive.
22. Re:Big nothing. by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2009-08-21 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  -1, Wrong .
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
23. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 17:17 · Score: 0
  
  It's a good reason to return it i guess (false or misleading advertising).
  However, If you were searching for quality, you had probably found it. ..and if you want to make sure your $ stayed in the US, well you returned it to the store (in the US) meanwhile the factory (in China) already got paid.
24. Re:Big nothing. by adolf · 2009-08-21 17:32 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  Precisely.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
25. Re:Big nothing. by Migity · 2009-08-21 18:36 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  That's right. You're a proud owner of a box made in the US. Don't tell me you just went and threw it away?!
26. Re:Big nothing. by anarche · 2009-08-21 19:50 · Score: 1
  
  And the main "offender" got 3 and a half years...
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
27. Re:Big nothing. by anarche · 2009-08-21 19:59 · Score: 1
  
  On top of that, China in my opinion has a terrible reputation for allowing these things to happen and turning a blind eye.
  Hey, when per capita yearly income is in the US$100s, how much demand do think there is for Microsoft Windows (or anything else) at a substantial percentage of that?
  So by that logic all "poor" countries should be allowed to pirate? China is the third-largest and the fastest growing economy in the world; if their people are so poor, where is all their money?
  
  Perhaps their workers need to sort their sh*t out and organise decent wages?? Or the government could let them get away with piracy, stealing money from the west while maintaining low wages and maintaining its status as the manufacturing centre of the world (resulting in more western goods being sent there to be pirated)..
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
28. Re:Big nothing. by ozmanjusri · 2009-08-21 20:11 · Score: 1
  
  third rate vendors have a nasty habit of using these bootleg Windows copies on their machines
  Why nasty?
  Independent distros of Windows are a lot better than the official releases.
  Try TinyXP, for example. It's compact, fast, doesn't report you activities to its masters, and has better default tools and settings than the MS version. What's to complain about?
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
29. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 20:55 · Score: 0
  
  This can't be called an illicit distribution, because the official XP is out of print.
30. Re:Big nothing. by wisty · 2009-08-21 21:43 · Score: 1
  
  That's an achievement. Clothes are IRONED in China, then sent to Australia on racks. It's cheaper to send them in a bigger container, than to actually have somebody iron them in the store.
31. Re:Big nothing. by Moebius_6 · 2009-08-21 22:13 · Score: 1
  
  Forgive me if this was a joke, but I'll ask anyway-
  Why do you prefer American parts for your German automobile? If it's "because my taxes pay for it", then do you care which state it comes from?
  Just curious.
32. Re:Big nothing. by Wildclaw · 2009-08-21 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  So by that logic all "poor" countries should be allowed to pirate? China is the third-largest and the fastest growing economy in the world; if their people are so poor, where is all their money?
  Actually. what the logic shows is just how insane and stupid copyright is from beginning to end. Copyright is the perfect example of a capitalistic non free market. It is the worst of all sides. It neither provides free market efficency, nor does it provide any social benefits.It has only one purpose. To allow money to flow into the pockets of those who are able to leverage big margin profits by using big sales (usually via marketing). The ones who are negativly affected are everyone else. From the smaller businesses who will be left sharing a small piece of the cake, to the consumers who have their consumption artifically restricted by higher monopoly prices that pay for inefficent industries.
  A chinese worker could easily consume virtual products worth many times his salary (using the not so free market value), and noone even would notice because he isn't actually using up any extra resources or manpower. He is simply copying what already exists. And some people go around calling that theft and immoral activity. I have simply given up hope in such people, as they simple have lost touch with reality.
  Promoting science and the useful arts by reducing the spread of the same? Whoever came up with that bright idea, really didn't think things through properly. Of course, everyone is entitled to mistakes, so I don't blame him. I blame those who should have learned better by now, but keep insisting on more of the same. Either through greed (if they belong to one of the big ones) or through ignorance if they don't.
33. Re:Big nothing. by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-21 23:04 · Score: 1
  
  So let me get this straight. The largest piracy case ever in the largest country in the world with the most piracy in the world included 4 people?
  Yes and three Tibetan activists and two Uigher ones. What are you trying to imply?
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
34. Re:Big nothing. by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-21 23:09 · Score: 1
  
  Both the US and Germany meet his minimum standards for being considered Open Societies?
  
  --
  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
35. Re:Big nothing. by TheRaven64 · 2009-08-22 02:39 · Score: 1
  
  So by that logic all "poor" countries should be allowed to pirate?
  There's a Creative Commons license that explicitly allows this (the latest Cory Doctrow books, for example, use it), so apparently it's not a particularly unusual opinion. The license permits non-commercial use everywhere and commercial use in developing countries.
  
  China is the third-largest and the fastest growing economy in the world; if their people are so poor, where is all their money?
  
  China is the most populous country on the planet. Presumably the figures you are using here are GDP. By this metric, China is the third-largest economy. The two above it are the USA by a factor of about four and Japan by a small margin. If you look at the per-capita GDP, the list is quite different. China is now down at number 104, just ahead of the Congo. The per-capita GDP of China is $3,315, compared to $46,859 for the USA (number 15) and a $38,390 average for the EU (somewhat skewed by some of the recent members, with the more western countries typically being closer to the $45-50K mark). If you skew the numbers for purchasing power parity then China moves all the way up to number 100.
  So, yes, China is a huge economy, but the answer to where all the money is going is simple: it's divided among a very large number of people, and doesn't add up to much per person. Japan and China have similar-size economies, but the standard of living in Japan is a lot higher because the wealth is split among far fewer people (actually, in China a lot of it is concentrated in the cities, but that's a different problem).
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
36. Re:Big nothing. by ivucica · 2009-08-22 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  I know exactly how they feel. I'm Croatian, and I'm not buying software either (XP courtesy of MSDNAA, and I don't use VS except for studying purposes, only where C# is mandatory).
  But if $10 is a problem for an OS, cost of a machine is kind-of a problem as well. Do you have information how the Chinese people cope with machine costs?
37. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 06:33 · Score: 0
  
  NO WAI
  Since when is China the biggest country in the world?
38. Re:Big nothing. by SL+Baur · 2009-08-22 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  But if $10 is a problem for an OS, cost of a machine is kind-of a problem as well. Do you have information how the Chinese people cope with machine costs?
  Sorry, no. I presume China is like most 3rd world nations - a tiny elite, tiny middle class and everyone else poor. The time that I was in Beijing was abnormal - it was about a week before the Olympic Committee came to award them with the most recent summer Olympics, and there were thousands of worker bees everywhere picking up garbage and stuff.
  I can only guess that we were trying to do better than Red Flag. Of course, Turbolinux was also making lots of mistakes then. They seem to be doing better now that they have gone back to their roots, though I have lost all back channel contacts there.
39. Re:Big nothing. by adolf · 2009-08-22 18:59 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly, the box is indeed gone. I did fire off some hatemail to Stant regarding the incident, however, though I don't expect a reply for a couple more days since I sent it late on a Friday.
  In it, I told them I was going to do a writeup on BMW thermostat replacement for a few online enthusiast forums, and I asked that they explain the situation so that I can address it fairly. Hopefully, that's enough to get them to explain the incongruity, and/or give me a new thermostat for my 1979 Firebird. ;)
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
40. Re:Big nothing. by bhiestand · 2009-08-23 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  Printed on the box it said "Made in USA"
  They were talking about the box.
  Actually, the box itself was made of 60% American pulpwood, and it was assembled in Mexico.
  
  --
  SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
41. Re:Big nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-23 20:35 · Score: 0
  
  Perhaps their workers need to sort their sh*t out and organise decent wages??
  Laogai! China have a special place for citizens that feel like organize.
  Currently, the Laogai Research Foundation estimates that there are approximately 1,045 laogai facilities in China,containing an estimated 6.8 million detainees, although the actual number of detainees is uncertain.
42. Re:Big nothing. by skeeto · 2009-08-24 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  Back in high school some army recruiters handed out cheapo little calculators with "US Army" across the top. On the back was a sticker that said "Made in China".
43. Re:Big nothing. by adolf · 2009-08-25 15:45 · Score: 1
  
  (This is old, and you'll probably never read it. Took me awhile to notice the new replies. If you ever see this, please let me know...)
  I don't want to buy American parts for my German automobile.
  When I have the time do so, I buy OEM German parts. I buy Mahle filters, and Bosch wipers, Lemfoerder chassis parts, and, and, and... The prices, from places like pelicanparts.com, are generally very cheap for proper replacement parts. But it takes forever for them to ship to Ohio.
  Every now and then, BMW makes bad parts. The coolant expansion tank, the cap for that tank, the thermostat housing, the radiator plastic bits, the mechanical fan, and the water pump on this car at this vintage are all known for sudden catastrophic failures. But BMW also have since improved their parts so that these are no longer real issues. So, I prefer to buy the real thing whenever possible, at least to support this mentality of continuous product improvement, and also to make my repairs last longer. And since BMW builds very few of their own parts, buying German parts from their OEM suppliers ensures that I get replacement parts with improved quality. (I like having a reliable car, even if it does have 180k miles on it.)
  Meanwhile, the car was broken. And I needed it to be un-broken. The nearest BMW dealer is 45 miles from here, and for a variety of reasons you don't care about, I couldn't get there. But I'd previously researched the problem, and knew which Advance Auto Parts stores carried a suitable replacement thermostat, and the next day I found myself a few blocks from one.
  So, I bought it. It does work fine.
  It's not politics. I have a "buy American" 1979 Firebird that I'm working on, which I use to shore up the Stateside economy -- there's no reason to do this for the BMW. And I don't particularly care about the country of origin in these urgent instances -- I just needed a car that worked.
  I do care, though, that the parts are as advertised. It said 176 degrees, and Made in USA. It was 180 degrees, and Made in China. I don't care in the practical sense about the small temperature difference (I was looking for a low-temp thermostat, and both 176 and 180 are lower than the stock 190). I simply care that the part didn't match the description, including country of origin.
  I'm happy to feed my car parts from random nations when it's not working properly at all. I just want to know in advance that I'm doing so.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
interesting by wizardforce · 2009-08-21 11:30 · Score: 1, Informative

I wondered why China would bother upholding the copyright of a foreign country now when CHina has a history of lax copyright enforcement in the past until the BSA got involved that is:
In June last year, the Business Software Allianceâ"a business coalition campaigning against commercial piracyâ"complained to Chinese authorities, and Hong and his colleagues were arrested later in the year.

--
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
1. Re:interesting by lonefolf · 2009-08-21 11:34 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Maybe their worried about upholding US copyrights because we make their firewall software...
  
  --
  When in doubt, goto 10.
2. Re:interesting by wizardforce · 2009-08-21 11:39 · Score: 1
  
  either that or the BSA found a few of the higher ups in the govt. and decided to send them a fruit basket. BSA gives them a gift for nailing these guys for infringement, China gets to look more responsible in so far as copyright law and the population get one more reminder who is boss. it's a win for everyone but the Chinese people.
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
3. Re:interesting by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 17:38 · Score: 0
  
  This is how it works;
  The big software companies in China will use a 'softly' approach to anti-piracy with big-easy-target users.
  Call up their IT deptmartments, tell them they know they are using pirated licenses, offer them a great deal to make it legal.
  The more resistance from the user and the more 'evidence' the software company can find the closer they go to an actual legal case.
  The smart software companies avoid letting it get to anything significantly 'legal', since this is expensive (ie lawyers) and this makes an enemy of your future 'customer'.
  In some kind of cycle, the users in a given area get less and less interested in playing ball with the software companies, until something scary happens.
  usually, thats when the software company will call up their buddies at the BSA and they dig up some big pirate they already know about and either raid them, sue their ass off or arrest them (or all three). Then comes the big PR blitz to make sure everybody knows about it.
  Of course it is rarely the big SOE company or big user who is targeted, it usually a foreign owned company or piracy source. The goal is to put fear back into market place.
  For the BSA to make this happen they have to have support from the local IP protection office, which is where the fruit basket etc comes in. Actually I noticed last year the 'fruit basket' was more often 'provide funding for xyz IP education project'.
  Recently, in fear of social instability, the IP protection office has been told to keep it quiet for a while. The central government much prefers companies are able to keep paying workers wages as opposed to what is usually considered a luxury item; software licenses.
  Actually the days of sue first, sell later are disapearing in China rapidly. The new-wave of successful software companies operating in China are focusing on services and good old fashioned sales-fu to get user to become legal.
4. Re:interesting by anarche · 2009-08-21 20:02 · Score: 1
  
  ...it's a win for everyone but the Chinese people.
  And Microsoft shareholders. Have they found all distribution points for the window overlooking the tomato patch?
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
Their Biggest One? Really? by Greyfox · 2009-08-21 11:34 · Score: 1, Redundant

Four guys pirating windows and that's their biggest case of piracy? Really? You could only find four guys doing that? I think your search method could use a little refining there, buddy...

--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
1. Re:Their Biggest One? Really? by wizardforce · 2009-08-21 11:42 · Score: 1
  
  how many does it take to run a website? p2p network? the number of people can be very small considering that electronic data can be copied cheaply and for all intents and purposes infinitely with little effort.
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
2. Re:Their Biggest One? Really? by ubrgeek · 2009-08-21 11:49 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  > I think your search method could use a little refining there
  Yeah, next time try Bing ;)
  
  --
  Bark less. Wag more.
3. Re:Their Biggest One? Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 15:08 · Score: 0
  
  They were using Bing. That's what they get for not using Google. Or Baidu.
4. Re:Their Biggest One? Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 16:35 · Score: 0
  
  How many people were being sued for the pirate bay?
Tomato garden by jack2000 · 2009-08-21 11:34 · Score: 3, Funny

This is actually a veggie mafia thing. See the Tomatoes were getting uppity and the Corn boss had them canned....
1. Re:Tomato garden by alienunknown · 2009-08-21 17:27 · Score: 1
  
  This is actually a veggie mafia thing. See the Tomatoes were getting uppity and the Corn boss had them canned....
  Veggie mafia conflicts always end badly.
just to say that we do uphold them by Joe+The+Dragon · 2009-08-21 11:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

just to say that we do uphold them
This is why by Marko+DeBeeste · 2009-08-21 11:42 · Score: 1

In America, we PADLOCK our dumpsters, just to prevent such mischief

--
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Woo by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 11:48 · Score: 0

It is about time China starts to believe in intellectual propertz.
tomato garden? by SHaFT7 · 2009-08-21 11:48 · Score: 1

FCKGW?
Because they're about to start writing software by copponex · 2009-08-21 11:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Some of the big bosses in the party have a lot of industries that they run. They're probably realizing that:
1) Intellectual Property and Copyright laws are becoming acceptable in most of the world
2) Pretty soon they won't be just manufacturing things, they will be designing and selling Chinese ideas on foreign soil.
Sorry, but hardly anyone America can compel anyone in China to do anything. They are in their second millennium of being a civilization. They are stockpiling oil, uranium, and millions of tons of other raw materials with all of the American dollars they have. They will be the major economy of the 21st Century, no matter what we do. They are probably looking into the future, and realizing they will have no legal pretext to sue or invade if we start pirating their technology, unless they start obeying the "law" now.
1. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by wizardforce · 2009-08-21 11:53 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  realizing they will have no legal pretext to sue or invade if we start pirating their technology, unless they start obeying the "law" now.
  I didn't think China needed a legal reason to do whatever it wants outside of its borders... especially if it indeed does become the dominant economy on the planet... presumably that entails the strongest military and really if they wanted to invade some country at that point there probably wouldn't be much the world would do about it.
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
2. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by copponex · 2009-08-21 12:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Colonial powers have always had some sort of excuse or pretext. It's not necessary for the victims of their empires - they usually know what's going on - it's so that their internal populations are on board with the operation.
  The "because we want to" method hasn't worked well since the 60s, and it never hurts to have a more believable excuse for sending a generation of children to fight and die in a foreign land.
3. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by colinrichardday · 2009-08-21 12:08 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  They are in their second millennium of being a civilization.
  More like their third, at least. Chinese civilization certainly extends back past 1 BCE.
4. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by wizardforce · 2009-08-21 12:16 · Score: 1
  
  as I understood it, China has control over the vast majority of media- would the population even need a reason more than whatever the govt told them? eg. they are taking our resources... why bother with copyright?
  
  --
  Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
5. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 12:18 · Score: 0
  
  Several industries made the joint venture with China, and the tradeoff would be the access to a huge market. The fact is that this market is not interested in buying stuff from the company: they create a excuse where a great part of orders must be cancelled.
  They pirated processes from every kind of products around the globe, and now they want to pose as paladins of copyright. Very soon they will pirate Al Gore and will be the paladins of green and clean world after burning tons of coal and flooding several cities.
  Personally, Im not buying even nails from them.
6. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by mindbrane · 2009-08-21 12:25 · Score: 1
  
  Chinese civilization can be said to have begun about 1500+ BCE, but, as always, it depends on the criteria. Early Chinese civilizations didn't use stone to the same extent as Mediterranean area early civilizations so the artifacts aren't as easy to come by. The problem I have with trying to think in terms of China's position over the near future is that I'm unsure to what extent China is a coalesced entity or a fiction. It's history is one of amalgamation by various warring peoples and even today there are signs of unrest in Muslim areas. Written Chinese is interesting in that the characters, though far too numerous, allow for disparate spoken dialects to share the same printed material. E.O. Wilson wrote that China is the test case for the modern world surviving over population and pollution; but I can't see 'China' as it is today being the China that will come out of the wash of its current state.
  
  --
  ideopath @ play
7. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by mqduck · 2009-08-21 13:40 · Score: 1
  
  You're right except for one part:
  
  [Pretext]'s not necessary for the victims of their empires - they usually know what's going on
  On the contrary, framing the invasion as just is nowhere more important than at the target of invasion. Do you think we hold elections and set up ostensibly sovereign governments in the places we invade for our own benefit?
  If the war goes well, there's no need to give more than some small token justification (if that) to the citizens of the invading nation, whose default attitude is to "support the troops".
  Third, of course, is justifying your invasion to the rest of the world, a problem made obsolete by the brilliant strategy of fucking a people over and then declaring that you have the moral obligation to stay and make things better, changing your head of state and declaring the criminal nature of your actions to be no longer relevant.
  
  --
  Property is theft.
8. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by vintagepc · 2009-08-21 13:42 · Score: 1
  
  No... "because we want to" has turned in to "because we can" with regards to the MAFIAA and RIAA. What they're doing is basically quasi-legal extortion, IMHO.
  
  --
  Evolution - Est. 4500000000 B.C. Don't piss in the gene pool.
9. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Type44Q · 2009-08-21 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  "no legal pretext to... invade"
  That damn legal pretext thing again - constantly interfering with the plans of invading armies since... ?
10. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2009-08-21 15:25 · Score: 1
  
  if it indeed does become the dominant economy on the planet... presumably that entails the strongest military and really if they wanted to invade some country at that point there probably wouldn't be much the world would do about it.
  It is unlikely to become dominant the way the US has been for the last couple of decades. We'll see a transition from the mono-polar world of US hegemony to multi-polar with China, the US, the EU and maybe India if they get their heads out of their bureaucratic asses. In that situation China may perhaps be #1 but only in a very close race such that an alliance of any of the others would be more powerful than China.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
11. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Stormwatch · 2009-08-21 16:29 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Intellectual Property and Copyright laws are becoming acceptable in most of the world
  Weird, I thought people were finally realizing that this "intellectual property" thing is a massive scam.
  
  --
  Circumcision is child abuse.
12. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2009-08-21 16:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  They are in their second millennium of being a civilization.
  Second millennium? More like fifth or sixth.
  In lieu of a car analogy, I offer the following:
  Just imagine what things would be like in Egypt if the Egyptians still wrote with hieroglyphics and worshipped at temples dedicated to Ra and company... and that the Pharaohs had been overthrown only within the last century or so.
  Now substitute "China/Chinese" for "Egypt/Egyptian", "ideograms" for "hieroglyphics", "Shangdi" for "Ra and Co.", and "Chinese Emperors" for "Pharaohs".
  That's China.
  China is beyond "old"; it was already old when the Romans kicked out Tarquin the Proud.
  Most Westerners -- especially Americans, for whom "ancient" means "more than 250 years ago" -- simply do not get this.
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
13. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by anarche · 2009-08-21 20:08 · Score: 1
  
  They have a pretext prepared: "Taiwan was ours and we want it back"; the same excuse they used for Tibet in 1949.
  
  The US has promised to defend Taiwan if the Taiwanese want
  
  Is the world ready for a war between the US and China? And can India come to the power table? Personally I hope the British join the EU in full...
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
14. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by anarche · 2009-08-21 20:12 · Score: 1
  
  Because most people do not create, only consume.
  
  IP is not a scam, patents are; they disallow someone from independently researching, experimenting and creating something from scratch if it is close enough to an existing product that a more expensive lawyer can defend the existing product.
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
15. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by anarche · 2009-08-21 20:14 · Score: 1
  
  And in all that time they managed to invent Paper, Fireworks and a Wall?
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
16. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 21:03 · Score: 0
  
  Great post. Thanks.
17. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Zontar+The+Mindless · 2009-08-21 22:44 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  You left out:
  rice cultivation
  movable type
  chopsticks (and the fork)
  bells
  booze
  silk
  kite (and the hang glider)
  rotary fan
  porcelain
  use of natural gas
  tea
  and heaps more things
  
  --
  Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
18. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by TheRaven64 · 2009-08-22 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  It's not necessary for the victims of their empires - they usually know what's going on
  
  Germany's expansion in the '30s would disagree with you there. Watch the film of the army being welcomed on the streets of countries that they were 'unifying' (and ignore the people who were busy fleeing while their neighbours were at the street parties).
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
19. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by TheRaven64 · 2009-08-22 02:43 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  booze
  This one surprised me - I thought the earliest known alcoholic beverages were beers brewed in Egypt. Checking your Wikipedia link confirmed this; they invented a process for making stronger beer (more than 4-5%), they didn't invent booze.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
20. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 05:02 · Score: 0
  
  But chinese have a problem - they follow orders blindly and don't protest against wrongdoing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
21. Re:Because they're about to start writing software by DUdsen · 2009-08-23 00:37 · Score: 1
  
  as I understood it, China has control over the vast majority of media- would the population even need a reason more than whatever the govt told them? eg. they are taking our resources... why bother with copyright?
  
  How exactly was it the current batch of chinese plutocrats took power? did they have a full free press back then?
  
  If things gets to obvuis and the "bread and circus" bribes cant be upheld due to a cash shortages populations tend to support revolts. And history is littered with example of those revolts being more the a small anoyance even if they fail. And they dont always fail, often because the army is tied to close to the general public to be of much use in actual popular revolts.
This is why I don't subscribe... by Kawahee · 2009-08-21 12:19 · Score: 1

Off the four men
You mean "of", right? I know it's China, but do we really want to off them?

--
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
1. Re:This is why I don't subscribe... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 17:11 · Score: 0
  
  Off the four men
  You mean "of", right? I know it's China, but do we really want to off them?
  I'll see your month and lower you two weeks.
Windows XP? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 12:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Whew! Good thing they're starting to crack down on this copyright infringement. Wouldn't want it to cut into sales of this no-longer-available product.
1. Re:Windows XP? by countertrolling · 2009-08-21 12:57 · Score: 1
  
  No, but it would cut heavy into Vista/7 sales. Those "pirates" will remain untouched. For now
  
  --
  For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
There they go... by nature_geek · 2009-08-21 12:22 · Score: 0, Flamebait

... exporting poisonous toys again.
Tomato Garden? by cffrost · 2009-08-21 12:23 · Score: 2, Funny

I suspect that China came down on these four not for distributing their counterfeit "Tomato Garden" version per se, but for their failure to supply the proper MSDN VLK "Corporate" Professional edition.

--
Thank you, Edward Snowden.

"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Misleading summary! by Nicolas+MONNET · 2009-08-21 12:34 · Score: 4, Funny

I believe there is an error in the translation; the ideogram for "piracy" is very close to the one for "massive pile of stinking shit", and therefore, the headline should actually read: "China jails four for still Using IE6"
1. Re:Misleading summary! by euyis · 2009-08-23 00:32 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the word "piracy" in Chinese is a combination of two characters: One is "rob, robber", and another is "board, version". It has nothing to do with shit.
i see most of you dont understand why this is big by indents4 · 2009-08-21 12:42 · Score: 1

i see most of you dont understand why this is named the biggest case.it was not made by lots of people,but it was used by nearly all the nation.considered of its effect, it is the biggest one. --- for linux in China, thanks to the banks and the biggest IM company,on-line games and the p2p movie software, It is really hard for you to choose linux totally
Business feasibility by stimpleton · 2009-08-21 12:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

A friend of mine has been doing business as a foreign company in china for a few years.

He is very matter of fact about it. You build into your budget, the kickback amounts.

I have thought about this a bit, and the attutide is somewhat akin to the tipping/no tipping cultures. I spent time in the US and once I accepted tipping I saw it was a better system. Without kickbacks/bribes you just cannot operate as a foreign company. A kickback is almost regarded as a tip in China.

--

In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
1. Re:Business feasibility by gujo-odori · 2009-08-21 13:04 · Score: 1
  
  I used to live in Viet Nam, and things are pretty much the same way. I can't speak to the kickback issue personally, but WRT bribery, I can say that bribery fuels pretty much everything. Stopped by a traffic cop? A bribe will avoid a ticket.Not getting the service you need at a government office? A bribe will fix it.
  Sadly, getting proper care for my mother-in-law when she was in the hospital also involved bribing the nurses, so nothing is perfect, but by and large, bribery smooths over a lot of bumps there.
2. Re:Business feasibility by Merls+the+Sneaky · 2009-08-21 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  So if you're broke you're screwed?
3. Re:Business feasibility by belmolis · 2009-08-21 15:17 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. Of course, capitalist countries without a health care system manage this without bribes.
4. Re:Business feasibility by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2009-08-21 15:20 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. Of course, capitalist countries without a health care system manage this without bribes.
  
  If only we could have socialized government services so you don't need to bribe that cop or the local building inspector or the licensing clerk or the judge...
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
5. Re:Business feasibility by adolf · 2009-08-21 17:41 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, please. We deserve pay-through-the-nose private health care for everyone who manages to work hard enough -- we've earned it!
  Capitalism FTW!!!!1!!!, er sth.
  (I write this as I contemplate calling a surgeon about a half dozen or so lypomas that have grown since the last time I had some excised. They're probably nothing, but there's a significant chance that they're a horrible cancer that will kill me in a hurry. So great it is, living as a tax-paying, insurance-card-holding American, that I must contemplate having these things looked at before actually doing it. Yeah.)
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
6. Re:Business feasibility by tobiah · 2009-08-21 17:42 · Score: 1
  
  +1 insightfunny
  
  --
  "The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
7. Re:Business feasibility by anarche · 2009-08-21 20:17 · Score: 1
  
  Become a cop?
  
  --
  Wait! Whats a sig?
8. Re:Business feasibility by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2009-08-21 22:00 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  So great it is, living as a tax-paying, insurance-card-holding American, that I must contemplate having these things looked at before actually doing it. Yeah.
  You can't be serious. Of course you need to think about it. Everything in life is a trade-off. Do you really yearn so much for the nanny-state that you actually believe that weighing the consequences of your decisions is something that you should not have to do? That there could ever exist a world in which that was really the case?
  
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  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
9. Re:Business feasibility by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 03:23 · Score: 0
  
  I have thought about this a bit, and the attutide is somewhat akin to the tipping/no tipping cultures.
  Institutionalised corruption and bribery is still corruption and bribery.
10. Re:Business feasibility by adolf · 2009-08-22 06:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I think that given a choice between sickness and health, everyone should be free and able to choose health without severe personal consequence.
  Even you. Or Joe the bum. Or anyone else.
  That's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
11. Re:Business feasibility by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2009-08-23 01:31 · Score: 1
  
  I think that given a choice between sickness and health, everyone should be free and able to choose health without severe personal consequence.
  Ah, a back down from your original hyperbole. I wasn't surprised.
  Apparently the hyperbole plays well with the peanut gallery though since I got modded "off-topic" but you haven't been.
  Still, you have plenty of consequences in your fantasy-land. They just are a few degrees removed so they aren't as obvious.
  Should the person who requires 10 million dollars of treatments have the same privilege? What if the treatments only have a 30% success rate? Where are you willing to draw the line, or do you believe that resources are infinite?
  
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  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
12. Re:Business feasibility by adolf · 2009-08-23 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  It's not hyperbole; it's opinion. Don't worry - you're entitled to yours, too, no matter what the crackhead moderators think. I'm eager to hear what you have to say.
  In my fantasy land, I'm happy to see that Joe, the bum, gets treatment for his cancer. I think health care is a basic service which should be provided to everyone at minimal or zero direct cost, much like roads, traffic signals, crime prevention/justice, and fire services are. I guess I don't care if it really should cost 10 million dollars to get lousy odds at fixing up Joe's cancer...but I also think that health care in general is corrupted by greed and that most every treatment is overpriced.
  For example: A few years ago, I had mono. It was misdiagnosed at a clinic, and I was wrongly prescribed antibiotics (which don't do anything but make it worse). These things happen, of course. Eventually, a day or so later, my fever got genuinely scary, I ended up at the ER. There, the doctor promptly and correctly diagnosed my condition as mono, and I was admitted.
  It cost me $8,000 per day to stay in that hospital.
  For that price, I got a clean bed, some intravenous fluid, some ibuprofen, and a small amount of very bland food. I also got visits from their in-house doctor, about once a day, but that was billed separately.
  I was uninsured at the time, but making enough money that I didn't qualify for any sort of reduction in price.
  And since I'm by no means rich, I'm still paying that bill. And it is absurd that it was so expensive. I didn't get any advanced treatments, or use any fancy equipment -- it was basically like a 3-star hotel with room service, a glucose drip, and a motorized bed, but with no swimming pool and limited access to everything, including the lousy room service, along with upscale penthouse prices.
  So, no, I don't want anyone to have to choose to deal with either dieing or being in debt for years at a time (or the rest of their life, whichever comes first). I feel that it's inhumane for such a decision to even be in the cards to begin with.
  I think the whole system is fucked. I think that things need to change, drastically. And don't get me wrong: I'm not blind, and I'm not stupid. I, for one, am terrified of the government running health care for us, but I do not see any better way to flush the system except to abolish what we have and start over, and I don't see any productive way to do that which does not involve substantial government intervention and oversight.
  However, these days, I have a very good family doctor who has fixed me up a number of different times without fault, and I have insurance that pays for all but a very small portion of what he charges. I don't want to lose that ability to choose my provider.
  And I know that the government is generally staffed by lazy inefficient fucks who are incapable of caring about constituents. I'm not very satisfied with any current proposal or rumored utterance, and I'm not very satisfied with my own ideas, either. I just happen to think that it's the best way to proceed out of this sea of ugliness that we call health care, even though it's certain to be imperfect and/or horrific in a number of ways.
  Having an organization running things which is motivated by something other than shareholder profit is, I think, a good start. I think that it's unfortunate that the only such organization that I'm aware of that has enough weight to accomplish this is called the Federal Government of the United States of America.
  Tradeoffs, indeed. *sigh*
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
13. Re:Business feasibility by gujo-odori · 2009-08-24 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  I think so, yes. I'm not sure if you're any more screwed than you are in the US, where bribery is rare but stuff still costs a lot. To take the most obvious cases, you're a lot more likely to be convicted if you're broke and have to use a public defender than if you can spend a million dollars or more on your defense if charged with a crime. And of course, paying for medical care.
  If you don't have money, I think you're screwed more often than not, no matter where you are.
14. Re:Business feasibility by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2009-08-24 12:12 · Score: 1
  
  I think health care is a basic service which should be provided to everyone at minimal or zero direct cost, much like roads, traffic signals, crime prevention/justice, and fire services are.
  Many of those areas being loaded with corruption and inefficiencies, I'm not so sure that they are really the best examples.
  
  I guess I don't care if it really should cost 10 million dollars to get lousy odds at fixing up Joe's cancer...
  Well, I can't see how anyone reasonable could decide to ignore such costs. The fed can literally print as much money as it wants, but all they end up doing is devaluing the dollars they've already got. No such thing as a free lunch.
  
  I was uninsured at the time, but making enough money that I didn't qualify for any sort of reduction in price.
  Have you considered that the problem is "insurance" in the first place? That the last 30-40 years of massive healthcare price increases accompanied the creation of the modern healthcare "insurance" system? That the reason prices are out of control is that most everyone who has insurance doesn't have a stake in keeping costs down because they are so broadly insulated from the actual costs? That they are in effect getting rationed healthcare now where some accountant in kaiser-permanente, blue-cross/blue-shield, etc is the one making decisions about what treatment options are available instead of their doctor? That essentially we've gone from a system where each person had direct responsibility and control of their own level of healthcare to a system constantly on the edge of a tragedy of the commons that is contained only by the bean-counters who have no real stake in the final results.
  Doctors that are cash friendly routinely knock from 33% to 66% off the bill because of the cost savings of avoiding the "insurance" system. As an extreme example, there was a recent poster to a prior healthcare thread on slashdot who had experienced the cost of his MRI go down from something like $2500 if billed through insurance to around $600 if he paid in cash before the procedure.
  So on one hand you have these behemoths that dominate the industry and under the guise of keeping costs down they've actually contributed to massive price inflation, and the on the other hand you have the majority of the healthcare providers who have basically accepted the system and don't have a process for dealing with patients that don't fit into the standard system's processes, so those patients get treated like an exception and get exceptionally high pricing while on the other hand the few doctors that are prepared to work with people outside of the behemoth are able to realize an enormous cost savings.
  I think that first off we need to get employers out of the healthcare game, the current system provides too many tax breaks to certain groups of "haves" while incrementally penalizing the "have nots." Many employers love the system because it provides yet another deterrent to employee mobility. Level the healthcare market by removing the tax breaks that favor employers paying for coverage of employees (and conversely disfavor everyone else, like your former uninsured self). Let the people decide themselves what kind of healthcare they want, not some HR department tied to their job.
  In the states where "tort reform" has put limits on malpractice payouts, malpractice premiums have still continued to increase, so it seems that the popular ideas about "fixing" it aren't working - doctors still pay too much and now people can't even get decent compensation when their lives are fucked up. I think that malpractice insurance is a cost that the patient should have direct control over - we pay for it already, its just bundled up in monthly fees and such with no transparency. Let the patient choose to purchase a kind of errors and omissions insurance for each procedure they undergo. Insurance actuaries will rate each doctor based on their prior work, the
  
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  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I know what they said when they grabbed them: by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 13:26 · Score: 0

SUPPLIES!
Well?! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 13:45 · Score: 0

Where the fuck is the website where I can download this thing and take a look at it? It's not on any torret sites. Nobody has any fucking links. The articles mention a website but I can't find stink of it anywhere. What the fuck?!?!!!
Re:Panties STINK! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 14:05 · Score: 0

You're doing it wrong!
srsly by grrrl · 2009-08-21 14:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

so making MONEY from setting up a business distributing copies of XP you altered intentionally and distribute to millions gets your 3 1/2 years but downloading a few songs for personal use gets you whacked with millions in damages which will cripple your life?
1. Re:srsly by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 15:00 · Score: 0
  
  so making MONEY from setting up a business distributing copies of XP you altered intentionally and distribute to millions gets your 3 1/2 years but downloading a few songs for personal use gets you whacked with millions in damages which will cripple your life?
  In all fairness, many types of music today that people download for personal use will cause a "disappearance" in China. Which may be good or bad, depending on how you think we should treat the people who still support some of the crap that comes out today.
2. Re:srsly by cliffski · 2009-08-21 22:01 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  no it doesn't.
  downloading and sharing pirated music, then getting caught, destroying the hard drive to cover your tracks, repeatedly lying in court, changing your story several times and forgoing about a dozen offers to settle out of court when you are clearly 100% no argument totally and utterly guilty and caught red-handed gets you that.
  Most people who get caught breaching copyright law have the minimal number of brain cells needed to admit guilt and pay a relatively small fine. Lets not act as cheerleaders for dumbasses who think they can wriggle out of it.
  
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  DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
3. Re:srsly by TheRaven64 · 2009-08-22 02:47 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure if you noticed, but the PRC and the USA are different countries with different legal systems. You will not get a huge fine for non-commercial infringement in China (if they did, everyone in the cities would be bankrupt). You will get different penalties for large-scale commercial infringement in the USA.
  
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  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Pirate Microsoft Windows, go to jail by SL+Baur · 2009-08-21 15:40 · Score: 0, Troll

W00t! Throw away the key while you're at it, too.
I am willing to bet that everyone who mods me down has pirated Microsoft Windows. So many of the fan bois here claim to do it ...
Second that. by symbolset · 2009-08-21 16:21 · Score: 1

The cause.
The effect.
Is our children learning?

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Help stamp out iliturcy.
In other news... by sethstorm · 2009-08-21 18:24 · Score: 1

...someone fell out of favor with the Communist Party of China. Perhaps they forgot to bribe someone?

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Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Tomato Garden Windows XP? Never heard of it before by consumer_whore · 2009-08-21 18:28 · Score: 2, Funny

I'm going to download this to find out what all this hubub is about. Anyone have a torrent?
It's the same everywhere.... by XB-70 · 2009-08-21 18:46 · Score: 1

This just proves that criminals are dumb.

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*** Don't be dull.***
My piracy story by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-21 21:59 · Score: 1, Interesting

My son will start college in the fall, and a couple of months ago I bought him a Mac laptop for his college use. He wanted Windows on it to play games, and I strongly recommended XP over Vista since my personal experience with the latter hasn't been great.
I was fully prepared to pay retail price for XP, but none of the local stores (Best Buy, Staples, Microcenter) offered it for sale. Perhaps we could have found it on line somewhere - I didn't do an exhaustive investigation - but a cursory search didn't show anything promising from a retailer whose name I recognized. And I didn't feel comfortable shelling out money to someone I've never heard of, especially when it comes to something intangible like software of unknown origin.
I got more and more irritated and finally went to PirateBay. I found a version with the annoying activation stripped out (I think it was called "The Pirate Edition" or something), reviewed the comments to see other people's experience, and based on them took a leap of faith hoping there were no embedded trojans. We downloaded it and a couple of hours later had a perfectly working XP (with a pirate-themed background, that he thought was neat but I had him change).
I don't know what the moral is here. I felt bad about doing this, but I was just frustrated and fed up with not being able to buy a retail version from a trusted store. All I'm doing is relating what I did. Judge the ethics of it however you want.
I suppose I could have used Linux with WINE but my experience with WINE hasn't been perfect. Perhaps I would do that if it was for myself. Some programs work great with it, but others don't, and I just didn't want to deal with my son's inevitable complaints that this or that doesn't work right. I just wanted something that would work and I could forget about it.
User Base Domination by gearloos · 2009-08-21 23:10 · Score: 1

You guys do realize that if all the bootlegging stops and people have to actually pay for this M$oft garbage, besides business, absolutely no one will use it and the Linux distros and Mac actually have a chance.

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"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
1. Re:User Base Domination by Zey · 2009-08-22 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  "... and the Linux distros and Mac actually have a chance."
  Neither has any real chance as a mainstream OS. Mac's been willfully overpriced and is sold as a luxury product. GNU/Linux, on the desktop, is an also-ran — a nice try but the small demographic who cares about running commercial apps on Unix systems are migrating to Mac OS X. The lumbering bohemoth that is X11 on Linux hasn't been tamed, even after all these years, and many are essentially sick of the unfulfilled promise.
  The only real hope for the open source/free crowd taking it to the mainstream is ReactOS. The more contributors that project gains, the quicker the FOSS will bury Microsoft and the expensive proprietory vendors. The Windows platform will be with us for many years to come, if only because of the specialist app dependency — but the Windows vendor doesn't need to be Microsoft with its bloated, vastly overpriced offerings.
Gang of Four by mister_playboy · 2009-08-21 23:27 · Score: 1

Gang of Four is a term that goes back to the Maoist Cultural Revolution days. They were a political group opposing him... one of the four was his wife!
Four is also an unlucky number in several Asian cultures.

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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
Unified China by copponex · 2009-08-22 01:16 · Score: 1

I know parts of the civilization have been around for that long, but from what I remember, the first Unified China was in 200 BC or so.
Here we go by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 02:38 · Score: 0

(I was going to make a Soviet Russia/Communist China joke here but I decided not to)
In Communist China, Operating System jailbreaks YOU!!!
We need t-shirts by msimm · 2009-08-22 06:50 · Score: 1

Linux: No fines, No jail time!

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Quack, quack.
China *the land* is old by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 08:25 · Score: 0

I believe hieroglyphics are an alphabet ( you know, like why we call it an alphabet in the first place ) rather than ideograms.
China the land may be old, but it's boarders have changed and the origins of its rulers have changed over the centuries. There wasn't an emperor until 220 BCE, before that it was a big scrum of smaller states trying nab what they could. After that, it's more like a big scrum to see who got to hold the whole empire.
They managed not to screw things up so badly in all this that their various arts and sciences had to be re-discovered.
The real crime...windows version by quantic_oscillation7 · 2009-08-22 11:00 · Score: 0

the real problem is the windows version they're using.
was it ms-vista or even ms-vista7, i really don't think that would be all this fuss.
like mr bill gates himself said...
"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not,"
Just 5 Million Chinese Pirates to Go by Anonymous Coward · 2009-08-22 13:20 · Score: 0

Four Chinese software pirates down, and only 1.5 billion more to go!
It has nothing to do with shit??? by Nicolas+MONNET · 2009-08-24 06:08 · Score: 1

I'm speechless.
Microsoft vs. WinXP Piracy by hrimhari · 2009-08-24 07:12 · Score: 1

I don't think that Microsoft would be that happy with a rogue version of WinXP for the following reasons:
1. Microsoft already have the huge majority of the PC market (not to mention Windows based market : ), they don't need piracy to expand it. They're more likely eager to capitalize on the market they already have, and piracy doesn't return them any money.
2. They have sufficiently demonstrated in the past 10 years that they were looking to hurt piracy by trying successive types of anti-piracy code in their software and insisting in anti-piracy campaigns.
3. They're eager to get rid of WinXP to sell Windows 7, and a rogue version of WinXP would have a fair chance of becoming a new competitor and steal the users that should have migrated and paid for their new shiny OS version.
So they're probably actually applauding the chinese gov. initiative.

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http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Thanks for the insight by Benfea · 2009-08-25 08:21 · Score: 1

It's always good to hear this kind of analysis. Somehow, the idea of the Chinese government actually prosecuting piracy didn't make any sense. Now it does.
1. Re:Thanks for the insight by Hal_Porter · 2009-08-25 19:13 · Score: 1
  
  Actually if you want to organise a witch hunt it helps if you have a crime which is ubiquitous and easy to prove to organise your victims of. Software piracy is better in this regard than corruption.
  
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  echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yes, but how many XP developers by sonciwind · 2009-08-28 07:33 · Score: 1

were jailed for travesty?