China Jails Four For Microsoft XP Piracy

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."

Comments

Re:Big nothing.

[PsychicX]

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).

Re:Use Linux

[CharlyFoxtrot]

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.