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Microsoft Dodges Class Action In WGA Lawsuit
An anonymous reader writes "A lawsuit that accused Microsoft of misleading consumers to download and install an update for Windows Genuine Advantage under the guise that it was critical security update will go forward, but not as a class action. A federal judge has refused to certify the lawsuit as a class action, which would have meant that anyone who owned a Windows XP PC in mid-2006 could join the case without having to hire an attorney. As Windows XP was easily the most popular operating system at the time, the ruling means Redmond has managed to avoid hundreds of millions in potential damages."
What upsets me the most is that if I legally purchase windows for my computer I am limited on how much I can upgrade, but if I illegally pirate it I can actually treat it like I own a copy of the OS. The same is true with the excessive DRM on DVDs and Blu-ray. It doesn't stop people from pirating, it just punishes those of us who own legal copies.
Because a insecure, compromised OS affects more people than just the owneruser of that OS. Unpatched pirated copies of Windows can be pwned and exploited to send spam, perform DDOS attacks, do distributed cracking of encryption keys, or whatever else the operator of a botnet chooses to do with it; actions that hurt all the users of the internet, including all the legitimate ones.
Patching pirated copies of Windows is in the public interest
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I have to say that WGA was really the final straw for me with Microsoft. I, being a paying customer, felt from day 1 of WGA that it was an absolute kick in the teeth from Microsoft. It is what turned me from a Microsoft fan over to using my Mac Mini. It was a sad thing for me but I'm much happier now and will never come back. Thanks for turning me away Microsoft!
As a person who lived through dos and 3.1, it felt like microsoft cared very little about piracy back then.
However, when I did some googling, it looks like microsoft has put a lot of money and effort into stopping piracy all the way back to at least 1990. Microsoft anti-piracy articles dominate the search results and I wasn't able to easily find any good examples of them tolerating piracy (tho I remember talk of them tolerating it in china and i remember talk of them tolerating it with windows 3.1/3.11).
Perhaps we were rationalizing, or perhaps microsoft had variable enforcement depending on market penetration.
While typing this, I realized my piracy toleration attitude came from windows 3.1 so I did some searches on tolerating windows 3.1 piracy and got some hits.
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:Cs-TDEi65mkJ:blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/index.php%3Fp%3D709+microsoft+tolerated+windows+3.1+piracy&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
for example.
"than failing to put anti-copy protection on MS-DOS in 1983 or encouraging easy copying of its "enterprise" virtualization software today. Similarly making it easy for users to "illegally" copy and install Office 4.0 for Windows 3.1X while straight facedly working with both WordPerfect Corporation and Lotus Development to help these companies prevent illegal copying, was a simple tactical extension of a long term strategy based on using piracy as a way of gaining market share. "
This matches the Microsoft I grew up with and know well. Strongly saying one thing, and selectively doing other things. Saying you had to follow the legitimate API's to be Windows 95 certified, but using backdoor API's for Word95 and then still certifying it. Saying you want a partnership with a smaller company, learning their technology, dropping the patnership, and then bringing out a similar product (and being sued for it and losing a few times).
I'm sure that Microsoft is strongly against piracy wherever it has high market penetration. I'm sure it says that it is strongly against piracy everywhere but some areas are very low on the enforcement list.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.